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Honored Contributor
Posts: 11,855
Registered: ‎03-11-2010

We have a whole house generator. We bought it several years ago. Have never regretted

it. When the power goes out (we live in Michigan) and it does fail a lot. it comes right on.

Our house is large (4000 sq. feet) and it is so great. We can take a shower,FLUSH the toilet,etc

Has to be professionaly installed. Ours is wired into our propane. 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,901
Registered: ‎05-15-2014

ITA, we had a generator for years when we had our larger home way out in the woods.

It was connected to the well pump, the furnace and many outlets in the house which is a necessity (especially for the refrigerator, and oh yeah, the coffeepot!).   It was a Godsend more times than I can count.   

 

We now live in a townhouse which does not allow generators, totally stupid!  

Honored Contributor
Posts: 23,835
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

@Group 5 minus 1 wrote:

We have a whole house generator. We bought it several years ago. Have never regretted

it. When the power goes out (we live in Michigan) and it does fail a lot. it comes right on.

Our house is large (4000 sq. feet) and it is so great. We can take a shower,FLUSH the toilet,etc

Has to be professionaly installed. Ours is wired into our propane. 


@Group 5 minus 1    we also have a Generac whole house generator. Our house is about 2000 square feet. We are all electric, so had to go with two - 200 gallon propane tanks above ground installed.  The other option was a  500 gallon tank that would have to be underground buy law.... and that was NOT AN OPTION TO BURY.  Many of my neighbors are on a gas line, so they just hook up to that. Wish we had that option.

 

Since I am limited to the propane in the two tanks, we decided on having lights and refrigeration... but no furnace( heat) or hot water.  Also can not use my stove,  or washer and dryer but, can use  my microwave and space heaters that pull less than 1000 watts of power. It really just depends on the amps that certain things pull. 

 

With the two tanks of propane, we could go for about 8 days without power and have lights and refrigeration etc 24 hours a day.  I hope the power is never off that long... but it is peace of mind to know that we would at least have some comforts....

 

The few times our power has been off it is nice to have TV and lights!  I can deal without taking a bath for a day or two....   

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,695
Registered: ‎03-19-2016

    I'm on my second whole house generator. The first one ran so much through hurricanes, etc. and was hit by lightening it wore out!

    My area is wooded and roads are narrow if  there's snow or trees in the road I can't get out.

    Mine will run everything, including heat & air conditioning, but I'm careful to not run high wattage items like my dryer all at once. 
    It's peace of mind to have it. Sometimes I don't even know it's on!

           🏡 🔌💡🧺🛀🏾🛌❤️

    

   

Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,950
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@Group 5 minus 1  I have one too.  Worth every penny.

Super Contributor
Posts: 263
Registered: ‎05-01-2010

We have a whole house generator too. We had to have a larger gas meter installed to be able to do so which meant our yard had to be dug up to have the new gas line laid, but we would do it again in a heartbeat. It is definitely peace of mind having it when bad weather is forecasted where we live. Also if we ever sell our house, it is going to be a nice selling feature and give our house added value. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,611
Registered: ‎06-25-2012

We got a whole house generator several years ago. We live in upper rural Michigan. Great investiment.  We arent inconvenienced whatsoever whenever the power goes out. It not only powers our house, it also powers the back house in case we have guests. Heart

"Pure Michigan"
Honored Contributor
Posts: 12,964
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

We're going to have one installed next year at our summer home, which we plan to move to permanently.

 

When we were building, they were going to re-pave the street so we acted fast and got gas hooked up to the property as it only had electric.  It would've cost us about $5000 more to have the street dug up for gas service afterwards.

 

We've always had a large, but portable one and luckily never had to use it for more than a few hours.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 18,794
Registered: ‎10-25-2010

We have two portable gas powered generators.  We have used them for camping a few times and let a friend borrow them when his power went out for about a week.

 

His friend how has a whole house generator.

 

We were thinking about getting one too, but we built our home in 1988 and have never had a power outage that lasted for more than an hour or so and that was only twice.  Our power lines are underground.


They appear to be wonderful and a great investment if you live in an area with power issues.

Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,123
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

We  had a Generac whole house generator installed after Hurricane Sandy.

 

We had no electricity  for 8 days after Sandy.  

 

The generator is connected to the gas line for the house.  It turns on as soon as the electricity goes out.

 

The generator kicks in and runs for 15 minutes once a week as a check.

I also have a maintenance contract for it.  It gets serviced every 6 months to make sure everything is in working order.

~Jersey Girls don't pump gas~