Thread: Standbye Generators

Genrac's are good units. We bought one for the parents house last year. (IMO) Northern Lights are top of the line. We have them on both the house and the boat. There are others worth looking at as well. John Deere and Kohler are others I'd consider.

Size is going to be entirely dependent on your needs, requirements, and specifications. Nobody in the forum is going or be able to answer the question as it will very from house to house to house. New construction, refit, existing house, critical power, whole house, etc. etc.. There are several factors that will influence the size unit you end up with.

But yes, Generac's are nice units. Length of use will depend on natural gas, diesel, propane, etc. and of course burn rate of the engine itself. Our NL has an aux. tank that will keep it running for 45 days. The parents unit we bought them will run for a week. So it all depends on your requirements.

If I recall, we bought the parents a 17KW unit, which worked well for their place. +/-5500sf and it burns roughly 2 gallons per hour at @ 75% load factor.

A key thing that most people forget to do. Is get them serviced at least once a year. For the most part this is an easy thing to do and will give you years of trouble free service. I'm currently running a 48kw.