"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
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"Kenneth" wrote in message
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Hi Mike,

I appreciate your comments about the Guardian stuff, and
would welcome any further information you could offer based
upon your experience with the units.

For example, what might you know about ease of installation,
trustworthiness of the unattended starting, durability, etc.


The Guardian generators are probably the best buy for the money in the
price bracket. You can buy them direct or you can find them at any Home
Depot as well as a lot of independent stores. Very reliable. Fully self
contained, and housed in a good cabinet that will withstand years (and
years, and years...) of weather. I'm not sure if they have fully switched
over by now, but many of the units (last year it was based on size - over
10K) used Honda motors, and you just can't beat a Honda motor for that
application. They start reliably and that's what you want.

The generator hooks to propane or natural gas - depending on what you have
at the house. If you're on natural gas, you quite likely could require
the gas company to put in a larger meter since many older ones don't feed
enough for a generator. This is not a big issue though. It hooks up with
a transfer switch (provided in the price), that will either be a sub-set
of your existing breakers, or with a whole house disconnect (optional).
The transfer switch/disconnect panel ties into your main panel and becomes
the breakers for the circuits you select to keep energized during a power
failure. As such - it mounts near (typically within 2 feet) of your main
panel.

The generator will self test itself weekly, based on a date/time you
program into it. It will fire up, run for 15-20 minutes, and then shut
down. When a power failure occurs, it will sense the absence of outside
power, then it will wait for about 30-45 seconds to see whether power is
really gone away, or if this is just a joke played by the power company.
Finally, it will shrug its shoulders and fire itself up, switching off the
grid, and providing power directly to those circuits you've put on the
disconnect. It will run merrily until power comes back on - which is it
always watching for. Once it sees power back on the grid, it keeps an eye
on it for another 30-45 seconds, to make sure that power is stable. Once
it decides that the power is for real, it shuts itself off and switches
back over to the grid. Then, it simply sits and waits for the next power
failure.

For long term expected failures, you would probably want a 100 gallon
propane tank (assuming you're not hook to natural gas) for the generator.
I just can't recall the exact consumption rate right now, but if you look
on the web for Guardian, you could easily find it. The thing is you want
a nice big tank that will take you through the self tests all year, and
still be able to run the generator for some time, before requiring refill.

We use them a lot in the northeast owing to winter power outages up here.
They are as reliable and as trustworthy as it gets. No - I don't sell
them, I just have some experience installing them. I've probably
installed 10 since last winter, and I've had the great (dis)pleasure of
installing them in just about every environment you can imagine. For the
amount of effort you will go through to cob up some alternate design and
hope to gain a predictable result, you'll probably spend at least as much
money, and certainly way more time, than if you just bought one of these.

As for installation - they are not difficult to install. There is no need
to pay the install prices that places like Home Depot charge if you are in
any way capable with electrical work, or know someone who is. The hardest
part of doing it yourself is getting the generator off of your truck or
trailer and leveled on the ground. The simplest install method for this
is to throw a half dozen bags of stone down, rake it level, grunt the
generator in place on it, and smile. The included documentation from
Guardian is plenty sufficient for any competent DIY electrical skills.
Typical install time for one (after you've done one...) is about 3 hours.
Double that for your first install. If you can do it yourself, you'll
save approximately $1000 if you buy one from Home Depot, by not buying
their install package.

That should answer some of your questions - but may generate more. As
away if you have others.

--

-Mike-



You better recheck your information, As far AS I know Generac has never used
Honda engines, as lest I have never seen one with a Honda. I work for the
only full service Generac dealer in the state of North Dakota. You need
warranty service an a Generac in North Dakota, you call us!

Generac has been building their own engines for years At one time they were
in bed with Briggs & Stratton and many of there air cooled unit were B&S
powered.

The rest of your info is spot on. Generac builds a very dependable unit,
much better than units they built ~5 years ago. I can't even count how many
I have personally installed over the years, everything from 10KW to 85KW.
The instructions that come with the Generac pre-packaged units is very clear
and easy to understand. Anyone with some mechanical ability should be able
to do the install themselves. We get an occasional problem, but nothing
consistent. On the self installs I get called out sometimes, and it is
usually a installation problem by someone that has no business doing it
themselves!
Greg