As the hurricane season approaches here in Central Florida I'm considering a
~5KW generator.

Does anyone have experience with Briggs and Stratton OHV, 10 HP, engines in
this application?

Thanks.....

Bishoop wrote:

As the hurricane season approaches here in Central Florida I'm considering a
~5KW generator.

Does anyone have experience with Briggs and Stratton OHV, 10 HP, engines in
this application?

Thanks.....

Two years ago after a severe thunderstorm left 100,000+ homes
in my county (Montgomery County, Md) without power, I went
out and bought a Coleman (Briggs & Stratton engine) generator.
It has a peak load of 6250 and constant 5500 watts. I have
used it one time since my purchase, but you must be reminded
you get what you pay for. ($498) I can run my TV, refrigerator,
and a few lights with no problems. At the time I didn't need
heat. Also some fans can be run. You have to figure up the
watts/amps of each item and decide what you want to keep on.

One neighbor told me "What good is it if you run out of gasoline?"
I replied, "Well, I would syphon some gas from my car!" and he shut
up.

I do feel better owning one.

(ken)

I live in an urbanizing area of Missouri. For the first 30 or so years
of my life, I grew up and lived around New York City, so I'm
comfortable with a certain standard of service. I can remember only
two significant losses of power in the old neighborhood.

Things are not as good out here. We have a power failure at least once
a week long enough for the UPSs to drain out on the computers. I hate
running around the house resetting clocks and went to mostly battery
operated ones except for the appliances that have internal clocks and
timers. We also have several per year that happen during storms that
last for several hours and one averaging out to about once in two
years or so where power is out for at least a day. During this time,
aside from electricity, there is no heat (furnace is propane, but the
blowers are electric) and there is no water (water is from a pumped
well, not from a public utility). During those times, it's like we're
Y2K survivors.

There was a time when I was considering investing in a propane fired
Onan or Baldor slab-mounted generator with an automatic transfer
switch to run the house. I presently have the same type of setup as
Ken, a small gas powered Onan in the garage. I've used it to run the
refrigerator and TV as well.

If I were to buy a new home (or maybe I should say, If I could afford
to buy a new home), I would probably add $10,000 and outfit the
electrical system with an automatic transfer switch and generator.

It would be nice having electricity when everywhere else is dark.

Steve

On Sat, 21 May 2005 11:48:49 -0400, wrote:

Bishoop wrote:

As the hurricane season approaches here in Central Florida I'm considering a
~5KW generator.

Does anyone have experience with Briggs and Stratton OHV, 10 HP, engines in
this application?

Thanks.....

Two years ago after a severe thunderstorm left 100,000+ homes
in my county (Montgomery County, Md) without power, I went
out and bought a Coleman (Briggs & Stratton engine) generator.
It has a peak load of 6250 and constant 5500 watts. I have
used it one time since my purchase, but you must be reminded
you get what you pay for. ($498) I can run my TV, refrigerator,
and a few lights with no problems. At the time I didn't need
heat. Also some fans can be run. You have to figure up the
watts/amps of each item and decide what you want to keep on.

One neighbor told me "What good is it if you run out of gasoline?"
I replied, "Well, I would syphon some gas from my car!" and he shut
up.

I do feel better owning one.

(ken)

In Steve & Susan writes:

Things are not as good out here. We have a power failure at least once
a week long enough for the UPSs to drain out on the computers.

Still running those experiments from Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks, eh?
There was a reason he used lightning rather than tapped into the
neighborhood AC network.
--
__________________________________________________ ___
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key

[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.

Get a manual transfer switch for $100 + install.

If you have small critical electrical loads (clocks,
computers, ect) build a heavy duty UPS from Marine battery
charger, bank of industrial wet cells, and inverter. For
less than $500 (with a little scrounging)
you can build a UPS that will hold Kilowatt
loads for 24+ hours. With 1 truck size battery, I have
a UPS that supplies 1 Kw for 3 hours.

Steve & Susan wrote:
I live in an urbanizing area of Missouri. For the first 30 or so years
of my life, I grew up and lived around New York City, so I'm
comfortable with a certain standard of service. I can remember only
two significant losses of power in the old neighborhood.

Things are not as good out here. We have a power failure at least once
a week long enough for the UPSs to drain out on the computers. I hate
running around the house resetting clocks and went to mostly battery
operated ones except for the appliances that have internal clocks and
timers. We also have several per year that happen during storms that
last for several hours and one averaging out to about once in two
years or so where power is out for at least a day. During this time,
aside from electricity, there is no heat (furnace is propane, but the
blowers are electric) and there is no water (water is from a pumped
well, not from a public utility). During those times, it's like we're
Y2K survivors.

There was a time when I was considering investing in a propane fired
Onan or Baldor slab-mounted generator with an automatic transfer
switch to run the house. I presently have the same type of setup as
Ken, a small gas powered Onan in the garage. I've used it to run the
refrigerator and TV as well.

If I were to buy a new home (or maybe I should say, If I could afford
to buy a new home), I would probably add $10,000 and outfit the
electrical system with an automatic transfer switch and generator.

It would be nice having electricity when everywhere else is dark.

Steve

On Sat, 21 May 2005 11:48:49 -0400, wrote:


Bishoop wrote:

As the hurricane season approaches here in Central Florida I'm considering a
~5KW generator.

Does anyone have experience with Briggs and Stratton OHV, 10 HP, engines in
this application?

Thanks.....

Two years ago after a severe thunderstorm left 100,000+ homes
in my county (Montgomery County, Md) without power, I went
out and bought a Coleman (Briggs & Stratton engine) generator.
It has a peak load of 6250 and constant 5500 watts. I have
used it one time since my purchase, but you must be reminded
you get what you pay for. ($498) I can run my TV, refrigerator,
and a few lights with no problems. At the time I didn't need
heat. Also some fans can be run. You have to figure up the
watts/amps of each item and decide what you want to keep on.

One neighbor told me "What good is it if you run out of gasoline?"
I replied, "Well, I would syphon some gas from my car!" and he shut
up.

I do feel better owning one.

(ken)

On Sun, 29 May 2005 01:26:13 -0400, BUFF5200 wrote:

With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.
snip

You have a lot of valid points that there are may economical things a
homeowner can do to guarantee their own preparedness in the event the
power goes out. I do have some Delco S-2000 batteries on some things I
absolutely need, along with that portable generator.

I was thinking more for resale value of the house, having something
that will crank up and run. It might be the only advantage I would
have selling this place.

Steve

Steve & Susan wrote:

On Sun, 29 May 2005 01:26:13 -0400, BUFF5200 wrote:

With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.
snip

You have a lot of valid points that there are may economical things a
homeowner can do to guarantee their own preparedness in the event the
power goes out. I do have some Delco S-2000 batteries on some things I
absolutely need, along with that portable generator.

I was thinking more for resale value of the house, having something
that will crank up and run. It might be the only advantage I would
have selling this place.

In an area with a high potential for blackouts, I would think that
a manual system would be a good selling point.

Sure an automatic transfer is nicer, but they're also *a lot* more
expensive to install.

We've got a manual transfer system... The lights go out, we plug
the generator into the transfer box, fire up the generator, flip
a few switches, and the important parts of the house have power.

Notan

Steve & Susan wrote in
:

On Sun, 29 May 2005 01:26:13 -0400, BUFF5200 wrote:

With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.
snip

You have a lot of valid points that there are may economical things a
homeowner can do to guarantee their own preparedness in the event the
power goes out. I do have some Delco S-2000 batteries on some things I
absolutely need, along with that portable generator.

I was thinking more for resale value of the house, having something
that will crank up and run. It might be the only advantage I would
have selling this place.

You also have to factor in the cost of maintaining the generator and
transfer switch. If you have a couple short outages in a typical year, the
cost will probably outweigh the usefulness. Maintenance could cost hundreds
per year.

"BUFF5200" wrote in message
...
With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.


Until it is the coldest week of the year and you happen to be away for a few
days on a trip or family emergency..

George wrote:

"BUFF5200" wrote in message
...
With respect, unless you have critical medical or electrical
needs, an automatic transfer switch is a waste of money for
a home backup electrical system.


Until it is the coldest week of the year and you happen to be away for a few
days on a trip or family emergency..

On the other hand, I'd hate for the system to automatically empty
the gas tank, heating an unoccupied house, leaving nothing for me
when I got home.

Notan

On Mon, 30 May 2005 11:01:59 -0400, "George"
wrote:

Until it is the coldest week of the year and you happen to be away for a few
days on a trip or family emergency..

I had exactly that happen.

We go away for vacations and all of our family is "back east." Two
years ago, we came home to a prolonged power failure which caused
everything in the basement to freeze.

When everything finally thawed out, there was water shooting out all
over the place. Can you say, "Plumbing: the crash course?"

An automatic transfer switch and generator would have averted that.
All I would have needed to do is have the propane tank topped off
before we left.

Steve

"Bishoop" wrote in message
...
As the hurricane season approaches here in Central Florida I'm considering a
~5KW generator.

Does anyone have experience with Briggs and Stratton OHV, 10 HP, engines in
this application?

Thanks.....

This is Turtle.

I have one and it is 10 Horse but a 5.5 KW and it is a Generac brand & 5500 Watt
PowerBoss Storm-Plus (#1642) . Google [ Generac 5500 PowerBoss ] and it will
take you to it.

The one I have is about 3 years old and have about 60 hours of run time on it
and still works and cranks easily. You really need to talk to some that have run
times in the thousands of hours to see about the generators. So for 60 hour of
operator time and 3 years it seem to be OK.

Now I could be off here if your speaking of the Briggs & Stratton Generator and
the Briggs & Stratton Engine. Around here we have only Generac Generators with
Briggs & Stratton Engines.

TURTLE