I am building a home metal fabrication workshop. Have been doing this
for a few years and intend to go full time in a year or two. The new
workshop is a good distance for any 3 phase lines and I'm thinking of
installing a large generator to run the workshop. I was looking a
similar setup over the weekend and apart from the noise it seems to
work quite well, couple of litres of diesel an hour, keep it well
serviced.....some rough calculations would point towards a genie rated
between 20 to 40 KVA to run a welder, couple of 1 - 3 Hp machines
(drills, milling machine and lathes) bearing in mind that they won;t
all in use at the same time.

Anyway my main question is that is a fair few ex standby generators for
sale, i.e. they are quite old (circa 1980's) but the hours run are low,
something like 100 - 200 hrs. Is there anything to beware with these
machines?

Paul