Harbor Freight has many of their generators on sale next week. Fliers in the stores.
What brand generators are good?
- Thread starter NH73
- Start date
I worked for Generac for 10 years, so Im partial to them but honestly, if I were looking for a generator, Id take a hard look at the HF Predator. Its basically a Honda at half the price.
Back in 2021 when I decided to buy a generator I spent way too long reading through OPC and RV threads on generators. My combined internet scraping yielded - if you want the best, buy a Honda followed by Yamaha (if you can find a Yamaha in the USA). Of the Chonda / Honda knock off's the best are Champion, followed closely by WEN. In general, the Chonda generators are operationally very similar but the part and assembly quality are vastly different. However, a lot of the problems seemed to be pretty early on, so if you bought no name brand X and ran it 20 hours, you likely would find out - is my take.
I ended up buying a WEN, because they were so much cheaper than a Champion, at least at that time, and was 1/3 of a Honda. I don't know if that correlates now, or if post pandemic things are different. I have had my WEN 3 years now. I start it every now and then, and used it once when the power went off, so its hardly tested. I did buy a number of spare parts to keep on hand - the servo controlled carb, both coils, and some other things.
I ended up buying a WEN, because they were so much cheaper than a Champion, at least at that time, and was 1/3 of a Honda. I don't know if that correlates now, or if post pandemic things are different. I have had my WEN 3 years now. I start it every now and then, and used it once when the power went off, so its hardly tested. I did buy a number of spare parts to keep on hand - the servo controlled carb, both coils, and some other things.
4WD
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Hope you have it ready in case Erin turns it’s heading …
I have a HF 3500-4000 genny that I bought a year or so after Sandy hit. We were out of power for about a week. Since then, I've only used it for 4 hours for a real power outage. And that was just a few weeks ago. It ran perfect. I've used it for other things just to make sure it will work when I need it to. Recently I joined a site just for HF gennys, and it seems there are alot of people having issues with their newer models. Especially the 5k models, with carbon monoxide detectors built into them. Everything from no start, to starts but shuts off shortly after, to no power output at various times. Right now if I was in the market for another genny, I'd research other brands and not only shop price. There are alot of used ones for sale on marketplace, but most have no-start issues from being stored with old gas in them. But if you get one, and can clean out the carb yourself, you can get a deal there.,,
4WD
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My 1st mentor: rather have it and not need it - than need it and not have it!
Very common here on the coast. If you dont get a whole house unit. Electrician comes and installs a receptacle outside the house that is connected to the 200amp panel. At that time a lock out switch is also installed on the panel. This forces you to shut off the main breaker to the grid, in order to turn on the breaker for the generator.
IN the event of a power outage you plug the generator 240 (30 or 50 amp) into the supplied receptacle outside the house turn off all circuit breakers in the house and knowing how much you can draw you turn on only the ones important that won't exceed the current of the generator.
Typically Refrigerator, lighting, TV, Internet and some wall outlets for lets say a window AC unit that you can keep stored and drop in a window if needed.
THIS IS HUGE if you are running propane. I hate the idea of spending so much more for an inverter however, it is needed if I want to run propane for a decent amount of time without worrying about running out for at least 48 hours or more.
Yeah, I could always switch to gas but for a unit that MIGHT be used once every 10 years maybe twice. I would not want to bother with gas.
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Have all that on my old WH gen that doesn’t run …
My man cave has a through wall unit - and it’s a very well protected room
(No windows) - portable gen is 20’ from it - so it’s the storm shelter compete with Italian leather
Fridges right there …
Prolly 100 lbs ice …
However, HF generators only come with a 90 day warranty.
I was camping at the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen the other week and the amount of HF gen sets I saw being used was tremendous. I would say most of the bigger freestanding ones were powering campers. Mostly 5k units and food trucks using 9k units.
A lot of 2k Hondas connected in parallel also.
A lot of 2k Hondas connected in parallel also.
I was quite surprised at how little power most everything used. Even borderline worst case as the well pump wasn’t running to my knowledge (though it could have kicked on
), but deep freezer that’s from 80’s we think in the 95F garage going, inside fridge going, 2 TV’s on (defaulting to on after power failure should be a crime), networking crap that lives on top of the fridge, AC rippin’, basically if it could be on it was as it was right before school.64% load, or about 4,000 watts! Little Briggs and Stratton 6250w portable. It’s loud, but it gets the job done. Pretty fuel efficient too, got 7-8 hours not trying to conserve energy beyond what we normally do.
All Harbor Freight generators are now neutral bonded to the frame. That was not true 10 years ago.
This set up - instead of floating neutral - can cause issues by tripping the GFI outlet on the generator if it is fed into your breaker panel with an interlock feeding a breaker.
Since your home is already grounded - this hook up will make the GFI register a fault and that trips the GFI circuit.
Personally, I have a Kohler 20RESA natural gas whole house generator. Best, ( costly), investment ever made and a good + when I sell the house. Now for gasoline powered generators, I've found those Chinese 15W40 engines to be fantastic. So go to Harbor Freight and get a high output generator for 1/2 the price of a Honda. Saw a video on a Chinese engine vs a Briggs. Both ran with no oil. Both seized at the same time. Had one of those China engines on a wheel leaf blower. ONE pull and it started, EVERYTIME.
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