Cummins Onan Home Backup Generators? Vs...

[Tuesdak]

I would like some opinions about a home standby, backup, generator for my home.

I need to overcome the Vietnam era Onan genset bad reputation of not being reliable. (Not that it matters today, but, what was reliable in the late 1960's exactly? ) Further I can't loose sight of the thing making power during an outage in regards to excessive window dressing like connects to your cell phone. Can I bypass the fried board that connects to the cellphone to get the thing to generate power during an outage?

Three players that I know of Generac, Kohler, and Cummins Onan.

Looking in the 13KW range to power a 3 Ton AC unit, fridge, freezer, microwave, tv, and some lights. Would be propane powered. So far outages have been short 3.5 hours, but, adding up. Tired of dragging cords around and pulling a genset starter rope in the rain at O Dark Thirty. Tough it out isn't an option and no guarantees outages will stay short. May look at a 20KW unit if I decide to power both 3 Ton AC units or load share between em. Derate for 115+ degrees is a published concern along with higher (max rating) AC current draw in the high heat.

Generac appears to have a higher market share, but, a poor reputation. So any insight into the modern Cummins Onan automatic home backup gensets?

 

[CBari]

Here is what I can tell you. I have a generac 22.5 natural gas unit that is the home unit air cooled on my business. It runs the whole business and 2 5 ton units that are tied together and one 3 ton unit. The 3 ton we put on controlled start circuit and that seemed to take care of all the trouble. The electrician told me if it didn't that we could put easy start capacitors on the units and it would take care of the issues. The electrician came on a hundred degree day to measure how much we were using during a peak load.

Now as to what you were really asking we have had this unit for 5 years and other than change the oil and filter I have done nothing to it. It has come on twice during business hours when we have had outages. Worked perfect no problems. It starts on its own weakly and runs about 10 mins. I had the option of doing the cell phone thing with it but didn't, reason being I will get numerous alerts when we have outages from other things in the business and also all clears from them once they reset, so I really didn't see need for cellphone add on to the generator.

The electrician was a friend who has done several hundred of these and all in all they have had very little issues.

I have a onan/cummins on my horse trailer that is an diesel invertor and I love it too. It isn't big enough for a house but it works well and most others that I know with it also say it works well. I know two other businesses with Kohler 50kw units they like those as well. I have watched some auction sites for some of the larger diesel units for my house and farm, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

If I was doing one I would do whole house just to simplify life. Cost on a 15kw unit vs 25kw air cooled isn't much different.

 

[jhenderson]

I’ve got a 12.500 watt (15,000 surge)40 amp Generac. It’s done it’s job so far. 10 hrs or so on a 7 gal tank of fuel. My two complaints are it’s a little loud, and it’s jetted so lean that below 25F or so I need to run it with the choke pulled out about 10% or it surges on the governor. I suppose that’s how you get under a gallon per hr. Thanks to the EPA, neither the idle or main circuits are adjustable as far as I can tell. There are some welsh plugs where the needles should be. Sometime soon I’ll talk to a local dealer about it.

 

[TFucili]

My Generac experience with portables is too outdated to be useful, but they appear to have improved a ton since then.

 

[Tuesdak]

I asked all three to do a bid and so far Cummins has been the first to contact me. Generac via Home Depot and the other two by local dealer numbers listed on OEM's website. I will be asking for a warranty to cover the thing as they play the "parts only" short labor warranty game. Service calls look to be expensive after the labor warranty ends.

Fuel use as a long term cost and allowing a longer runtime for long outages, propane, is a concern and it may be a minor concern in the overall picture. This is why I am looking at a smaller unit. Maybe I need to talk myself into it more and just power everything.

I am going from a 3800W portable I have used over the past 25+ years. Recently got a Onan that is electric start and quiet vs. the portable. It's a 1800RPM 6500W commercial unit that I am giving serious consideration to use as a 'portable' with transfer switch for home backup. It's within reach to start and run the whole house AC as it has 14KVA motor start rating. Portable as long as you have an engine lift that is and why the motor start rating is so high. The Onan started as something for the RV and the RV I got wound up having a genset... Fighting short storage life of gasoline and small amount on hand is a disadvantage.

The PG&E bankruptcy next door (CA) is not my concern, but, the judge saying turn the power off during high winds can reach far and wide. I stand and look at a close by power line road and it's overgrowth: The CA Judge has a point. I lived in CA when they had rolling blackouts and the portable Homelite has some serious hard use. It wore out the carburetor throttle shaft a decade ago. (Been fixed many times and carb finally replaced couple years ago.)

High monsoon winds did this last year as well as a lot of other damage. Of course that's the new pole next to it.

 

[jhenderson]

Since we didn’t have a local stocking dealer I went with Generatorsdirect.com. Just another option.

 

[DavidC]

These are great people to work with also
https://www.coloradostandby.com/