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Product Name: | Westinghouse 12500 Watt Home Backup Portable Generator, Remote Electric Start with Auto Choke, Transfer Switch Ready 30A & 50A Outlets, Gas Powered, CARB Compliant |
Manufacturer: | Westinghouse |
Model Number: | WGen9500 |
Product SKU: | B07HYWDS7D |
UPC: | 853544008199 |
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*Slight over simplification for explanation purposes.
There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
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Its big brother, the wgen12000df is <5% THD but I can't find any sales on it, it's more than double the price.
There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
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There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
If you plug it into your house port/transfer switch, be sure to read the instructions to move the wire so that it will be safely grounded for the appropriate use case. I forget the details, but it only took 5 minutes to switch the wire. Out of the box it is wired for just using the standard power outlet for power tools and stuff.
My post was just to have people consider what expectations a generator can fill. If someone is thinking 12-36 hours without power, this unit will do nicely. Multi-day power outages can lead to the need for a lot of gasoline and in such an event the local gas stations may be without power as well. The idea that one could go for a week running a generator like this requires more than the $700 price might suggest. I was just presenting use case scenarios for folks to consider.
*Slight over simplification for explanation purposes.
I'd like to suggest a slight modification to the verbiage. You won't power one side of your panel or the other, if you power it with only 120V single leg. You will in fact power both sides of the panel, but from top to bottom on each side, you'll power every other breaker.
You can also in fact, power your entire house using a 120V generator. it's very easy and can be accomplished by powering both lugs of the panel. To accomplish this successfully and safely, you only need to ensure the service principle (the big breaker at the top or bottom of a main panel) is OFF and any 220V breakers are OFF. I suppose you could say it's not "whole house" because you can't power any 220 circuits [such as clothes dryers, ranges, or AC compressors], but you can say "entire house" in that all 120 circuits throughout will work.
TU your comment; well done.
For the price and capability, I maybe jump on this.
OR I will wait with it in my cart for too long and the sale will be over, haha.
I always see a comment like this, but no one ever chimes in with any examples of having electronics fried by a generator
For the price and capability, I maybe jump on this.
OR I will wait with it in my cart for too long and the sale will be over, haha.
This one should be able to do both a well pump and a water heater, and possibly a window a/c window unit.
There are whole house stand-by generators designed to handle longer duration outages that usually run on LP or natural gas. Storage and delivery is less of a problem (usually). And, yes these are $$thousands installed. I am not comparing the posted deal to these for the sake of price, only to stimulate consideration of what the actual function will be.
A large and inefficient gasoline generator is a pretty minimalist approach and would likely only serve for 24-48 hours due to its thirst for fuel. A much smaller and much more efficient inverter generator might be a a good companion to such a behemoth. Something like recent 4kw offerings will run your refrigerator/freezer and a whole bunch of other convenience items in your home and only use about 4 gallons of gasoline per day.
No knock on the OP deal. I am just suggesting there would best be some consideration regarding how a generator such as this fits into one's emergency power plan.
This generator surely has the capability to keep essentials running during even somewhat-extended outages though. As long as you're willing to start and stop it 2-4 times a day to charge up, use water, cool down/heat up the house, and have it off during the day or night (depending on season/location). The main downside for this unit is really that it's not designed to be outside during inclement weather. During some outages not a big deal, however during winter outages you'll want to be setting up a folding table over the top of the generator, with a tarp or something laid on top of the table to assist with easy removal of snow accumulation; once again, not by design and potentially a hazard for people not keeping an eye on it/watching the outdoor temperatures/weather.
What you save though is a tradeoff. This generator is pretty low upfront cost for someone starting with 0. This: $800, a 5-quart of 5w-30 (this generator service manual says oil changes every 50 running hours, but realistically could be stretched to double that if service has been maintained up to that point) for $30, an interlock + 50A receptacle installed by a local electrician for $2k (or if you want to squeak by with a 30A receptacle for just a well pump + other smaller loads then $1.5k), a UL listed 30-40 gallon fuel caddy for $750, 35 gallons of non-ethanol gas + stabilizer for $175 and you're all set to go. A rather conservative estimate of <$4k for a[n ideally rarely used] backup source of power that you can wheel into a shed/garage when not in use. This also requires some minimum amount of knowledge of self-load managing your main panel in your house and turning on/off circuits not in use while also not overloading your generator. Also with its rated TDP, if you have fancy TV's and/or computers with low quality power supplies, it likely won't damage them, however they may just not turn on. I've had a LG c1 refuse to turn on on generator power, however worked perfectly fine later when back on grid power.
An at home-standby generator will be permanently outside in the elements and ready to go in the middle of a storm without wheeling it to the receptacle location. There won't be a need to throw a folding table over top of the at-home standby generator or do anything else that's not by design. You can still self manage loads to make your fuel last longer. Maintenance on a home standby generator, while not too difficult, is a permanent burden that doesn't disappear until either removed or you stop wanting emergency power and let it lapse/go into disrepair.
A home standby generator will be significantly more expensive starting from 0 though. Generator will run $4-6k depending on size (installers will only generally sell you what will power your whole house, so this means you're going to be buying an 18kw at the least, and likely 22-26kw since they need to take into account the lowest common denominator as far as people's knowledge and their ability to self-manage loading), install being another $4-6k with an automatic transfer switch. Generally we suggest a minimum of 200 gallons of propane (2 x 120 gallon tanks) which with install/hookup/fill-up generally runs another $3-5k, plus if this is your only use of propane then you're going to probably be paying a rental fee on those tanks ($100-200/year). If you choose to buy your tanks then add another $2-4k, and you're taking on the liability of doing the testing required by your state. So you're looking at generally around $15k to have an at-home standby generator installed, and it's going to be permanently outside for everyone to see. That being said, I've been seeing quotes for home installations of 24kw standby generators recently, and the prices have realistically been more in the $18k-24k range when fully installed (in my area, central east coast) along with a 1-4 month lead time following initial deposit. There's also service plans you can purchase where someone else comes out to do all your maintenance for $300-500/year.
Both of these will last 10+ days with proper self managing loads, keeping an eye on oil/servicing, and turning them off when not in use. The at-home standby could be expanded with more propane tanks or with a 500 gallon tank (~400 gallons of propane) with it's own requirements per your state as far as where they can be put. This would be an easily solution for if you get a standby generator, you can easily extend it's outage run time without much more modification. Self managing that setup could string it out to easily 20+ days.
But at the end of the day, one of your main points is really key here. What is the use case? Do you want 1-2 days, 5-7 days, 10+ days, 20+ days? If you've never had an outage for 7 days before, there's no point in preparing for a 20+ day outage, but maybe set yourself up to be good for 3 days, and if it's really bad just use your generator every second day.
Some terrible storms came through here early this year. Plows couldn't even get down my [very much-so major] road for 4 days. To give you an idea of that severity: On the 3rd day of that, nothing was plowed and it was basically like driving through a forest that had toppled over, there was 11 straight miles of trees laying on distribution lines; there are still trees laying by the road from that storm. I had to drive over 3 sets of downed powerlines to get into town that day, normally a 13 minute drive away. Had power back 3.5 days later (6.5 days without power).
Really the main things for a generator is what do you value and/or what's your knowledge base:
What's your budget?
What do you need powered in foul weather?
How long do you want it powered/expected outage durations?
Do you want the ability to power some nice-to-haves?
How long/often do you want to run those nice-to-haves?
Do you have a spot that you can put 2x120 gallon propane tanks/larger?
Do you have a spot to store gas/generator at, preferably indoors?
Do you know about how much each circuit on your house demands as afar as loading?
Are you comfortable with self-managing those loads?
Can you do your own maintenance/okay with an annual service fee?
Is there someone else in your household you need to worry about not having that knowledge incase you're not home to manage/start a generator?
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This one should be able to do both a well pump and a water heater, and possibly a window a/c window unit.
Good thoughts all around, I'll continue this conversation.
This generator surely has the capability to keep essentials running during even somewhat-extended outages though. As long as you're willing to start and stop it 2-4 times a day to charge up, use water, cool down/heat up the house, and have it off during the day or night (depending on season/location). The main downside for this unit is really that it's not designed to be outside during inclement weather. During some outages not a big deal, however during winter outages you'll want to be setting up a folding table over the top of the generator, with a tarp or something laid on top of the table to assist with easy removal of snow accumulation; once again, not by design and potentially a hazard for people not keeping an eye on it/watching the outdoor temperatures/weather.
What you save though is a tradeoff. This generator is pretty low upfront cost for someone starting with 0. This: $800, a 5-quart of 5w-30 (this generator service manual says oil changes every 50 running hours, but realistically could be stretched to double that if service has been maintained up to that point) for $30, an interlock + 50A receptacle installed by a local electrician for $2k (or if you want to squeak by with a 30A receptacle for just a well pump + other smaller loads then $1.5k), a UL listed 30-40 gallon fuel caddy for $750, 35 gallons of non-ethanol gas + stabilizer for $175 and you're all set to go. A rather conservative estimate of <$4k for a[n ideally rarely used] backup source of power that you can wheel into a shed/garage when not in use. This also requires some minimum amount of knowledge of self-load managing your main panel in your house and turning on/off circuits not in use while also not overloading your generator. Also with its rated TDP, if you have fancy TV's and/or computers with low quality power supplies, it likely won't damage them, however they may just not turn on. I've had a LG c1 refuse to turn on on generator power, however worked perfectly fine later when back on grid power.
An at home-standby generator will be permanently outside in the elements and ready to go in the middle of a storm without wheeling it to the receptacle location. There won't be a need to throw a folding table over top of the at-home standby generator or do anything else that's not by design. You can still self manage loads to make your fuel last longer. Maintenance on a home standby generator, while not too difficult, is a permanent burden that doesn't disappear until either removed or you stop wanting emergency power and let it lapse/go into disrepair.
A home standby generator will be significantly more expensive starting from 0 though. Generator will run $4-6k depending on size (installers will only generally sell you what will power your whole house, so this means you're going to be buying an 18kw at the least, and likely 22-26kw since they need to take into account the lowest common denominator as far as people's knowledge and their ability to self-manage loading), install being another $4-6k with an automatic transfer switch. Generally we suggest a minimum of 200 gallons of propane (2 x 120 gallon tanks) which with install/hookup/fill-up generally runs another $3-5k, plus if this is your only use of propane then you're going to probably be paying a rental fee on those tanks ($100-200/year). If you choose to buy your tanks then add another $2-4k, and you're taking on the liability of doing the testing required by your state. So you're looking at generally around $15k to have an at-home standby generator installed, and it's going to be permanently outside for everyone to see. That being said, I've been seeing quotes for home installations of 24kw standby generators recently, and the prices have realistically been more in the $18k-24k range when fully installed (in my area, central east coast) along with a 1-4 month lead time following initial deposit. There's also service plans you can purchase where someone else comes out to do all your maintenance for $300-500/year.
Both of these will last 10+ days with proper self managing loads, keeping an eye on oil/servicing, and turning them off when not in use. The at-home standby could be expanded with more propane tanks or with a 500 gallon tank (~400 gallons of propane) with it's own requirements per your state as far as where they can be put. This would be an easily solution for if you get a standby generator, you can easily extend it's outage run time without much more modification. Self managing that setup could string it out to easily 20+ days.
But at the end of the day, one of your main points is really key here. What is the use case? Do you want 1-2 days, 5-7 days, 10+ days, 20+ days? If you've never had an outage for 7 days before, there's no point in preparing for a 20+ day outage, but maybe set yourself up to be good for 3 days, and if it's really bad just use your generator every second day.
Some terrible storms came through here early this year. Plows couldn't even get down my [very much-so major] road for 4 days. To give you an idea of that severity: On the 3rd day of that, nothing was plowed and it was basically like driving through a forest that had toppled over, there was 11 straight miles of trees laying on distribution lines; there are still trees laying by the road from that storm. I had to drive over 3 sets of downed powerlines to get into town that day, normally a 13 minute drive away. Had power back 3.5 days later (6.5 days without power).
Really the main things for a generator is what do you value and/or what's your knowledge base:
What's your budget?
What do you need powered in foul weather?
How long do you want it powered/expected outage durations?
Do you want the ability to power some nice-to-haves?
How long/often do you want to run those nice-to-haves?
Do you have a spot that you can put 2x120 gallon propane tanks/larger?
Do you have a spot to store gas/generator at, preferably indoors?
Do you know about how much each circuit on your house demands as afar as loading?
Are you comfortable with self-managing those loads?
Can you do your own maintenance/okay with an annual service fee?
Is there someone else in your household you need to worry about not having that knowledge incase you're not home to manage/start a generator?
Thanks for the input, I have been rethinking this and may watch for a smaller gen or inverter gen for the few times I need it. Knock on wood, we lose power very seldom.