Most have a low oil shut off theses days.

Anyone have a ballpark figure how much an electrician would charge to wire up your panel for plugging in a big “portable” generator for whole house use?

Yep, now i see that oil alert light on the generator control panel.
almost makes me question the design of the generator, no support for that corner engine block.

This will give you an idea of what a panel cost.
https://www.norwall.com/categories/Transfer-Switches/

This is why I rent my tanks. Already called the propane company to get quote on a 500 gallon tank. It’s going to go from $80 a year to $105 a year. Plus they will recover the fuel in my current tank and put it in the new tank and fill the remaining at half price.

The other great thing about renting and being under a service contract is that during times like this, they service us before people that own their tank and don’t have a service plan.

You can find them much cheaper. Electrician will cost you ~ $600-$700. Some municipalities may require a permit to be filed.

Manual Transfer Switch

Had a buddy put one of these in

http://www.generlink.com/generlink.html

What i used for over 3 days here. Off and on with rolling black outs. 12,000kw peak 10,000kw constant. Miller Bobcat 250 EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) Bought it 3 or 4 years ago. Had 3 hours on clock when started. Yesterday morning had 32 hours on meter.

According to a discussion I had earlier today with an electrician, a transfer switch is not require to meet code. You can wire a power inlet box directly to the panel with a breaker that can only be switched on once the main breaker is off so that you can't energize the line from the street. The setup does require manual operation and doesn't offer the luxury of being able to select which circuits are on backup power. However, the simple workaround to this is to turn off the breakers in the panel that you don't want energized.

Speaking of whole house generators, the next door neighbor of my daughter and SIL had their unit fail after it kept responding to repeated off and on conditions with the local power line circuit. It apparently fried the control board that controls the switching mechanism. Needless to say I would be pissed as hell if my $20,000 whole house generator failed due to poor design.

Great alternative and I can easily justify the expense

Did the transfer switch or the generator fail?

The neighbor didn't get that specific with our daughter and SIL but only told them it had failed after the power kept going off and on several times. It could have been the control electronics in either one I assume. Either way, a failure in either one renders both units useless to the owner. I bet the combined unit can he set so that the generator remains on until manually switched off once the power becomes stable. Or maybe the run time once power is restored can be set to a longer delay before it switches back.

Oh hell that’s the one I bought this past august and took it out of the box this week. it’s been solid so far. Hope it’s a one off and not norm.

That is a newish looking generator, my guess is that it just had a major assembly issue or was run without oil etc.

If yours has been running for a bit with no issues then make sure to service it and run it, sitting probably kills many more generators than running them does. Ive got an el cheapo champion 3500 watt i bought when i was in college. We used it 2-3 nights a week running a max load of bow fishing lights, used it to power our TT on for years and now i used it to power a water transfer pump at the ranch. Its close to 20 years old or so and all ive done is replace a starter rope rebuild the carb, and put a new kill switch on it.

I wouldn’t buy a gas welder if you aren’t using it every month or week.

Helped friend replace 2 carbs in his bobcat last year for ethanol reasons. Another friend is having same issue, and he treated

Right. If it’s the automatic transfer switch fails it can be done manually. Not ideal especially given the money spent but they could still have power.

I have always wanted one for convenience. My brother and myself just bought properties and are building homes we each wanted pipe fences and entrances. My brother got a quote for a front gate etc installed and it easily made sense to me. Im pretty good about taking care of small engines, and if it needs a carb in a few years amazon and $10-$20 will fix it up. Sea foam and run it out of fuel is all i have done so far. It started on the second crank with temps in the teens, im happy.

I have the Bobcat 250 as well, has good power, but I think your kw is a tad high, I have the Subaru engine in mine though 11,000w, cont 9500. The difference though is about a coffee pot.

Ditto on the seafoam and I also use the marine grade stabilz, sat for 2 years when my back 1st went out with about 3 gallons of gas, new battery and she started right up, I was shocked.

You guys know me lol I went cheap and bought a Hobart 145, its only 4500 watts, but powered what i needed with ease. I bought it on a good christmas sale for 1400 or so, will weld whatever i need.

Read the part above,,, EFI. Electronic Fuel Injected. Just like your car. Carbs are a biotch. Miller started build ing these EFI models years ago. Still make the carb model. Reason most buy the carb in the same 250 is cost.$1000 to $1500 more for the EFI.

Ethanol can affect EFI also. Had it happen to an EFI Yamaha outboard that had a full tank, treated with Stabil and Ring Free. Sat up a year without starting. Tried to start before leaving for fishing trip, no go. Took to shop, fuel pump bad from old gas.

Yeah the 250's before they quit making them and going to the 260 version , EFI models are a little higher in the KW's. The suburu ain't offered with the EFI. just carb.

Here's my engine and EFI info,,

Kohler ECH730
Air-Cooled, Two-Cylinder,
Four-Cycle,
25 HP Electronic Fuel
Injected Gasoline Engine
Peak: 12.0 kVA/kW
Continuous: 10.5 kVA/kW,
Single-Phase
88/44 A, 120/240 VAC,
60 Hz
(while not welding)

The key is don't let the Ethanol crap sit in um.

I cant say it wasnt the ethanol, but i can say i have let fuel sit in a suzuki injected outboard similar time treated with seafoam or stabill and it will fire on the first crank and idle smooth as glass every time. I bought a fuel injected car that had been sitting for 2 years with ethanol fuel in it, untreated, it was hard to start but started and i drove it home before adding fresh gas to the tank.

I very much believe that ethanol gets blamed for a lot of things that are not entirely its fault.

i can't tell you how many carburetors i've cleaned where the owner said, " i had sta bil in it"
so far, i've had good luck on our lawnmowers with Star Tron.