CCCC;
Good afternoon my cyber friend, I hope that besides the generator calculations that you and yours are well and life is, as close as possible, as it should be.
You've received some very good advice so far and I'll do my best to not repeat it.
For background, when Y2K was coming up onto the scene another family member and myself went down the rabbit hole with generators in somewhat separate directions as it turned out. After that I worked for a medium sized construction company that had a few different portable generators as well, so here's what we learned.
Your plan for propane as a fuel is sound. Do the fuel consumption calculations and then double your minimum.
Diesel - in our part of BC - will still work in an 40 year old tractor after being stored in a drum for 18 years. We strained it - that's all.
Gasoline might be usable after a couple years with fuel conditioner in it and it might not.
Member Hotrod Lincoln suggested doing the calculation on your required power needs and doubling it. That seems to be sound advice on several levels in my opinion.
At work we had a Multi Quip Whisper Watt that had a 3 cylinder Isuzu diesel in it which was fantastic even though the boss picked it up at a Ritchie Bros. auction so it wasn't fresh and minty by any stretch. It would run a pretty active jobsite with crews working on a pair of duplexes with about 10 gallons of diesel a day - as close as I can recall.
Speaking broadly and I'm cognizant of how slippery a slope that can be, I've had way more success getting Isuzu and Cummins diesel engines to "come back from the dead" or at least out of a coma than all the others, by a fairly large margin. That said, I'm not a HD mechanic so the sample size is admittedly small.
The gasoline generators at work were much less efficient and at least one with Yamaha power so maybe it was a Coleman had the generator itself melt down in a magnificent fashion.
Again as mentioned the smaller ones and maybe the big ones too don't like to be run at max all the time.
That Whisper Watt seemed to take abuse that the smaller portables just couldn't.
We see a lot of Onan units out here on hospitals, care centers and for backup supply on civic water systems. I don't know if that's because they're good or cheaper however, sorry.
Personally I went with a PTO powered setup because small engines are the bane of my existence and I can usually get my tractor running most days. As well then it's not another engine that needs maintenance - BUT - as it is used for other things around the property I am decreasing it's lifespan too, so a double edges sword there.
Hopefully that made some sense and was useful to you or someone out in the ether space/inner webs this afternoon.
Good luck and all the best.
Dwayne
