Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Generac generator question

I am having a survey done in about 3 weeks for a whole house backup generator. The initial estimate was that I would need a 27 kw natural gas generator, but I suspect it might be a little on the small side. The 32 kw generator wasn't materially more expensive and I may go that route. One of the significant differences is that the 27 kw natural gas generator is naturally aspirated where the 32 kw natural gas generator is the same engine, but turbocharged.

I have no idea the reliability for these types of engines in a emergency generator, but was hoping someone here had some experience. Go normally aspirated if it is just enough or up for the extra with the turbo charged unit?

I have a 24 Kw natural gas Generac whole house backup. I don't think you need to power every single circuit in your home but if you want to, I suspect the 32 Kw will do the job. You may want to see what the wiring price difference between the 2 sizes is.

This was a flyer that I picked up from our local Costco and called them. The 27 kw was quoted at $21,000 installed and the 32 kw was $23,000 installed, but this is before the survey. It was an estimate, but wasn't materially different for me if it was slightly higher or lower once they look at it.

I think you can go to the generac website and fill out a form that will assist in telling you how much Kw you need, based on your house.

I did that to get an idea before they called me and it came in at something around 49 kw which is why I was surprised by the 27 kw they estimated on the phone. Something is off somewhere and it will be more clear once they do the onsite survey.

I just purchased a 22kw generator, will run 30x30 barn with 10 cows and my whole house. It is propane, the installer is my do it all maintenance man at my company, 10,750, before tank and gas, should be under 14,000 total with a full tank. Tank is supposed to run for 3 days, wife milks a couple cows, and has 15 total, all show/ ffa animals that my daughter's show. Home is 2000 square feet with a finished basement(2700) total. Hope this helps. My owner had one size smaller installed 4 years ago and has never had issue.

is the 1/4 mile time substantially faster w/ the turbo-charged unit? if not, I'd go with the naturally aspirated unit to save $ on potential maintenance costs.

Dont know much about em, but dad just bought one and had the guy from a neighboring camp install the electrical. I know its propane and will run everything in the double wide. Said he put out $7k for everything. We already had propane there.

That does help and makes me question their estimate. I see you are in PA which wouldn't be as much need for air conditioning as I have most likely. I am 5,400 sq ft under air with two 5 ton units and a 3 ton for the house. I have a 30 x 40 shop/RV building with a 4 ton mini split (works amazing in our heat), swimming pool, 3 full size refrigerators, gas heat, electric stove/ovens, and various other electrical appliances like wifi, whole house security, etc...

Don't know about that, but the Generac site has the split between normally aspirated to turbocharged at the 27/32 break. All of them from 32 up were turbocharged that I saw.

All the A/C units are what's driving the high power requirements. Most whole house backup gens are in the 22-24K range. For that difference in price I'd go for the 32K unit, it's always better to have more than too little. For some reason people start quivering when you mention turbochargers, there seems to be an impression that they're fragile. They're not, I've had multiple turbocharged vehicles with many hundreds of thousands of miles between them and have NEVER had a problem out of a turbocharger. The turbocharger wouldn't concern me one bit.

I had a 36 Kw Quiet Source single phase installed at our house in Colorado. In 13 years it has run less than 60 hours, most of it during the monthly test. One of my frieinds in VT has Generac, not sure which model or size, that ran 24/7 for nearly a month when their power was out after Hurricane Irene back in 2011. Natural gas is a lot less expensive than propane. Make sure that you have a good dealer to do the installation and maintenance. The dealer who we have in Colorado did a good job with the installation, but the annual maintenance has been irregular and if there was another dealer in the area I'd give them a try.

All, but one of my vehicles have turbos. The RV, two Rams, and my wife's X5 are diesels without any issues. My Genesis has twin turbos and no issues. Ironically, my two drag race cars are normally aspirated. I agree with you and have experience with turbos in these applications, but not for something that runs on natural gas and rarely (hopefully). I would suspect you are correct that it isn't an issue, but I wanted to ask others experiences.

The location for it is ideal because my natural gas line is in on that side of my shop was as does the main electrical power.

I think that most folks think they need something big enough to light up everything that runs on electricity at the same time.

If one uses their head both will work.

Go on the Generac website and search for their certified installers. You end up buying the generator from Generac itself and get a 7 year warranty not the normal 5, and only are paying for certified install. Plus , for me, it saved $7000-$10,000 less than the cost of the other estimates we got.

What plainsman456 said - no need to overbuy

27 KW is plenty big for most homes. Had one installed on a 10,000 sf house last year and it powers the bulk of what’s important. But I did have a client request a 32 KW for a 5,000 sf house I built for him… it powers nearly everything. For $2,000 I’d say go bigger! And for anyone outside of the lowlands reading this, a generator loses 3% output for every 600’ of elevation gain so there is that to consider… almost everything I build is above 4,800’.

While I surely agree that more is better than less, i highly doubt that a 32K or even a 24K is need in most houses. Unless the house is more than 5000 sq ft with very high demand AC or other specific high demand item.

I'd have 2 different Generac contractors survey mine & quote.

I have a 2400 sq ft house, AC, 2-electric ovens w/gas burners, a well pump & a sump pump, 2 fridges & a freezer & an electric dryer & both sized it at 16KW.

I run a 10K portable now, wired in via a transfer switch & it will run the entire house just fine under normal conditions.................probably won't with the ovens, the AC & the well pump all running at the same time but the 16KW surely will.

MM

Brad - is the 3% output loss also true with a turbo charged engine (i.e. ours is a 24 kW turbo diesel) or just a normally aspirated engine?

All that KW ...u guys are out of control....You don't need all that power what are u doing ..powering the neighborhood.....come on .?..