best buy Generac Guardian Series 5873 17,000 Watt Air-Cooled Liquid Propane/Natural Gas Powered Standby Generator With Transfer Switch (CARB Compliant)

 

After our recent tornadoes we decided the ability to have hot showers etc warranted the purchase of a portable generator. Calculated the watts we needed and we needed the top end of the portables.

Looked at several and ordered what I thought was a GP8000 however got a GP7500. Amazon adjusted the price as they will not accept anything that may contain gasoline back even unopened. Amazon now has the right one listed.

Assembly was easy attached wheels handle etc no prpblems with assembly and it fired up and ran smoothly. There is a quirk you should be aware of. The generator does not recharge the starter battery. It takes a seperate plug in charger to keep the generator's battery charged.

Alredy had the house set up to simply flip switchs and have it on generator power but before we plugged it in the house circuit I decided to plug some 110 volt tools into it to test it. My Bosch drill ran and sparked like I had never seen before so I decided to get the volt meter out. Good thing this unit was generating 170 volts. Talking about frying electronics or just about anything else in the house! HOT HOT HOT!

Contacted Generac and was told to take it to the nearest repair station which is a 180 mile round way trip for delivery and picking back up.

Loaded the beast up in the truck with my motorcycle ramp. If you do not have a pick up truck/SUV/trailer plus at least three helpful neighbors or a ramp you may have just bought an exoensive boat anchor. Delivered it to the repair station and the three techs helped unload.

It has now been six weeks waiting for the unit to be repaired and all I am getting is we ordered the parts.

If you have a pick up, tie downs, a ramp, an accesible repair center and a couple of months to wait for warranty repairs then you might want to consider buying a Generac generator. If any of the previous does not apply to you then consider getting a brand that is sold in a brick and motar place so if you have a problem you could swap or get a refund for a defective unit.

One final bit of advice; before buying use a usage list to calculate how much watts you will need. Keep in mind that most transfer switchs only handle 7,500 watts if you need more power to run your basics.