Living off grid now for 10 years, I have work my way through many different backup generators to keep the home running through the dark cold winters in north central Washington state. In this series I’ll will go through the experience we’ve had with multiple low cost units (3500W – 8000W) and many long hours of use.
Generac 5KW with B& S engine: This was our inexpensive first generator that actually lasted three years with some help and not too much maintenance. The saving grace to this unit was its auto-shutoff feature when the oil was low. More than once it shutoff and we had to add oil, not gas. The first key to engine life, is to never run low or out of motor oil. Because of that oil shutoff, we never did that. I changed the oil once or twice, but not frequent enough for the manual.
The pain with this unit, which is common to all similar priced generators, was the pull starter. Trust me, you never want to take that long recoil spring apart!!! After replacing the rope and spring a couple times, it seemed ashamed to get rid of a good generator, just because of the pull starter. I found that you can special order a starter cone cap just like they had in the old days. You put a knot in a rope with a handle, wrap it around the cone and pull! This one part was worth its weight in gold! We continued to use that old generator another year and a half with the improved pull start!
3600RPM Diesel generator from China: The next unit was going to be our big move into a diesel generator, that would last, right? Everyone says the diesel is better for continuous use. After driving 400miles to pick up my inexpensive import, I put it into service. I am not a mechanic, and the owner’s manual was quite a surprise. There was a list of mantainence tasks that had to be performed frequentley. The nice metal cabinent around the unit had to be removed and valve clearances had to be re-adjusted after a hundred hours of use.
This was waay too much of a project! I had a couple other minor problems in that first hundred hours that I worked around. When given the opportunity to trade this $1100 generator for a used 16′ camper trailer, I did! I did learn something very important about generator reliability:
Diesel generators are reliable when they run at 1800 rpm taking advantage of their high torque.
Traditional Diesel units run half the speed of their gasoline brothers, so they don’t rattle apart nearly as fast. In the next article, we’ll review the Onan gas generator, the newer Generac electric start, and finally our current unit (which makes me happy).
[Note: See part 2 of this series, Small Generator Review and Experience – part 2 ]
Have you had experience with a Generac or high rpm diesel generator? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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