I was lucky, my lights were off half a day and no damage beyond small things.

Im also in the market for this, but i have an all electric house so id be forced to put a tank if i went with a stand alone.

As far as i can gather, the LP and N.gas needs more watts to power what a gas generator would run. So if you think a 15kw will work then why not just go 17kw and be over perpared?

Im looking into 2 8000watt generators (one for my normal stuff and the other for the whole a/c system)

 

I heard average home ac's start up (or surge) watts can be up to 7000 watts but running watts be somewhere from 4000 to 5000.

 

My dad has a 17Kw natural gas generator on his office in town after an ice storm left him without power for 4 days. Now that he's closed up shop he's looking into moving it to the house.

 

If I do decide to get one it will be the 20kw. My only concern is the operating cost. I've heard from $40 per day to $120 per day. I need to do more research on this.

 

Well first thing to do is go thru the house and make a list of what you want to run and list the watts.
And you turn on one application at a time and wait a couple min. We run our fridge, deep freezers, all the lights and fans in the house, hot water heater and a lot of small things on a ill cheap Husky 2550.

During Katrina we ran the whole house on my brothers Lincoln ranger 8000. Even the central AC. But the key is to turn on a little at a time so the surge won't trip a breaker or load the generator.
But that dude will suck down a tank of 12 gallons so quick it's not funny.

 

Yeah....standby generators are not going to be cheap to operate...

 

the way i look at it....if you can afford to throw a stand alone then you wont hurt to run it

i want a honda generator (self contained) but those bad boys are COSTLY, yet they are very quiet and dont use a ton of fuel.

ill have 75 gallons of gas next year if i need it, i will not be running around looking for fuel like everyone else lol. i just want to be over powered vs on the very edge of the generator output. i do everything over kill, im putting rebar in the concrete of my fence...kinda over kill

 

Riddle me on how you have it hooked to the house.You do know the generator WILL BACKFEED THE MAINLINE unless your meter is pulled or you have a main dissconnect. This is one of leading causes of LINEMAN getting KILLED on storms. Yeah it sucks your out of power but I can assure you that they will get to you in an order of importance... Keep calling the office every 4 hours to remind them.

 

It wont back feed if you turn your main breaker off and then have the breakers you want wired into the line going to the generator. You can also go the extra mile of having a master connect by your generator that is a 3 position style. Top position is your energy provider, middle is everything is dead, bottom position is fed off of your generator.

Im going to go that route that allows me to shut off the main feed and run my box off of my generator(s)

 

I wouldnt trust an OPEN Breaker to safegaurd the lives of the men working to restore your power. Like you said 3 position switch is the only SAFE method of wiring a generator to the house.Sorry to rant but if this teaches one person that didnt know it could save lives. I've been a lineman for 15 years and went on many storms(just back from Isaac) and this the #1 killer for us.