So here is the full generator story. When I was looking for a generator and made the other thread, I decided I wanted a liquid cooled unit. At the time, the smallest liquid cooled that Generac made was 22kw, the RG022-QS. But, to jump up to the RG027-QS was just $500, and on a $20,000 install, it seemed dumb not to pay an extra $500 for that capacity. I said 27kw, but its actually 27kw on Propane and only 25kw on Natural Gas, which is what I'm running. Both those generators have the same 2.4L Mitsubishi Inline 4 engine, and just recently they stopped supplying Generac, Cummins and some other brand with them, so now you can only get warranty replacements for them, but no net new units. The smallest liquid cooled unit that is 1800RPM from Generac is now the new XG32, and a 32kw unit is way, way, WAY overkill and uses a lot more natural gas at idle. The other liquid cooled models they have are turbocharged units running at 3600RPM, boo!
I could have gone with Cummins or Kohler at the time, but the Cummins installer was a no-show for the quote, and the best Kohler dealer in the area was trying to tell me I had to change a bunch of electrical stuff as well, bumping up the cost (I did NOT have to change anything, they were just being scummy)
It ended up working out really really well. At that time, I didn't have any power monitoring in place, so I really didn't know how much power I needed, and the City has this antiquated load calculation sheet, and if they determine you are above the kw rated of the genset, you are required by code to install the really annoying load shed modules that fail all the time. The city calculation came out a hair under 25kw, so no load shed modules required!
Much after I did get power monitoring, and with the AC's running, electric oven on, etc I see around 14kw, so I have 11kw to spare. But as
@TonyR mentioned, my wife got a Mach-E last year, and we put in a 12kw EV charger in the garage. I'm thrilled I didn't get a smaller genset, as I have enough headroom to pretty much do what I want
The larger genset also means starting larger motor loads is no problem, and the thing runs super cool all the time.
As for natural gas cost
@MTL4 , I got my gas bill and punched the numbers into excel and I have an estimated cost. This assumes a constant 6.25kw load, which is way, way way high. In reality I'm using more like 3kw most of the time. So this is almost a worst case, and it comes out to just $20 currently. I've seen it as low as $10, and as high as $32. Either way, I would happily pay that cost to have power for an entire day!
We recently had an outage for almost exactly 24 hours during some bad storms here in Houston, and my gas bill was I think $12 above normal, pretty cool!
Here is a pic
