I live in Olympia (yuck) so in an urban/suburban environment. Was looking at getting a home generator or at least a portable for when TSHTF. Anyone have info/experience/recommendations? What about decent installers? Any and all info is greatly appreciated.

What’s your fuel source? What do you want to power and for how long?

I have an 11kw gas with a manual transfer switch. Powers most of my house except the dryer/oven/hot tub and AC. Still enough juice to power the well, hot water heater and all other appliances.

Been using it a lot this fall so far. Also in Oly area (Cooper Point), and had some freak outages recently.

Should always start with this, is your stove/heater electric or do you just light

I've gone through a few.
Bought a $500 Costco Generac 6,500 watt special.
Had a 10 HP side valve Tecumseh engine.
Man, that thing was so loud it could wake the dead!
I could hear it from 4 blocks away! Neighbors called the cops every time I ran it when the power went out.
Looked into quieting it down, but you really can't.
Half the noise is from the banging valves.
Ended up buying a 4,500 Robin by Subaru.

The 6,500 was big enough to power everything in my 2,400 sq ft house except for the dryer, range, and electric furnace.
I built a transfer switch where the generator fed into the panel via a pair of breakers.
Just had to disconnect the main feed, and the above mentioned circuits and fired it up.
Bubba setup for sure but it worked. *

While the neighbors were eating by candlelight we had all the lights in the house on, cooking popcorn, and watching PPV movies on the big screen.
I threw a neighbor an extension cord so he could get in on the fun.
Under full load it sucked up about a gallon per hour.
*(No, you can''t electrocute a lineman by backfeeding to the line. Old wives tail. Small generator would pop it's breaker instantly, would see the transformers as a direct short. You would have to have at least a 250 KW trailer mounted generator to backfeed, probably more.)

Could just wheel the BBQ grill indoors for both heat and cooking.
(Just kidding. Every year you hear about a few idiots doing that and killing the family).
DONT DO IT!

As with everything else in life. It’s a balance of what you want and what you can afford and are willing to do.

If your intent is to basically power your whole house (except washer/dryer) and your budget is between $12-$25,000. Then get a built in Generac or equivalent.

If you want a gas powered 5,500-11,000 watt generator. That you want most of the power to light up your house and appliances. Be prepared to pay $1,000-$3500 and then the monthly upkeep of time and energy to do the checks to make sure it’s good and ready.

Solar generator or battery is a good mix of price and versatility. Cost is about $850-$1500 but it’s quite. Virtually no maintenance except to charge it every few months. Can be portable and silent for use at home, camping and tailgating.

While it won’t power your whole house it can keep your refrigerator good to go for the hours to few days your power would be out. And it’s useful for other than emergencies.

So it goes back to what you want and how much your budget goes.

I have a 5,500watt generator (long term use) with a solar battery/generator as my first line.

I have a gas stove and hot water heater, as well as a gas boiler. I would want to provide the small amount of electricity needed to run those as well as a few lights, 2 chest freezers from costco and a kitchenaid upright fridge/freezer. house is about 2500 sq ft but hardly ever upstairs anyways.
I would choose propane as the main source of fuel. Stores longer, stable, more difficult to steal.

I appreciate the info, especially the real world experiences.

This is very close to our setup. I have a Kipor 3000KW gasoline genset that I use to keep my two freezers and two fridges running with a few lights. We heat with our woodstove if the power's out, and we have gas for everything else, so we can take hot showers in the dark. I also have a bunch of Coleman lanterns as well as a couple hurricane lanterns if we think we need more light.

I like that the Kipor is quiet, it's almost as quiet as a Honda, but not quite (but also half the price). It's really only been used a couple of times during power outages, and has probably gotten more use at the New Year's Shoots than it has at home. As quiet as it is (you can't hear it 20-25 feet away), I can hide it behind some bushes in my front yard so it's not a conspicuous theft target, and I still chain it in place. It'll run for about 8-9 hours on a single tank of gas, about 1-1/4 gallons. I only use alcohol-free gasoline in it and rarely have problems starting it. A quick cleaning of the spark plug always solves any starting problems I've experienced.

Good info fellas. So then, how tough is it to connect this to the house? I assume some sort of outdoor plug thats spliced into a circuit board?

Steamboat area here....lose power all the time. Key things having had a generator for a long time. 2 quick things

1. Propane is nice to use....yes its less power but storage of both the fuel and the generator is maintenance free. No carb clogging, gas going off etc.
2. Electric start is nice.

are you running a portable generator or one attached to the house? Who did you have install it out there on Steamboat?

Ive got some hella bright LED lights on the excavators, so I just pull one up on each side of the house and they pretty much light up the whole place.

If you just eat the bad stuff outta the warm fridge, you end up saving some loot on pro-biotics.

I hate sports and have a very good library/book collection so we wont die without the TV for a day or two.

I have a small genny for the pump house if we run out of water jugs.

You can back feed 220 Into a dryer plug, but that’s frowned upon. I’d suggest a manual transfer switch. Installed depends on how many circuits, but I’d budget about $1,500 to be safe.

south sound contractors in Oly has an electrician named Jameson. Cool guy. 2A friendly. He’s done lots of work for me. But that’s also because I work for his parent company.

Thanks for the name! Finding and supporting good 2A folks can be tough in Olympia!

We used a Tesla pug in the garage to back feed the panel. We had an electrician install a generator pug in the Tesla box and a sliding plate over the main breaker and run a Westinghouse dual fuel 11,500 watt generator to power our 3,800 square foot house including the dryer or oven. Works great. Runs on gas and propane. And it has a remote start using a key fab. All in it cost less than $2,000.