Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Thinking about buying a generator. What are your views, ideas, what’s needed, how do you sorta figure out what is needed and do you buy a gasoline powered one. Or a gasoline and propane fuel one.

What do you fellas have ?

Noel

I personly have a 5900 (max) 5500 continual use . in our garage with the exhaust piped outside . I set it up with 12v electric start so anyone can start it . It is plugged into a pony panel in the garage that is wired into the basement where I can plug in the essentials . It is gas only and will go through about 30 litres in 12hrs. so can get expensive to run.
Essentials = 2 fridges , 2 freezers , well pump , Natural gas furnace , and the hall lights,receptacle,and smoke/CO detectors for the whole house line .

At some point I want to change to a Natuaral gas generator as we are on a main so supply is NOT an issue . I did a little write up before about the exhaust .

I was given a Coleman 5000 watt generator with a 10 hp briggs and a thrown rod. On the plus side it has 2 120 volt 15 amp outlets and 1 220 volt 20 amp outlet. In the last month the same model has been listed on Kijiji for a low $50.00 to as high as asking $275 and average is $150. I am tempted to jb weld the block and throw a new rod into it just because I hate to throw it away. But that is another project.

In the meantime I am thinking a 3 phase unit that will do a minim of 30 or 50 amps is what would suite our needs best. 3 phase equipment is cheap, welders, laths and mills. With a large enough generator, heat recover for the winter shop would be an added bonus. With a larger unit and proper switch gear we could feed the complete house when power is off. My guess is fuel consumption for a larger unit would not be much more than that of a briggs. Even a Welder/Genset on a trailer may be the best option.

I have a cheap 3800 continuous gasoline model that I can run a few lights and the fridge and the furnace. (Not cooling, just natural gas heater.)

I have a dual fuel(propane) carb I could put on it, but with propane the rating drops by around I think 15%. So it gives me an option if fuel is scarce, but slightly less useful output.

Around here cooling is as important as heat. So I've tried to figure out what I would need to support that. 14000 watts of 240V would do it for sure. 12000 maybe.

There's a 12000 on sale at Amazon right now for $627.

Tempting.

Bob

I have a Westinghouse igen4500 inverter generator. Very quiet and fuel efficient. An inverter generator is basically an alternator that feeds into an inverter. The engine speed is varied depending on the load. My generator is 120V only but larger inverter generators on the market can now do 120V and 240V. Run time on my generator is around 18 hours at 1/4 load on about 3 gallons of gas. Check the specs on the website and in the manual. Also youtube has a lot of great reviews. Throttling the engine back at low loads can be turned off if you need to start a high in rush load. You can also parallel the generator with another compatible inverter generator. Also has remote start. Ask whatever questions you want about it.

I have a generac 4000xl. It's rated 22 amps at 240v. It is currently on as I type this. Power went out at 3:30. I run 2 fridges, chest freezer, well pump, lights, TV etc... I replaced the carb this spring and it's been running much better. We seem to lose power more often at this place than any other house I've had. Been here 3 years and it's been out several times every year. I bought this generator 18 years? ago. As for new ones today it seems most are now built as an inverter generator. Most inverter generators have a little bit smaller engine and they also have more efficient cleaner power. Better on fuel. We sell portable gensets. Champions are cheap and if taken care of you get your money's worth. Honda's are great but expensive. Westinghouse are good too. Like any generator the more you use it, the more likely it will last. Gensets that sit are always problematic. One more thing total harmonic distortion, or THD on a generator determines the potential for problems with high-end electronics or sensitive items. The higher the THD, the higher the potential for damage. Keep it under 5%. This would be a way to rate the genset power quality between them all. Utility power and generator power are not the same.

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DavidBarkey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 5:48 pm I personly have a 5900 (max) 5500 continual use . in our garage with the exhaust piped outside . I set it up with 12v electric start so anyone can start it . It is plugged into a pony panel in the garage that is wired into the basement where I can plug in the essentials . It is gas only and will go through about 30 litres in 12hrs. so can get expensive to run.
Essentials = 2 fridges , 2 freezers , well pump , Natural gas furnace , and the hall lights,receptacle,and smoke/CO detectors for the whole house line .

At some point I want to change to a Natuaral gas generator as we are on a main so supply is NOT an issue . I did a little write up before about the exhaust .

Where would I find your exhaust write up Dave.


Noel

thebuildist wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 6:38 pm I have a cheap 3800 continuous gasoline model that I can run a few lights and the fridge and the furnace. (Not cooling, just natural gas heater.)

I have a dual fuel(propane) carb I could put on it, but with propane the rating drops by around I think 15%. So it gives me an option if fuel is scarce, but slightly less useful output.

Around here cooling is as important as heat. So I've tried to figure out what I would need to support that. 14000 watts of 240V would do it for sure. 12000 maybe.

There's a 12000 on sale at Amazon right now for $627.

Tempting.

Bob

Here in my area, price of gasoline is quite a bit higher than propane, at the moment.


Noel

My take on the subject is to figure out what you need and want to run. How many amps do you need to meet this demand. The more amps you want to run the bigger the generator you need. The bigger the generator the more fuel used.

I have three generators for my business, one is a 11,000w 18 HP Briggs, a Miller Bobcat with a 16hp Onan 8000w, and a Bobcat with 23hp Koehler 10,000w. They are all very thirsty, but I have run our central air with the 11000w. 6 gallons in 4 hours.

A few years ago we picked up a new in the box Predator 6700w with a 13hp at an estate sale. Used it the first time this June. Ran 20hrs on 7.5 gallons.

I personally like keeping fuel consumption low, versus powering everything. When you are in for a long outage you can burn a lot of gas. If we had outages more often I would be looking at a stand by hooked to the natural gas. I also like the inverter generators that only run enough rpms to meet demand. There is a lot of time you are not using many amps but you generator still has to run full speed.

This is the one I’ve been sorta looking at.

Noel

Propane57 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 8:21 pm

DavidBarkey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 5:48 pm I personly have a 5900 (max) 5500 continual use . in our garage with the exhaust piped outside . I set it up with 12v electric start so anyone can start it . It is plugged into a pony panel in the garage that is wired into the basement where I can plug in the essentials . It is gas only and will go through about 30 litres in 12hrs. so can get expensive to run.
Essentials = 2 fridges , 2 freezers , well pump , Natural gas furnace , and the hall lights,receptacle,and smoke/CO detectors for the whole house line .

At some point I want to change to a Natuaral gas generator as we are on a main so supply is NOT an issue . I did a little write up before about the exhaust .

Where would I find your exhaust write up Dave.


Noel

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=342&hilit=generator+exhaust

It really comes down to what your Needs are and then some Wants thrown in...

I have a very small house in NJ. When Sandy knocked us out for a few days, I was able to run my natural gas boiler, fridge, and a couple lights from an old 2400 watt generator. Had heat, food, and some light along with device charging. Sump didn't kick on, so that might have been an issue, but not sure.

The house I'm moving to now has a lot bigger oil fired boiler system with 6 circulators, bigger fridge, electric water heater and cistern pump for water. I haven't figured out the boiler draw yet, or the cistern pump. Obviously it's more than the little gennie could handle. That said, I have gravity feed water as well, and wood burning stove that can heat the place, plus a tankless coil for hot water off the boiler. So if I can power the pump, and fridge, I'd be ok probably. I'd like to get a mil surplus diesel fired generator as I've got 1000 gal fuel oil tank I can draw from, thinking a 10k would work nicely. I'm not that far from civilization that I would expect to be out of power for more than a week ( usually it's a couple hours, and I don't bother with backup other than the UPS's on the electronics). If it was bad enough to go longer, there's a whole lot more gone wrong than I'm going to be able to prep for...

Propane57 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 5:44 am This is the one I’ve been sorta looking at.

Noel

Have you taken an inventory of what you need to run? You should have a pretty good idea of what you need after your recent experience. Large amp draw items are what you need to look at.
This generator may be larger than you actually need. Output is usually less on propane than gasoline so that should be factored.

Some of my reasoning for this propane generator is I have a 80 gallon propane tank at the garage I could hook to. And a 300 gallon propane tank at the house if needed.

Noel

Propane57 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 8:42 am Some of my reasoning for this propane generator is I have a 80 gallon propane tank at the garage I could hook to. And a 300 gallon propane tank at the house if needed.

Noel

Propane is the way to go for me. My electric Coop is very good about line maintenance /tree clearing, and we don't have many BIG storm events here. Since 1988 we had 2 power outages of 2-3 hours each. To me propane has advantages of very long term storage (as long as the tank does not rust out ;-)
, and not fouling carburetors.

I do have an old Onan generator from a motorhome. I added a $300 propane kit and the original flat free tires (steel wheels) for portability. It gets exercised by pulling it around the yard with a GT and powering the pole saw and electric chain saw.

Watching local online auction sales I was able to pick up 100 pound propane tanks for $25 each, a couple were actually full or close to it ;-) And a collection of 20 pounders for small jobs.


Gordy

I had a HF 3000-watt generator that worked just fine for small power outages that would normally occur in my area. Then one October we had a bad ice storm and it knocked power out all around my area. We lost power for nine days. Unfortunately, this all happened the weekend my oldest daughter got married. They took off on their honeymoon and I had my generator in the back of my pickup. i would run my place for a few hours then drive to theirs and pump the sump pump down and power essentials. Then repeat the process. After two days of that the HF quick putting out power. I ran to a CT store, and they told me a shipment was coming in Monday morning and it was Sunday. I ordered two 5000-watt generator and picked them up on Monday. I kept my sump pump going with a battery backup system, but their basement had a couples of inches of water in it. Those two generators kept us going for various power outages, which were usually short in duration.
Later down the road I started traveling doing welding inspection's and I know the wife could not pull out the generation get it started and run all the
extension cords to where they needed to go. So, I had a company come in and install a Generac 24K propane powered system. Weve had a few outages since then but no longer than a day. Were out and come home, hit the garage door opener and it goes up. Come into a warm house and don't realize the power is out until you see the clocks flashing. Also, no TV or internet because no power at the pole.

Keep the
Harry

Just wondering Harry, do you know how may hp the Generac is. ?

That would be the system to have for sure.

Noel.

Noel - From what I've seen small engine gasoline generators are typically about 2HP per continuous KW output.

This is the inverter generator I have:
https://westinghouseoutdoorpower.com/pr ... -generator

Probably could have gotten by with this smaller one:
https://westinghouseoutdoorpower.com/co ... -generator

Lots of good reviews on youtube. Very quiet and fuel efficient. The igen4500 comes in dual fuel (gas + propane). Also has remote start/shutdown.

Propane57 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 8:42 am Some of my reasoning for this propane generator is I have a 80 gallon propane tank at the garage I could hook to. And a 300 gallon propane tank at the house if needed.

Noel

I like the propane idea too. The biggest problem with generators is having them run when you need them to. Gasoline going bad and carb issues are probably the most common. You have to stay on top of it or you may be wrench',n in the dark or worse yet the cold and dark. Propane would eliminate that.
I don't have outages very often and longer than a day is rare. Been twenty years since we were out for a week. As nice as they are I can't really justify a standby one for how little it would be used and having other options available.

On the subject of generators, I have read a few threads where guys have set them up to be ran off their Case tractor. I've rolled the idea of doing it around a little bit, but I don't really need another generator.
For the person that doesn't need one real often it could be a good fit. We always have a good running tractor around. So no extra engine to maintain. If you bought a new generator head there's not much savings vs a low cost unit, but if you found a generator with a bad engine cheap.

Timj wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:45 pm On the subject of generators, I have read a few threads where guys have set them up to be ran off their Case tractor. I've rolled the idea of doing it around a little bit, but I don't really need another generator.
For the person that doesn't need one real often it could be a good fit. We always have a good running tractor around. So no extra engine to maintain. If you bought a new generator head there's not much savings vs a low cost unit, but if you found a generator with a bad engine cheap.101012 generator bracket painted (1).jpg

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CASE GENERATOR BACK.jpg

Yes Tim. I have thought about using a tractor. I missed out on a ford mounted generator. I was a option for a LGT ford garden tractor. But like you say. Find a generator with a bad engine. That would be a start.

Noel

MattA wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 9:31 pm Noel - From what I've seen small engine gasoline generators are typically about 2HP per continuous KW output.

This is the inverter generator I have:
https://westinghouseoutdoorpower.com/pr ... -generator

Probably could have gotten by with this smaller one:
https://westinghouseoutdoorpower.com/co ... -generator

Lots of good reviews on youtube. Very quiet and fuel efficient. The igen4500 comes in dual fuel (gas + propane). Also has remote start/shutdown.

Those look to be very nice generators Matt.

Noel