Order your backup generator now (36-week waiting list for the part and one year for the install)

by philg

An aviation friend runs a sizable business installing backup generators here in the Northeast. Media coverage of the outage that afflicted Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, has driven demand to an all-time high. That high demand combined with coronapanic-related restrictions at the Generac factory have resulted in a 36-week lead time when he places an order for a whole-house standby generator. “We also have to get permits and install and, like every other business,” he said, “we can’t compete with $600 per week from the government so we can’t hire anybody. I tell people that if they order now we’ll install their generator in a year.”

24 thoughts on “Order your backup generator now (36-week waiting list for the part and one year for the install)”

  1. Since I only care about emergencies, this generator (which I bought back in Nov 2020) is less than 1/10th the cost of a whole house unit (I was quoted $12K for a propane whole house unit), runs all day (or more) on regular gasoline (just siphon extra out of your car[s] if needed?) and you can use extension cords and/or wire it in. Under $1000. And, seems you can still get this one by this weekend. 😉 Just sayin’. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018C6BDE

  2. In 2015, before Hurricane Matthew (Oct. 2016) and Hurricane Irma (Sep. 2017), I got an estimate for installation of a whole-house 20KW Generac generator from Lowes at my FL residence at $5500. I didn’t want to spend that much; silly me. After the 2016 & 2017 hurricanes, I got three more estimates for the same unit at $10,000 – $11,000; probably $12,000 now. I’m going to stick with my Chinese-built 7500 watt tri-fuel portable generator. I connect it to my natural gas service and it runs everything in the house, including my 2.5 ton ductless 3-head AC system, all at the same time. Won’t power up my 4-ton central AC.

    • DP: You’ll be cheered to learn that, according to official government calculations, you live in a society that is free from the scourge of inflation. The generator that doubled in price is not part of the basket of goods that the government thinks you might want to buy, of course. Nor are houses part of the basket (only rental). If you were to shop for 100 lbs. of American cheese and six DVD players I think you’d find prices today similar to what they were in 2015.

    • I used to do graphics work for an HVAC company in NJ that sold and installed whole-house generators in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The were selling and installing Honeywell equipment, and did a good job. After HS there was a lot of demand and the prices went up accordingly, but they seem enter and exit the business according to the premium buyers are willing to pay. That’s just my impression, but right now they are just concentrating on HVAC. It’s Jersey and I presume if there was any money to be made (or equipment to be delivered), they would be doing it right now.

      https://supremehvac.com/

      As I’ve noted before, the new Ford F-150s can be equipped with up to 7,400 watts of “backup generation” 120/240V AC capacity. And you can *drive* them if you need to get out of the way of a hurricane, get back into the way of a hurricane, etc. Plus, the tie-down strap holders on the tailgate double as bottle openers!

      https://youtu.be/kGXpe9zmtJ4?t=770

      Otherwise I note what Philip has said in the original post and just shake my head and wish I had an easy answer, other than: try government surplus auctions.

    • Also, now that this has me interested, I’ll call up one of my “gun nut” friends and ask what they’re using for backup power at the range. They used to have a relatively mighty propane-fueled box but I haven’t checked recently.

      @Philg: You might have to get a little creative to find something that will work, but the time to do the searching is now, before any storms hit and the demand sucks up the rest of whatever is out there.

    • Occasionally there are really good deals to be found here, but you have to pick through them.

      https://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/gsaauctions/

      Click on “Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Components” in the left column.

      They are still operating under 2020 Pandemic rules, so they will not take your filthy cash money (or even a check!) You have to pay by CC or wire transfer, to help flatten the curve.

  4. Bunch of spoiled people complaining about having to wait for somebody to show up and install a generator, what happened to doing it yourself?

    I checked amazon and multiple generators are available, next day delivery, 3500W, 6000W and others.

    Is everybody too lazy and stupid to order a generator and learn how to install it and wire it to their house?

    Back in the Communist Czechoslovakia, this would be an easy job, you would use an old motorcycle engine and an old electric motor that you found. If you wanted to really show off at your summer cottage, you would take an old water heater, generate steam and connect it up to a steam turbine wheel connected to your electric motor acting as a generator.

    • A note to readers: Pavel is a foreigner who has admitted to stealing our election! The menace from the north will stop at nothing.

    • Fresh from interfering into our elections now Pavel is plotting cancelling home insurance of patriotic Americans.

    • Pavel,

      Judging by the power ratings you mentioned, those generators are portable. There is almost no installation required in this case except probably a manual transfer switch. You just wheel it out, turn off the main panel switch, connect the cable to a manual transfer switch or even a dryer outlet and start the generator.

      People here are talking about stationary standby gens > 20Kw. To install those you need to get a bunch of permits from the local town: trench digging permit, electrical work permit, electrical company inspection (after the electrical meter is messed with). With NE rocky soil you’d need to rent a small excavator to dig a trench. My friend went through this exercise and did everything himself.

      After a lot of grief the town hall gave him for not being a licensed electrician, though, (he wasted two weeks getting a special permit he was able to get because he was an EE and in Mass apparently you can get one if you are one, only for doing electrical work on your property), he said he’d rather paid $7,500 all included (in 2013). The actual work took him about a day.

    • Ivan,

      Why would somebody need a 20kW standby generator for a residential house?
      Do they have electric heating?

      6kW should be enough for a house, maybe two 6kW units for some surge capacity and not running the generators continuously at capacity.

      Here in Vancouver, Canada, it was fairly straight forward to get an electrical permit to do work on your own house if you are an EE. 10 years ago, it took about 30 mins and a meeting with the city inspector to discuss plans and to get the permit and then about 1 hour for the inspection, but things may have changed now because the building permits are now much more expensive.

    • “Why would somebody need a 20kW standby generator for a residential house?” Damned capitalists. It is like despite Pavel’s best efforts 2020 revolution came to naught.

    • Patience Comrade Trotsky,
      Unfortunately the US is not going woke fast enough for our plans to work at this time, but we see some good progress and just like the Chinese, we have patience.

      Speaking of capitalists, why is ULA using the Soviet RD-180 on the Atlas V designed by Comrade Glushko and not a good American capitalist rocket engine?

    • Pavel: I think if you’re going to the trouble of connecting up the transfer switch, the automation logic, the gas line, etc. it is just as easy to spec a generator that is large enough to run all of the loads in the house (air conditioners, dryer, dishwasher, toasters, kitchen range, etc.). The effort to get permits and install a 1-watt generator isn’t that different from what is required to get permits for and install a 40,000-watt generator.

    • A note to readers: Pavel is a foreigner who has admitted to stealing our elections! The menace from the north will stop at nothing until world domination is his. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

    • “Speaking of capitalists, why is ULA using the Soviet RD-180 on the Atlas V designed by Comrade Glushko and not a good American capitalist rocket engine?”

      Because the entire surplus stock pile of NK-33 rockets were purchased by Orbital Sciences!

    • RD-180 was designed by Boris Katorgin and his team.
      USSR could afford a single launch of it before collapse, I assume it is just a correlation. Orbital Sciences bought the engines, probably in part for them not to end up in wrong hands.
      Nowadays robber baron capitalist launches surpass people kerosene Atlas V rocket launches by a lot. https://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html#stats
      Chinese communist comrades are the only hope. Unfortunately they are right deviants who allowed predatory capitalism to flourish under party supremacy in everyday life. Hope they will see economic light as well.

    • Was Boris Katorgin trained by Glushko to be his successor at Energomash?

      Glushko did all the hard work on the RD-170, all Katorgin had to do was to scale it to two combustion chambers for the RD-180. Although Glushko probably used some of the knowledge from Kuznetsov NK-33 to develop the RD-170.

      It is very nice to see the R-7, designed by Sergei Korolev, in third place, still competing with the capitalists, even after over 60 years.

      Since Russia adopted capitalism and now had some time to stabilize from the mess in the 1990s, why is Energomash / Kuznetsov / Energiya (now that they are private companies) not able to compete with companies like SpaceX? The Angara and Yenisei projects are moving at a snails pace compared with the SpaceX Starship.

      Or is SpaceX an anomaly, since Boeing, ULA, and Blue Origin are also moving at a snails pace?

      Does Energomash / Kuznetsov / Energiya have the engineering talent today that they had in the 70s and 80s?

      Amazing four volume series by Chertok
      https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html

    • Pavel, as much as I love to re-read recollection of Korolev’s deputy Boris Chertok, who is by the way was closely related to second Israeli PM Moshe Sharett, I know that Soviet Union economy – busting (Soviet government forgot to push securitized sub-prime mortgages to level the field) RD-170 was developed by team led by Vitaly Radovsky.
      And yes, RD-180 is a scaled-down version is RD-170.
      As for Space-X, it is an example of a competition winner, up to date, that pushes the rest.
      Russian space entities are too close monitored by Russian government, their governmental funding is not transparent and often stolen, by government – connected management, they pay minimal salaries to their engineers who flee the roost and there is no outside funding except for NASA and ULA

    • should read “And yes, RD-180 is a scaled-down version OF RD-170.”

    • Comrade Trotsky, you are correct, I checked the book “Energiya-Buran” by Hendrickx and Vis. A very good book, if you have not already read it.
      Glushko (Chief Designer of Energiya) appointed Radovskiy as the head of the Energomash division of Energiya (at that time they were still one organization), Radovskiy was replaced in 1991 by Katorgin.

      You would think that Putin would have an incentive to make sure that the funding gets to the Space companies, and that it does not get stolen. This also means that the Russian space companies maybe have a couple of years left, before they go bankrupt, especially once they loose funding from NASA and ULA. Then all the Russian space hardware will wind up like this

  5. If you don’t live in air conditioning country, have a transfer switch put in and get one (or a couple) of these https://www.amazon.com/EF-ECOFLOW-Portable-Station-Generator/dp/B083FR3762 You can set them up as a UPS or use them in place of a small generator, and you can take them with you when you move. It’s enough power to run a fridge and/or the electrical parts of a gas furnace, along with some basic home electronics and lighting. If you need something with a little more oomph, this is coming out soon: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluetti/bluetti-ep500-and-ep500pro-the-new-era-of-home-backup-power (A battery/inverter combo with some real capacity) There’s also a new ford pickup and I believe one of the Toyota minivans that have some real electrical generation capability.

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