Quote:
Originally Posted by Winilyme
Quote:
Originally Posted by codeman671
We have 2 x 20kw Kohlers at our home, with a 1000-gallon tank. My home is heated mainly with splits thus the capacity needed.
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I think this is the problem I had when pricing out a whole house generator about 15 years ago. The price came in nearly double what I had budgeted...mainly due to (as was explained to me) our 5 ton geo heat pump. I didn't proceed as the cost-value didn't seem worth it.
Five years ago, we replaced that heat pump with a new one and I've been wondering if the newer tech lowers the start-up power requirement. Maybe the older one installed in 1995 didn't have a soft start-up feature and the newer one does? Haven't had time to look deeper and, besides, we've lost power for probably a total of 20 hours over the last 15 years (despite living in a rural area). So, even at a lower price point, I'm still not sure the cost-value would be there.
It sure would be nice to have the peace-of-mind however. |
We've lost balance here. You pay more to install heat pumps to have low cost heat, but then lose heat becaue a big generator is too expensive? My sisiter in law built a super tight house with heat pumps and it is a greeat comfort. She was told she needed a huge generator because without grid power she was running electric heat, so she opted out. When we all lost power, her house remaoined comfortable for several days with no heat leakage, but she and her guests came to our house for showers and cooking amenities because she had no power and we had a 6.5KW generator in a larger house. Small generator because we don't have central a/c. I don't know anybody who has a standby generator who is unhappy with the purchase, regardless of losing more or fewer days of electricty from year to year.