We just moved to KW (Sand Creek) back in September. Love the area but never realized how much the power goes out in KW. Got a quote on a whole house generator yesterday. $4500 for the generator and the rest is installation for a total cost of $9800.
Generac 22 kW Pre-packaged, Air-cooled Standby Generator with Aluminum Enclosure and 200 Amp SE Rated Switch.
Going to get a few more quotes, for anyone that's recently purchased one is this a pretty fair price? Also is getting the mobile link worth it?
@fastanez:  I used Generator Supercenter for my 20kw Generac generator about a year ago.  Hurricane season is the worst time to do this as you will pay a premium during this time.  If $9800 is the TOTAL price, you're doing good.  Some costs depend on the location of your gas meter and your circuit box.  I am paying Generator Supercenter a monthly service fee of $35. They installed a remote monitor on the generator and have it tied into a central monitoring system so they receive any alerts.  I get weekly email summaries from the monitoring system, but i can also look online for more details.  They do all of the typical routine maintenance (oil, filter changes, etc) at no additional cost.  The generator auto-starts once a week and runs for ten minutes.  It just runs the engine (essentially a 999cc motorcycle engine for 20kw) and does not transfer power. Having the service contract also means you have priority if you have any problems during a major power outage.It is very difficult to justify the costs based on usage and economics.  However, my wife and I cannot tolerate the heat as well as we used to. I am diabetic so I have medicines that need to be kept cool and I use a CPAP machine when I sleep.  During Ike, we lost all of the food in our freezer and in our fridge/freezer  I seriously considered a gasoline powered generator, but when I estimated the amount of gasoline needed for a long outage, I bit the bullet and went with the natural gas powered generator.  Getting ice and gasoline was very difficult for about a week after Ike.Our only limits are that we have an electric stove and oven, which are amperage hogs.  We can run both A/C units, fridge, freezer, and lots of lights.  We can use a burner or two on the stove but if we use the oven, we cannot use the stove and have to turn off the upstairs A/C and any extras while we use the oven.As for the noise, it has a good muffler system but it does make noise.  Ours is just on the outside of our bedroom (brick) wall.  It's definitely noticeable but it doesn't prevent us from sleeping.Good luck!
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