Generators

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jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
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Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I see HD is still selling Briggs generators. What is the thinking on Briggs at this time? I read they were acquired by a larger company and are in a good position now. But I wonder.....?

What is current thinking on Generac & Trane? I haven’t done a generator in a while. Might consider one for the house down the road.
 
Portable -
Honda inverter gennies are the best, quiet and fuel efficient.
Stationary - Onan gets good comments here. Junkerac are very popular suspect yhey are same as Seimens,
 
tom baker said:
Portable -
Honda inverter gennies are the best, quiet and fuel efficient.
Stationary - Onan gets good comments here. Junkerac are very popular suspect yhey are same as Seimens,
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1st I’ve heard of Onan. I will read up on them.
 
I have heard good and bad about Generac.
Just ordered a 24kW unit for my house, so we’ll see.
 
retirede said:
Onan has been around for years and enjoys a good reputation. I haven’t had any personal experience with them for a number of years.
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Somehow, I never heard of them before. Looking on Google, I see they make portables & RV generators, don’t see any resi standby type.

I’ve wired a few Generac and a few Briggs but it’s been awhile. I haven’t been in a position to hear feedback on them.

I had a Briggs portable some years back & got 2-3 years out of it. Had a Husky from HD with a Subaru engine. It was good but died shortly after I got it paid off. Cranked it for temp power to a customers house & it died.
 
jmellc said:
Somehow, I never heard of them before. Looking on Google, I see they make portables & RV generators, don’t see any resi standby type.

I’ve wired a few Generac and a few Briggs but it’s been awhile. I haven’t been in a position to hear feedback on them.

I had a Briggs portable some years back & got 2-3 years out of it. Had a Husky from HD with a Subaru engine. It was good but died shortly after I got it paid off. Cranked it for temp power to a customers house & it died.
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You are supposed to put that bottle of oil that comes with it in the crankcase ;) ;)
 
hillbilly1 said:
They also go by Cummins.
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Yes, I am seeing that. I’m surprised I never saw any of their portable units on job sites. I am in Durham, NC & have seen many brands out & around. We have the usual big boxes & supply houses, plus other industrial distributors, etc. Maybe this is not a prime territory for them?

I knew of Cummins Diesel. They had a small plant near my home town years ago.
 
jmellc said:
Yes, I am seeing that. I’m surprised I never saw any of their portable units on job sites. I am in Durham, NC & have seen many brands out & around. We have the usual big boxes & supply houses, plus other industrial distributors, etc. Maybe this is not a prime territory for them?

I knew of Cummins Diesel. They had a small plant near my home town years ago.
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They don’t seem to build anything but RV and stationary generators. Costco seems to have good prices on them. Generators direct also sells them.
 
I think
jmellc said:
I see HD is still selling Briggs generators. What is the thinking on Briggs at this time? I read they were acquired by a larger company and are in a good position now. But I wonder.....?

What is current thinking on Generac & Trane? I haven’t done a generator in a while. Might consider one for the house down the road.
Click to expand...
I think Briggs makes the ones for Trane. Put one in several years ago, and if I remember correctly, it was identical to a Briggs I saw.
 
mopowr steve said:
Just heard today if you don’t see a Generac in stock somewhere it’s 14-16 weeks out to get one.
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Depends on the model, but last week the 22kw was 29/wks and 24kw was 24/wks.

Some of the smaller generators have shorter lead times but yeh all between 14-20/wks.

Liquid cooled are 12-14/wks and transfer switches are 10/wks.


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Generac getting further behind. Had four generators show up this week without transfer switches. Rep is telling us might be another month or two. These were ordered last October.

Had placed another order for transfer switches last week and was told 10/wk lead time for them. Now they’ve changed it to 5-6 months.


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jmellc said:
Yes, I am seeing that. I’m surprised I never saw any of their portable units on job sites. I am in Durham, NC & have seen many brands out & around. We have the usual big boxes & supply houses, plus other industrial distributors, etc. Maybe this is not a prime territory for them?

I knew of Cummins Diesel. They had a small plant near my home town years ago.
Click to expand...

On an IS Cummins. You sound like you’re talking about the Rocky Mount plant.

Generac is very territorial. If you’re not a dealer and assigned territory their contractor pricing is not very good. In Durham you end up competing with National Power and then if they don’t know about the job they bid against you! Which means you lose since they sell it to you for the same price they sell to the customer. We avoid dealing with Generac for this reason...waste of time.

Cummins/Onan is different. Originally there were something like 12 regional distributors that sold and did service but weren’t allowed to install. Our local was Atlantic Power in Kenly. Now Cummins bought them all out. Same marketing. As a an installer you get a discount so the customer can’t buy it directly from them any cheaper.

On the portables Onan is geared towards the bigger units...RV mounts. For stationary they are highly competitive for commercial and industrial.

At the smallest sizes for residential it’s hard to compete against Generac on price. Kohler does go there. The older engines (5+ years ago) were garbage can motors. Not anymore. Kohler targets Florida heavily. I haven’t ever gotten decent prices from them for the NC area. I just know the distributor in Florida well.
 
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