Dual fuel generators

Hello everyone,

This is my first post in the open forum, aside from my introductory post in the new member section.

I was brought to this site while doing online research about generators. For some time I have been saving to purchase a generator for our single family home. I browsed through a discussion elsewhere on this site, but the last post was some time ago and I do not wish to resurrect a "dead" discussion.

I have my eye on a Champion 3000W/4000W dual fuel generator, which runs on propane or gasoline. As I live in Canada, the models offered here often vary from what is sold in the U.S. The model number is 76555. It seems to come on sale several times a year; regular price is $799.99 but when on sale it is listed at $699.99. As the Canadian dollar floats at less than par, our purchasing power is not directly the same as in the U.S. For various reasons we tend to pay more, even for an identical item. That is a whole other area of discussion, for another time...

Because I live in a typical three bedroom suburban neighbourhood, I cannot store large amounts of fuel legally [and safely] as compared to someone in a rural area. I have a garage, attached to the house but with no door directly into the house. Thus, we are somewhat removed from what is in the garage, but of course a garage fire could soon spread to the house.

I am not certain yet what our fuel storage laws are, but will remedy that soon. I believe we are allowed to store a 25 litre [five gallon] container of gasoline and three steel propane tanks. What appeals to me about a dual fuel generator is that I have some versatility when deciding which fuel to use/store.

Depending upon how extensive a power outage would be, I would make a certain choice as to which fuel to use. If it were only a local outage, with gasoline stations outside of the outage area still able to operate, I could choose to use gasoline to run the generator. If it were a very large, regional power outage, I might opt instead to run it on stored propane and the stored gasoline might be needed for transportation. On the other hand, if we didn't need to travel, we could if desired siphon gasoline from the cars. I dislike that idea, but it is a form of "storage" if you think "outside the box." You could have your legal storage of five gallons, say, in the garage, plus what is in the fuel tanks of the cars in the driveway.

I never like to let my cars get much below half full. I have two major rail lines running through my town, one of which is only a few hundred yards from the house. If we were to suddenly have to evacuate due to a rail emergency, I would not want to be caught with both cars sitting hear empty. I have been conditioned by winter emergencies to always have as much fuel in your vehicle as possible. I have been caught in winter storms wherein I had to sit on the highway; full fuel tanks mean you have to worry less about idling to stay warm.

Due to the vagaries of my particular utility, on my side of town we seem to have more than our fair share of temporary outages and glitches. I've learned to expect these. I have installed UPS devices on all the electronics in the house. I got tired of the power cutting out for a few seconds; not long enough to worry about, but long enough to cut the power to the PVR's and wipe out your stored schedule or to interrupt a program I was recording for later viewing. With UPS's on the modem, router, switches, PVR's and such I have those taken care of when it comes to short duration outages. Occasionally the power goes off and stays off long enough to be more than a minor inconvenience.

For those occasions I desire to have a backup generator that would be used to keep the fridge and chest freezer going during our torrid summer months, and perhaps to keep on a few lights. If it is hot enough that our grid goes down, we don't wish to be adding to the heat by using candles. Not to mention the fire hazard when using candles. We use natural gas for heating and running the clothes dryer, but I am not as yet planning on rewiring to hook a generator into the main panel. That would come later, as/when I could afford to do so. Right now I simply wish to have more options than sitting in the dark and wishing.

I know a generator like this can be noisy, but my plan is to operate between the brick walls of my house and the next door house. We might share the usage of the generator with the neighbour as a sort of noise compensation. Just enough to keep the frozen and chilled food cold. And of course, seeing as a generator in use during a blackout would be at a higher risk of theft, we would share watch keeping duties, too.

I welcome any comments or advice.

In appreciation,

Old Canuck

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Dual fuel generators