Water coooled, quiet, low oil consumption. But lots of money. You really have to be able to afford it. More on reddit.com

So, I have had a backup generator at every single home I have ever owned, and lived in (except in college - well part of college). Would it be a good investment? No. Is it one of those things that nice to have even though it doesn’t really add enough value to justify the cost? Im my experience, yes. Background on me and my sitation currently - I am 33 years old, Male, healthy enough to pull out a generator and connect it to the house. I expect to be able to do this for a while still as well. Cost of doing this was about $4000, including the generator, cord, etc. When this was done, I had a new panel added to the property, upgraded the service to the property to 200 amps from 100 amps. Nonthing in the house was replaced, so it was a relativly basic exterior panel replacement that then had breakers in it for each of the outbuildings and house. I am rural, so losing power means here, no internet, no water, no nothing. I do not experience prolonged poweroutages, but I get a few every year. THe problems with this set up are: I have to go out and hook up the generator, in the dark (garage does have a backup battery for garage door opener, but it is not attached to the house, its probally about 200’ from the house. This is near the inlet though, I only have to move the generator about 10 feet. This sucks in bad weather - and can be unsafe to go outside, so I have to wait until the storm passes to start it. I also need fuel on site to run it (No natural gas here - if I had natural gas I would have gone with a automatic standby) I have to go out and manually run the generator to keep it going or completly drain it of fuel. This isn;t a big deal though, I do this every other time I mow, and in the winter i do this while I plow the driveway. I do have a UPS that keeps the interent going for about an hour though, and my safe place is in the basement where I have a TV which also has a UPS on it. This last about 45 min with the floor lamp on. Background on standby generators (the automatic kind). I have one of these in my home in wiscosin, its great. It just does it thing, exercising itself, switching over to itself when the power is lost, etc. Its fairly hands off. I do need to have the oil changed about twice a year there (I switch to a lighter weight oil in the winter months). Since I do not live there full time its nice to know that the critical systems in the home are running even when I do lose power, like last winter when it was -20 actual temp and it was off for 2 days. Also had one of these in my previous MN home. It was great during a storm for everything just to come back on, wouldn’t even know it other than a short outage. (like 30 secounds, if that). Regarding your sitution. you both are getting older, and since this is your forever home, I say go for it. THe peace of mind is great, but keep in mind that lets say in the next 15 years you have 3 days of power outages, and the thousands of dollars you will spend to have power on those days. THis could be very well worth it if you ever have medical issues. I figure that in my homes, it cost me about $1,000 per 24 hours to have power when everyone around me does not. Is this worth it? Idk. It also takes away some of the fun of storms I guess; but I am fine without power and having that experience for about an hour, not days. More on reddit.com

It’s not we bought a 60kw generac and it was the worst experience in my whole life. It worked once on test start did all the load testing thought great. Then about three weeks later a hurricane was possible so i went to check it and a red light was on. So i called the installer who has installed 100s by the way and he looked ran some test got the code sent it in they sent a part that didn’t work. So they sent a complete wiring harness that didn’t work mind you the installer is a electrician 3 generation he is not stupid. So this went on for months. The claims lady was terrible wouldn’t answer emails literally would take 4-5 days one time it was a week and half she said she was on vacation. I’m thinking you are so unorganized as a company when one person is out the customers calls and issues just go unanswered it was ridiculous. Then after about 5 months i kid you not still not resolved they had basically replaced every went over it multiple time with genecrap on the phone nothing. I told them look i paid i did my part i gave you money for a working unit it’s not working so give me a new unit i need this for my business i can’t have no power i cant operate with out it. She said that’s not how the warranty process works. I told her if you bought a car and for five months you couldn’t drive it and dealer couldn’t fix it and you couldn’t drive would you think that is an acceptable answer. Sorry about your luck thanks for you money we gave you a bad car but you will have to wait. Who in the world operates like that. The installer and dealer. Was so embarrassed and upset with them he literally out of his pocket gave me the refund then she said that not how they operate she will have to close the case they never refunded him he sold it at Richie brothers for a loss after taking it to his shop and trying to get it to work he even called im a engine specialist to see if they could figure it out. Generac is a complete joke I was understanding patience and they treated us like garbage i did yell at them on the phone till month 4 i wasn’t rude till that point but i went off the wall when i did just a complete disaster all around I would never ever wish that company on my worst enemy. More on reddit.com

Most Cummins guys are trained for commercial units and don't like to mess with air-cooled units at all. I will tell you that the valve adjustments get overlooked most of the time for Cummins, Briggs and Generac - a lot of dealers don't know or don't care about the valve job and it shortens the life of the units. The Kohler CH-750 or 1000 is a far better engine on every spec. Hydraulic lifters, bigger valves, larger overheads, forged crank - it's beefy AF. Add the fact that the alternator and controls are far superior to the rest of the market as well, I would (and do) recommend the Kohler 14 or 20RCA over everything else on the market. But, be sure you have a factory trained guy do the start up AND service (you can do your own Maintenance). Kohler has proprietary software for troubleshooting that only a factory rep can access. More on reddit.com