Generac 5735 GP17500E 17500-Watt Gas-Powered Portable Generator - Electric Start for Convenience - Durable Design and Reliable Power for Emergencies and Recreation - 49 State Compliant

This is an impressive machine. Our home's generator wiring was upgraded to 6/3 cable, feeding a transfer switch and dedicated sub panel with additional individual center-off transfer switches wired to it. I hadn't upgraded the inlet plug from 30 amps to 50 amps, yet. Got this generator delivered in front of our garage on a pallet. Slid it half way off the pallet and used a small hydraulic floor jack to lift it by one end, attached the wheels, then slid the pallet out from under it, attached the legs and rolled it into position behind our house. Added the included oil, some fuel, connected the battery and it started right up. This unit's muffler quiets down the exhaust noise surprisingly well. In-fact the most prominent noise coming from this unit, comes from the engine's mechanical noise and forced-air fan. When the idle control is enabled the generator spins down and gets really, comfortably quiet. When the idle control senses a load, it spins the engine back up to full speed. Plugged it into our inlet box via it's L14-30R socket, flipped every circuit over including our 65LRA/240V central air conditioner which connects to the generator via the sub-panel. Turned on every load I could think of, then engaged the A/C. I almost didn't notice when the 15,600w startup load from the A/C hit the generator, all I heard literally was a half second blip in engine noise.... in other words... with all the loads we currently have wired in (~8000w)... it was able to power them easily from a L14-30 plug... nice! It will be interesting when the L14-50 gets wired in and we add more circuits on the sub-panel. To deal with the noise, I'll be building a small shed for this unit, near the house. I'm on the fence as to whether I'll attach a secondary muffler to this unit, since the exhaust itself, is already pretty quite. The one draw back on this unit is that it consumes a good portion of fuel... 16 gallons in 10 hours @ 50% load. Update 9/11/2012: Since my original post, I did purchase a Walker Exhaust 22266 Quiet-FlowSS Muffler to use as a secondary muffler. Along, with some WALKER EXHAUST 40002 to connect the generac to the muffler... it's made HUGE difference in terms of quieting down the exhaust noise. BTW, the muffler exhaust port on this generator has an outer diameter (O.D.) of 1.5" inches. Keeping in mind that this thing weights 390lbs, I decided to build a small shed for this generator so that we'd have it available for use in extremely bad weather (where it would be difficult to roll this thing into position...). Also, while the muffler does an excellent job at quieting down the exhaust noise, the shed serves to cut down on this generator's air cooling induction fan & engine noise, as well. We ran 4 THWN 6 gauge cables ( through 2" SCHD 40 PVC conduit, 18" inches underground...) from the shed to our home, to support full 50 amp 240V service from the generator. Yes, this generator puts out a total of 72AMps at 240V, if we want to use that extra power in the future, I'll have to pull additional wires through our conduit and hook up to one of the generator's other power outlets. We also ran 2 THWN 10 gauge cables, from our home to the shed, to support a 20 amp 120v circuit. This circuit we use primarily to keep the generator's starter battery fully charged, it also provides us with a heavy duty outdoor outlet on that side of home, which comes in handy. In terms of performance, we've had a brief power outage recently, and the generator, inside it's shed, has worked flawlessly. Update 10/31/2012: Lost power during Hurricane Sandy, for about 20 Hours. Generator ran the entire time, without a problem. First long duration run. My wife, daughter and I were VERY happy with the outcome. Worth every penny.

Bought this Generac product for Power emergencies. It worked fine for 70 hours but died after running during a 3 day power outage. Tried all recommendations for Crank No Start issues to no avail. Sent it to Repair facility who was unable to fix. Paid them $500 and had it sent to another repair facility. They spent hours trying to repair and calls to Generac Support and were unable to fix issue. NO ONE CAN FIX THIS INCLUDING CERTIFIED GENERAC REPAIR PERSON. GENERAC COPR WILL NOT HELP. We now have a $3000 450 lbs weight and no good for anything...Warranty ended after three years, problem occurred just over warranty period. All proper Maintenance was done to keep this in good shape....

I purchased this generator Nov, 2011. That was 11 months before Storm Sandy. Long story short, I am very happy with it. Performed very well during 11 days of outage in Sandy, and numerous other outages. First of all, it weighs a bunch. So, the first thing I did was to discard the "foot" and replace that with an appropriate swivel caster, from Tractor Supply. Now I only push it to move it, no lifting. That "foot" is probably something the Generac lawyers thought up. Second thing is that it is loud, very loud. So, I had the electrician install two hookup spots, one one the driveway, with a 10K Connection, and one under my deck, with the full 17.5 connection. Reason being, that if the power is out for days at time, it is much quieter under the deck. Reason for me saying all of this is that our deck is up a hill. So I bought a cheap crank model boat winch, and made a crude holder for it under the deck. Then I installed a "Eye-bolt" on the chassis of the generator. Point of the story, I've had this generator for over 6years. It's a good machine. And if you run it under low load (1 refrigerator, lights, and TV) it's pretty fuel efficient. It sips gas. But if you have heavy stuff turned on (e.g. 6 Kw water heater, etc.) it will bog down at about 1 gal/ hour. It's a good machine. Adapt it to your needs