[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by mswlogo

The standby Generacs are a completely different beast.

You have to understand how things are today.

China makes a lot of stuff. Some of it is crap, some ok, some excellent.

Besides Honda, China makes 90% of the portable generators. Which are not the best. A company like Generac, has no portable generator, They don’t make them.
So they find one to OEM and slap their reputable label on it.
Might even be a seperate company licensing the name.

That’s what the Westing House is too. Probably another company licensing the name and getting the same product from China.

When you work on stuff you see patterns. You go to buy a part and you find it’s the same part for Generac, DuraMax, Westing House and a dozen more.

Lots of stuff is like this. Lawn mowers, same thing. John Deere lawn mower you see in Home Depot is NOT a John Deere. It’s exactly the same as the Yard Man, husqvarna etc. If it was a John Deere it would cost 3x as much. To compete the buy the OEM one from China and slap their name on it. It’s not a bad unit though. I have one and you start to see patterns when you work on them. Only difference is the color and decals.

So asking which brand portable is kind of a joke. It’s either Honda, China or a Standby.

Regarding propane freezing. Propane freezes at -306F !!! Most Standby generators run on Natural Gas or Propane. The problem is moisture in your tank. Which can also happen to gasoline generators. Keep tanks full. Keep you boat tank full too (not because of freezing but because water in your fuel is bad). Cars don’t have this problem any more. See frost on say a table on your deck? That happens on the inside walls of the tanks. Humid air condenses on the cold walls. When it gets warm it melts and drips into the fuel. Night after night as temps go above and below dew point. This happens inside engines too and water gets in your oil. But it burns off if driven regularly.

https://bepreparedforit.com/do-propa...-cold-weather/

A large stand by system might have a mild heater on the regulator (a narrow point) to prevent fuel freezing and flowing.

You are more likely to have fuel issues with a portable gasoline unit in my opinion.

Actually the John Deere at Home Depot is a John Deere.
John Deere sets the prices and Home Depot cannot discount them or JD products in any way.
The mowers come in steel crates that cannot be opened by any employee of Home Depot and must be set out for the service technicians from the partnered dealership to come and do the initial multi-point quality inspection and enter the warranty designation before the machine can be purchased.
The ones in the store are the lowest series, and the ones sold online are through the White Glove Ambassador system set up with John Deere.

I used to work for HD and had to set out the crates over night so the when the technicians came in from, they would be ready.

We also use the White Glove Ambassador program for the Ariens and MTD product sold online, I did most of that locally with Belmont Hardware.