8kva generator-confused

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Noobneedshelp

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Hey yall, I know this has probs been asked before, but I can't find a comprehensive answer out there. I need to buy a gennie, looking at spending around 12k.

Thing is there are so many petrol gennies at this price point i really need help chooosing one that will work well without needing an engineering degree to operate. Looking at these right now:
Husqvarna G8500p
Mac africa 8.75kva

There's also 8 kva ryobi, turner morris and talon at this price. I really just want to buy a good system that works without drama. For a few grand more I could go for a closed diesel or gas gennie which I am willing to do if it would mean less maintenance or drama.

Suggestions?
 
Noobneedshelp said:
Hey yall, I know this has probs been asked before, but I can't find a comprehensive answer out there. I need to buy a gennie, looking at spending around 12k.

Thing is there are so many petrol gennies at this price point i really need help chooosing one that will work well without needing an engineering degree to operate. Looking at these right now:
Husqvarna G8500p
Mac africa 8.75kva

There's also 8 kva ryobi, turner morris and talon at this price. I really just want to buy a good system that works without drama. For a few grand more I could go for a closed diesel or gas gennie which I am willing to do if it would mean less maintenance or drama.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...
I have a mac africa 6.5kVa, it runs my desktop, two fridges (one is a old double door defy) two laptops, monitors. Easily. I can connect more stuff to it, but dont have enough leads.

Bought it for R7995 in Nov 21 and I see ot is now R8995.

Will be connecting to house when I install solar as a back up to the solar system on cloudy days when the substation trips.

I would have connected to the house via a transfer switch but as I am going solar and my inverter supports a genny input, that is what I will be using.
 
I cannot answer all your questions, but from interaction on this forum, there is quite a few forum members who has mac afric brand generator.

It can also easily run a high power microwave oven.
 
Thugscub said:
Do not touch anything with Ryobi in its name, ever.
All are useless pos. And zero back up.
Click to expand...
The problem is that even the blue branded Ryobi can be the crappy ****, and some of their green branded (not the bright green in other countries, those are actually quality from what I investigated but the dark green) can actually outperforms the blue. But it is like winning the lottery and I dont like those odds. At one stage I had quite a bit of Ryobi power tools, have replaced the lot with real tools.
 
Thugscub said:
Do not touch anything with Ryobi in its name, ever.
All are useless pos. And zero back up.
Click to expand...
I've only had my Ryobi generator for two years but I haven't had any problems with it.

As for service - the PE branch has always gone out of their way to solve any problems I've encountered with other products.
 
bwana said:
I've only had my Ryobi generator for two years but I haven't had any problems with it.

As for service - the PE branch has always gone out of their way to solve any problems I've encountered with other products.
Click to expand...
The problem is, you dont know when they decided to do a good product and when they decide to do a bad product. One of the first gifts my wife (then girlfriend) gave me was a cordless Ryobi Screwdriver set. That thing was a beast. I abused it for years. The power supply packed up before the screwdriver. I then decided to buy my Brother in law the same screwdriver. It looked physically the same. However, it did not last as long as my much older screwdriver. Battery life was shorter, was not as strong etc. That is what I mean by lottery. I have a few examples of this. It is always a lottery with Ryobi. Which put me off the brand for good.
 
Thanks RH1. So then I guess the Mac africa it is. Gonna go for the 8.75 kva. I had an electrician here yesterday to check everything out and he spent 20 min trying to convince me that generators were terrible and would pop all my appliances because of the unstable current. In the end he wanted to sell me a solar system for 130k, so I think he was rather biased.

Spending 12k on back up power is one thing, 130k is quite another. I know it's a saving in the end, but it's just too huge an investment for right now.
Last question is, what you make of gas generators? A friend of mine is telling me I'm crazy to go petrol when gas is so much cheaper?
 
Do yourself a favour and get a diesel.
Quieter and much cheaper to run.
 
Sinbad said:
Do yourself a favour and get a diesel.
Quieter and much cheaper to run.
Click to expand...
They are also almost twice the price and not that much cheaper to run really.
 
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Noobneedshelp said:
Thanks RH1. So then I guess the Mac africa it is. Gonna go for the 8.75 kva. I had an electrician here yesterday to check everything out and he spent 20 min trying to convince me that generators were terrible and would pop all my appliances because of the unstable current. In the end he wanted to sell me a solar system for 130k, so I think he was rather biased.

Spending 12k on back up power is one thing, 130k is quite another. I know it's a saving in the end, but it's just too huge an investment for right now.
Last question is, what you make of gas generators? A friend of mine is telling me I'm crazy to go petrol when gas is so much cheaper?
Click to expand...
That was my biggest fear. However, I am running without any issues, things such as my PC Desktop, LED TVs, my old Sony Bravia 2009 model. Nothing pop yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Yuu
Noobneedshelp said:
Hey yall, I know this has probs been asked before, but I can't find a comprehensive answer out there. I need to buy a gennie, looking at spending around 12k.

Thing is there are so many petrol gennies at this price point i really need help chooosing one that will work well without needing an engineering degree to operate. Looking at these right now:
Husqvarna G8500p
Mac africa 8.75kva

There's also 8 kva ryobi, turner morris and talon at this price. I really just want to buy a good system that works without drama. For a few grand more I could go for a closed diesel or gas gennie which I am willing to do if it would mean less maintenance or drama.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...
A work colleague got the Husqvarna one about a year ago at a very good price. It was standing on the floor used for demonstration purposes. He bought it, and was super impressed how quiet it was. Before he got that one he borrowed his brother's Ryobi and said the difference in loudness was like chalk and cheese.
 
In my previous place I had a 6.5kva Honda pull-start (engine was Honda, the rest i'm guessing chinese thing).

It was "unofficially" connected to the townhouse via a wall plug and with the mains down, it fed power back through the whole DB board.

I used to power all lights in the 3-bedroom unit, 1x fridge, 1x freezer, 4 TVs, 2 computers, a washing machnine if it was running, all the wall-plugs etc. Geyser i used to turn off.

The only time it struggled was if the Microwave or Kettle ran - and even then it still worked just the engine could be heard laboring a bit.

The only problem I had was that it did not have an AVR so any UPS in the house used to complain bitterly and randomly switch-back-and-forth.
 
Noobneedshelp said:
Thanks RH1. So then I guess the Mac africa it is. Gonna go for the 8.75 kva. I had an electrician here yesterday to check everything out and he spent 20 min trying to convince me that generators were terrible and would pop all my appliances because of the unstable current. In the end he wanted to sell me a solar system for 130k, so I think he was rather biased.

Spending 12k on back up power is one thing, 130k is quite another. I know it's a saving in the end, but it's just too huge an investment for right now.
Last question is, what you make of gas generators? A friend of mine is telling me I'm crazy to go petrol when gas is so much cheaper?
Click to expand...
I have the mac afric 6.5 kva, and mine has not given any issues. I got it about 5 years after load shedding started, so it has given me good service. A electrician installed a change over switch, so it powers the whole house. You have to manage your own power, like load shedding yourself in the house. For example I would wait for the kettle to finish boiling before putting the oven on.
Petrol has increased a lot in price but hopefully it will normalize. I don't start it for every load shed event, but like tonight we are having a function and it is nice to know we can live our lives like normal if LS strikes during the party.
We are 3 working from home and a student studying from home and no equipment has ever packed up because of the generator.
When I researched back then my conclusion was was diesel generators are more suited to supplying power, where petrol are more suited to backup power.
 
neoprema said:
In my previous place I had a 6.5kva Honda pull-start (engine was Honda, the rest i'm guessing chinese thing).

It was "unofficially" connected to the townhouse via a wall plug and with the mains down, it fed power back through the whole DB board.

I used to power all lights in the 3-bedroom unit, 1x fridge, 1x freezer, 4 TVs, 2 computers, a washing machnine if it was running, all the wall-plugs etc. Geyser i used to turn off.

The only time it struggled was if the Microwave or Kettle ran - and even then it still worked just the engine could be heard laboring a bit.

The only problem I had was that it did not have an AVR so any UPS in the house used to complain bitterly and randomly switch-back-and-forth.
Click to expand...
Its called a suicide cable

suicide cable - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org en.wiktionary.org
 
Snyper564 said:
Its called a suicide cable

suicide cable - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org en.wiktionary.org
Click to expand...
Oh yes, i did get shocked by it. The first time we bought the generator in 2010. Plugged the one end into the generator and turned it on, ran the other end into the house. put it on the floor, went to do something, came back and picked it up by the plug... nasty :)

I feel all the shocking we used to do with batteries and transformers in groups at school (For which i was often last-man-standing) prepared me for this! :)
 
So I think worth an extra grand or 2 for the husqvara? My electrician said I should get red plugs for my TV etc to protect from surge.
neoprema said:
In my previous place I had a 6.5kva Honda pull-start (engine was Honda, the rest i'm guessing chinese thing).

It was "unofficially" connected to the townhouse via a wall plug and with the mains down, it fed power back through the whole DB board.

I used to power all lights in the 3-bedroom unit, 1x fridge, 1x freezer, 4 TVs, 2 computers, a washing machnine if it was running, all the wall-plugs etc. Geyser i used to turn off.

The only time it struggled was if the Microwave or Kettle ran - and even then it still worked just the engine could be heard laboring a bit.

The only problem I had was that it did not have an AVR so any UPS in the house used to complain bitterly and randomly switch-back-and-forth.
Click to expand...
I'm quite shocked (excuse the pun) that u could power so much witha 6.5 kva. I don't have a ups. Is it only the ups that would complain?
 
neoprema said:
It was "unofficially" connected to the townhouse via a wall plug and with the mains down, it fed power back through the whole DB board.
Click to expand...
Don't ever do this. It bypasses the earth leakage and you can easily draw too much current through wiring not rated for the load. Also turn on the mains by mistake and you'll ruin your genny.
 
Yup. Crazy does not even come close to describing the stupidity of doing what neoprema has posted.


But there always seems to be an angel (or a devil) protecting these guys. Wait until complacency steps in and he makes that one fatal mistake one day ( God forbid).


Playing with his and his entire family's lives he is.
 
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