Troy-Bilt Generator review...and some thoughts on choosing the right back up generator for your home

hey guys this is Josh Stony Ridge farmer it is hot oh my goodness it's so hot it's like 90 degrees out here humidity is like 150% it is super hot here in North Carolina but at least it's not raining so I told you when I had the power outage probably a week ago or so we had like two days without power that I'd do a little quick review about this generator and this is the little Troybuilt XP series generator okay want to talk to you a little bit about the generator take you around show you the features of it it works great our house is about 1,200 or 14400 Square ft something like that it ran everything we needed to run in the house it just couldn't run everything at the same time but uh this generator did the job that we wanted it to do I'm going to take you around show you the generator do a quick review of it and we'll talk a little bit about being prepared for power outage so come along with me brige Stony brige [Music] [Laughter] F all right so the first thing I want to show you is this power panel okay so the Troy buil has a power panel and this display right here will tell you how many hours you've been running how many hours uh it's been since you changed your air filter how many hours it's been since you changed your oil all that information is right here on this little screen you've got got a little breaker here for these guys and this piece actually detaches and you can take it inside if you want to I don't know why you'd want to take it inside but it comes with a cord to extend this device out to like 10 ft or so I don't know why you'd ever need that I don't need it I don't understand the only cord I need is right here or these guys right here for running power equipment so what I have two 20 amp 120 volt uh plugs here and basically the gist of this thing is your circuit breakers are on here and this runs your 220 so what we use in the house is the 220 and basically we hook to a circuit breaker uh with a disconnect made for the generator on the house here basically we disconnect main power and we go to generator power and this little guy right here plugs right in with the little little cord so pretty cool pretty neat little system inexpensive it's awesome also have a little charger thing this is a charging station for the battery that's in this thing uh I've had the generator for 2 years I've probably used it a total of I'm going to say no I've had it for three years and I'm I'm going to say I've used it a total of 250 300 hours and have had no problems whatsoever this generator you just turn it on pull the pull the choke fires right up okay reason it's sputtering is because I had the gas turned off whenever I uh turn the turn the generator off I let it run all the way empty on gas so that the carburetor is empty I also don't run that bull crap ethanol fuel in a future Vlog I'm going to show you what ethanol fuel does when you let it sit for a while it separates Okay the reason your power equipment the reason your lawn mower doesn't work your lawn mower won't start your weed eater won't start all your power equipment won't start is because you're putting that bull crap gas in it I know a lot of people have an attitude about that this gas is subsidized by the government to use ethanol because it burns cleaner yet it produces water in your fuel system and damages your fuel system forcing you to get a new vehicle or forcing you to replace your small engines it's not good you don't have to replace the engine you just have to rebuild the carburetor every year if you don't burn this gas out so be safe and use non-ethanol gas that's my speech on non-ethanol fuel so guys I'm doing this review not because I want to sell you a generator I don't have a link to this thing on Amazon or anything but I do think that everyone should be prepared and if you have a little generator like this you spend three four 500 bucks you have a backup system you keep some good fuel around your house so that if the power goes out you're not stuck without power you're not stuck without the essentials that you need so we'll check out the back side here if I want to start it with a pull cord I've got a pull cord here's our choke the little cable runs all the way up front Okay basically our fuel cut off and cut on is right there and we'll go around the other side here we'll move the camera this is your exhaust area Okay so so right on the top of the gas tank you have a little indicator I'll show you that and that shows you that it's full and you can also double check okay we're pretty much full now let's talk about what's important Watts watts are what's important this is a 7,000 watt generator with 10,500 watts of power on demand and basically surge Watts when you start a motor when you start your air conditioner when you start something in the house when you start your microwave it pulls a surge of power if you can buy a generator with 7500 or 8,000 watts and it doesn't surge but to 9 ,000 you're going to trip your Breakers okay you're going to trip this and you're going to have to go outside and reset it and it's not going to run your essential equipment and I'm talking about essential equipment when you have a summer power outage your essential equipment is your air conditioner and when you have a winter power outage your essential equipment is your heat okay this will run the heat in air for our 12 to 1400t home no problem because the surge wates are 10,500 so when you're buying a generator I don't care if you buy this generator if you buy another generator when you buy one think about surge Watts okay 10,500 would be the very minimum I'd like 15,000 that way when you start something it doesn't the generator doesn't go bogg down and I can see on my indicator over here and I'll start the generator and show you the indicator but I can see on my indicator how much power I'm drawing so let's start this thing up pull the choke start indicator that indicator is very important I just heard it beep that's the first time I've ever heard it beep it's so loud I don't know why in the world you'd ever want to hear it beep but I guess if you put the extension on there you could hear it beep so we're going to let the generator run completely out of fuel we turn the gas off we let the generator run out of fuel and then we'll bring it in here we'll store it in the garage and dry storage and it'll be ready to rock and roll generator is very loud one thing I do recommend is that you get a long enough power cord to set your generator far enough away from the house that you don't have to hear that loud loud noise okay so this is our power cord want to show you that that's the last thing it's an extension cord that plugs into the side of the breaker box pretty easy pretty simple stuff guys you can hire an electrician to have it put in or you can do it yourself if you're a do-it-yourself or kind of guy so that's pretty much it for the Vlog today just wanted to show you our generator I told you i' to do a quick review of it it's a great little generator the Troy Built generator it's the XP series uh it's a great generator when you're buying a generator think about surge Watts okay if you're going to try to run your heat pump or your air conditioning in your house or your well pump if you live in the country then you're going to have to have high surge Watts I'd say if you had a 2,000t house you probably need 15 to 17,000 surge Watts that gets into a little bit of money when you're buying a generator like that so that's the way it is if you want to live in a big house you got big stuff you got to buy big toys to keep them running so guys this is Josh stery rich farmer don't forget to click that like button down there or wherever it is and click that subscribe button if you're here for the first time I thank you for watching come on back and see me sometime all right woo we come on down to the Stony Ridge bring your wife bring your kids we living life here and sweet that's the way it's supposed to be Stony woo