Customer Reviews

Generac Guardian Series 5887 20,000 Watt Air-Cooled Liquid Propane/Natural Gas Powered Standby Generator Without Transfer Switch (CARB Compliant)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Purchased for use with a 4200 SQFT home;

I had researched purchasing a generator for 2 years before actually purchasing this until. I purchased the 20KW with whole house transfer switch. I would highly reccomend purchasing the unit with the whole house switch as you would not want to be limited by how many circuits you can have hooked up to the generator. I have a
200AMP service with 42 breakers installed and a 100 amp sub panel with 8 breakers installed. My old main panel is now a sub panel and the transfer switch is no considered my main.

We were lucky that our electrician is a factory trained Generac installer. The total cost of this installation which includes the unit and installation (gas hook up as well) was $7200.00. They first came out and installed the transfer switch and sorted all my netural and grounds in my main panel. Hooked the power back up and left for the day. The next day they installed the Gas and the 3 power lines to the generator as well as put the generator in place. The 3rd day was just testing and adjustments.

The Generator is set up to exersize every Monday for 13 minutes as reccmended by the factory. We dedcided to utlize quite mode while the system exercises. Well that was a mistake. Every time the system was to exercise, the unit would error out and not start. THERE IS A BUG in quite mode. I did research online and come to find out it is a common problem. The bad news is Generac has not come up with a suitable fit other than reccomending to bend the choke plate. However, I changed the settings to run in normal mode and the Genrator cycles fine durning its weekely exercise.

Other than the minor bug in quite mode. I would HIGHLY reccomend this product. It is the perfect size and price point is right.

After initially losing $2,500 of electrical equipment when the generator started up and being very disappointed in Generac, the Master Electrician that installed it, who is excellent, found the problem. It had to do with the old part of my house having a bonded Neutral to Ground, which works when the Grid is supplying the power since they too bond their Neutral to Ground, however the Generator has the Neutral and Ground totally seperated which was causing an electrical build up with no place to go. Also, the older part of the house was not properly grounded which added to the problem along with the newer part of the house having a seperate Neutral and Ground with not enough ground. The Generac dealers that we contacted said they had no idea why the generator was frying my electrical equipment and the Grid wasn't and made no effort to assist me in any way. However, the Master Electrician, Alcorn Electric of Sikeston Missouri not only would not give up, but didn't charge me for all of the extra visits that they made even when they found out that it was not their fault or the fault of the generator they installed. They replaced ceiling fan remote sending units, surge protectors, and ground fault interupter plug ins all at their own expense. The only charge will be for the new grounding rods, however they rewired the house so that the generator can be used right now and are coming back to install the extra grounding rods without charging me for labor. I would give them 7 stars and the Generac 4 stars.

We had our electrician install our Generac 5887 in late spring 2011. It worked flawlessly during the day and half without power during Irene. It also worked very well during the first 6 days without power from the snowstorm in October, but that is when things took a turn...On the seventh day it decided to rest and a month later it is still resting. (Our power did not come back on until the ninth day)

Before it died, it started to have issues maintaining RPMs, it would start to slow down and then suddenly rev really hard until it faulted out with a over speed error. When trying to run the generator once this began, it would run rough and either quit on overspeed or undervoltage alarms. We had the company that installed it come back and they replaced the governor controller. The generator now runs for approximately 10 seconds and quits with an undervoltage alarm.

Just had the technician here and he tested it out further and ruled out the easily repaired items and it now appears that the rotor assembly needs to be replaced. The good news is this is covered under the warranty - the bad news is that it will be several more weeks to get this repaired. The technician stated that he has to removed the rotor assembly and then contact Generac in order to get the replacement parts and will then have to come back out again to install the new parts. Not a very efficient or cost effective way to get the unit repaired.

While it is unlikely that the power will go out for any significant time before this gets repaired - I would not expect this type of problem with a 5 month old generator with 190 hours on it. Generac has a very good reputation for quality products, but we seemed to have gotten a lemon.

UPDATE: It turns out that one of the brushes broke and was replaced on 12-28-11. Since it was replaced, the unit has cycled through 4 weekly exercises without any issues. Hopefully, this was a one time problem and is ready for the next time it is actually needed.

As promised came on time Excellent experience with Amazon as well as Gennerac makes the best Generators
I will recommend both to any one Amazon &Generac

I receaved this power plant fast and in good order but have not instaled yet..
Wilmer C Goss jr