Roar of the generators

While I appreciate the service that portable generators are providing in an emergency, I dropped something off in a neighborhood yesterday where I could see six generators running at homes as I stood outside my car - it sounded like a 747 was preparing for takeoff. 


We bought a similar Yamaha inverter model.  Runs the heat, refrigerator, internet, and charges what we need charged.  It's very quiet and very fuel efficient (1 gallon lasts about 15 hours).  Perfect for when the power goes out.  Our neighbor has a much larger, more powerful, louder model.  He says it burns through a gallon of gas in 1 1/2 hours. We both had these generators during Sandy, when gas stations also had no power, so getting gas for the generators became the real issue.  5 gallons of gas lasted 7 1/2 hours for him, lasted 5 days for me.  I don't need power for the whole house, just the essentials.


BlueGrass said:

Not all stand alone gas generators are the same & certainly not all noisy.

I purchased a Honda 2000i Inverter model. It is really quiet= 54db.

Btw: Yamaha makes a nice one as well.

 


Komarovsky said:

Maybe, just maybe, it's the people who can't afford the generator to begin with who are being impacted by their neighbors who have the means to afford one. 

A lot of people without generators are thankful they have neighbors who do have those generators and who help store food or medicine, charge cellphones/laptops, provide wifi access, cook, host elderly, etc.  

As has been mentioned... this is not a planned or wished for event and there should be room for tolerating the generators rather than going down a slippery slope of mounting legislation to limit them during emergencies.


yellowgato said:

A lot of people without generators are thankful they have neighbors who do have those generators and who help store food or medicine, charge cellphones/laptops, provide wifi access, cook, host elderly, etc. 

Not this storm but the previous one when we had no power for 3 - 4 days made us very thankful of our neighbors who let us store my mother's eye refrigerated medicine and for providing neighborhood charging services. Its scary when you have medicine that needs refrigeration while its hot as hell.

That experience made us realize we needed a generator which we then bought.

Even the whole house standby generators are loud enough to be annoying, although not as loud as the (somewhat) portable gasoline powered generators. My next door neighbor has one that kicked on the other day for our (thankfully) brief outage that occurred (unfortunately) in the wee hours of the morning a couple of days after the storm.  It woke up several other neighbors on the block.  Honestly, the generator manufacturers should be doing more about this.  I don't think there is any kind of muffler at all on the gasoline ones, at least.  I would certainly purchase an add-on muffler if there is such a thing for mine.  (We haven't used it since Sandy as we were lucky enough not to lose power this time, but I know that it is excrutiatingly loud.)


sac said:

Even the whole house standby generators are loud enough to be annoying, although not as loud as the (somewhat) portable gasoline powered generators. My next door neighbor has one that kicked on the other day for our (thankfully) brief outage that occurred (unfortunately) in the wee hours of the morning a couple of days after the storm.  It woke up several other neighbors on the block.  Honestly, the generator manufacturers should be doing more about this.  I don't think there is any kind of muffler at all on the gasoline ones, at least.  I would certainly purchase an add-on muffler if there is such a thing for mine.  (We haven't used it since Sandy as we were lucky enough not to lose power this time, but I know that it is excrutiatingly loud.)

 We have a whole house standby generator. I have asked repeatedly if there is any way to muffle the sound, put some sort of enclosure around it to absorb the sound....the answer from the installer and the company that services it has always been that this is not possible. I would like it to be quieter, too. I hate that it might bother the neighbors. I try to make it up to them by storing their perishables, letting them use our den to work from home (this was pre-Covid times), setting up charging stations and offering the use of our washer/dryer if needed during significant outages. I would love to see the manufacturers address this issue because it does not seem to be one that an individual can ameliorate on their own.


There certainly are mufflers on portable generators.  It's more about the price point.  Honda's are very quiet.  $400 Home depot units not so much.


I was talking about permanently-installed standby generators in my previous comment about muffling their sound.


cody said:

I was talking about permanently-installed standby generators in my previous comment about muffling their sound.

 Yes, I've wondered that, too. I'm pretty handy and am considering building some kind of enclosure. I do not know the air space they require around the unit but I'll have to ask.  I know there are green things closer than 3 feet on the sides of ours. generator installation limits


bikefixed said:

 Yes, I've wondered that, too. I'm pretty handy and am considering building some kind of enclosure. I do not know the air space they require around the unit but I'll have to ask.  I know there are green things closer than 3 feet on the sides of ours. generator installation limits

 We had lucked out with the "green things" bit for a number of years, but when we had a multi-hour stretch of the generator running (July?), it wiped out all of the iris bed next to the exhaust vent. They are showing some green again, so I will be digging them up and replanting them well away from it. I guess I'll just put some river stones there, or something impervious to blasts of hot air.


cody said:

 We had lucked out with the "green things" bit for a number of years, but when we had a multi-hour stretch of the generator running (July?), it wiped out all of the iris bed next to the exhaust vent. They are showing some green again, so I will be digging them up and replanting them well away from it. I guess I'll just put some river stones there, or something impervious to blasts of hot air.

 I have wondered about putting something that is about a foot tall around it to deflect hot air away from the lower parts of the plants. That would still allow airflow for the engine, not much help for the sound. All that said, the real reason we got the generator has proven true.  We bought it to protect the neighborhood from any power outages. 


bikefixed said:

 I have wondered about putting something that is about a foot tall around it to deflect hot air away from the lower parts of the plants. That would still allow airflow for the engine, not much help for the sound. All that said, the real reason we got the generator has proven true.  We bought it to protect the neighborhood from any power outages. 

 If it works, please let us know. When I asked the service guy, he said that there had to be free airflow to prevent the temps inside the generator from getting to high when it ran for a prolonged period of time. He didn't think there was anything I could do that would muffle the sound without having an adverse effect on the generator. I wonder what hospitals, or other institutions with really large generators, do to deal with the sound issue....


cody said:

 If it works, please let us know. When I asked the service guy, he said that there had to be free airflow to prevent the temps inside the generator from getting to high when it ran for a prolonged period of time. He didn't think there was anything I could do that would muffle the sound without having an adverse effect on the generator. I wonder what hospitals, or other institutions with really large generators, do to deal with the sound issue....

 I've considered something like this product. I would make separate panels that are removable for maintenance access. Plus, arrange them for making sound waves go around corners but allow easy air circulation. Those things are expensive though. I'd look for something less expensive to do similar.

https://acousticalsolutions.com/block-your-backyard-noise-with-a-noise-reduction-fence/


I'm no sound engineer but perhaps a design something like this could work. I'd make the walls a little higher than the generator, leave the 18"+ spacing from the genny and then do something to pretty it up a bit, like hang baskets for flowers on the outer sides or something.


That looks like a creative solution.


sprout said:

That looks like a creative solution.

Perhaps, but effective could be another thing. Cost-effective? Hmmm. Worth my time, money and effort for something that hasn't come to pass for 2 years? Ummm.

Sounds like a terrible idea. When do we start?


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