When I bought the replacement generator a couple of years ago I never knew what lay ahead and how much work it was going to be expected to do. The old one we had before we were told was "kaput" and why we bought this one. Little did we know the repairman was lying and within a few weeks the guys at work managed to get it going again. This broken generator was used by the office until they bought a much bigger one and now it is our back up.
2023 saw 332 days of load shedding with a combined number of hours beating the previous 8 years combined.
When you think of a generator you think of it as a back up energy supply for the just in case moments. Those moments in South Africa are daily and what started out as possibly 2 hours daily has been as bad as 14 hours. If I had to guess over the last few years this generator has worked for longer than 2000 hours and is now looking worse for wear. I suppose these are minor problems concerned to what other places are experiencing around the world and at least we can work around them still.
The generator does not supply enough power to run every appliance and the exclusions include microwave, oven, geyser/boiler, swimming pool pump, air conditioning, kettle, washing machine, dish washer. As you can see by the list a generator only covers the basics unless you by a much bigger unit.
From the one side everything looks hunky dory, but it tells a different story from this side.
I have a couple of fire extinguishers on hand just in case as I don't trust the set up entirely. The fuel is kept in a different area because that would be asking for even more trouble.
The puddle of oil after every longer use is becoming more prominent and the fear is this will blow up if not attended to very soon. The problem is the window for the service has to be done the same day and not like the 10 - 14 days we are currently being told when phoning around making a booking. Being without the back up power supply is just not an option even though we have the red one as cover. The red one is smaller and just does the real basics with lights, internet and television and a few plugs excluding the fridges and freezers.
A solar installation will solve this but that will have to wait until we are back from our trip to the UK planned for the end of March. This is not about financial as the solar is affordable and is more about timing and making sure the kit purchased covers the household needs and then some. Going off the grid for myself means exactly that never returning to the power grid ever again even if we have overcast days and will over spec making sure this is possible.
The trick for now is to find a reliable trustworthy generator repair specialist and not a fly by night operator of which there are many. The decent ones are booked up and I have reached out to my network to find someone. I had someone lined up to come and service the generator at home but he has backed out saying he cannot offer any type of warranty on his work. The good part was he was at least honest unlike most people.
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