re: House generator

No matter what you do, get a soft starter for your HVAC. Micro-Air is the top brand with good customer service, but I've also seen a few new brands on the market recently. It can get your wattage requirements down to where most houses with one air conditioner can run off of a large portable generator (10,000-15,000 watts).

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transfer switch and possibly soft starts.

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This is vastly more economical. Its a minor inconvenience to have to roll the generator out and hook it up. Get a natural gas kit and you dont even have to worry about gasoline for it.

For starters you need to decide if you want a standby generator that will turn on automatically when the power cuts out ($15-20k installed) VS a portable generator hooked up to natural gas and a 50 amp plug and interlock switch to your panel which is all manual hookup when the power cuts out but easy to do ($3-6k installed depending on generator)

I ended up getting a 15kW duromax generator that will run my whole house, house already had the 50 amp plug installed so I’m all in for $3000.
4 ton AC with soft start
2 ton AC
Pool equipment
2 fridge/freezers and standup freezer. May have to toggle oven, dryer etc but haven’t had to use it for an outage other than test runs.

There’s a Facebook group “Generators: portable generators to power entire house” that has a lot of good info on it. A guy from Louisiana actually started it in the Houston area but has grown.

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Personally, I would go with Briggs and Stratton or Kohler.

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+1

Kohler. I have a 26KW air cooled. It's been like a damned talisman: not a hurricane or ice storm since I installed it.

Never considered hooking up a portable generator to the gas line. I've considered the 50 amp plug hook up.

I've done pretty much every variation.

Smaller generators with extention cords and window units. Hard pass! It was better than leaving town but constant refueling and tripping over extension cords & screwing around with window units is not fun.

I did a manual generator input with breaker panel interlock and it was definitely nice to skip the cords. Saves a bunch of time and hassle. This is the minimum I would look at. Still dealing with refueling and/or window units if you are using a smaller generator is for young/broke bucks though.

I then moved to a larger Predator 13000 tri-fuel which was large enough to run a 5 ton AC on a soft start and ran it off of NG. Couldn't use the electric oven/stove at the same time but water heaters, dryer and furnace were gas so not a big deal. You could probably live without Stove/Oven but if you have electric WH/Furnace, then you are going to want something larger than 13000 (I ithink it's like 10,500 on NG.) Not having to deal with gas cans and window ac's was very nice. After having this setup, it's my personal minimum.

I just bought a house with a Cummins Water Cooled 40KW. House is ALL electric so while 40KW is overkill, you'd need the larger air cooled units to keep up with demand. It's the first time I've had the auto-standby and it sure was nice when the power went out at Midnight. If power goes out while you are away from home, it's nice to know the food won't spoil either so while it's a luxury, there are some upsides for sure.

Liquid cooled vs air cooled... The liquid cooled runs at 1800 RPM and all you reallly hear is the radiator fan. Sounds like a big AC unit. WAY quiter than the air cooled ones. If you had to go a week without power, I'm sure it's better there as well but that isn't common. I know I wouldn't pony up for this unit out of my own pocket but I'm very happy with it.

Maybe so, but I know 2-3 contacts that was in that range the last several years. There’s also a chance that the more popular and more demand in the last 5 years has more companies installing and pricing is more competitive.

I think some depends how your set up is and how far you have to run NG lines and electric hookup to the panel.

I agree on not being home when the power cuts out could make the decision on the standby easier. It’s bitten me a couple times already.

We've had a 20kw aircooled generac for 15 yrs and have not had any issues. We have 3 units (1 runs a bonus room and in the event of an outage, we just turn the bonus room ac off). I, personally, don't see the need to go with a liquid cooled or Kohler. The Generac has much larger market share and therefore, more options when it comes to service and repair. Nobody is going to pay more for your house when it comes time to sell, just b/c you bought a Kohler. And they are definitrly not paying you double b/c you have a liquid cooled unit.