I was apprehensive about buying this generator because they don't have a network of service centers... they tell you to take it to any small engine shop near you and contact them about charges under warranty. I called their cust svc and talked with them about the need for third party verification regarding parts needed and they assured me none was required.. I could fix it myself if I wanted.. just call them and tell them what I needed and they'd send it out. That seemed fair enough. It took a little over a week to get mine and it was delivered by USF Holland freight and arrived in pristine condition.. hats off to Holland. I got the liftgate delivery and he backed that big semi right up to my garage door...took his hand truck and set the small skid it was banded to in the center of my garage.. he required no help.. I never touched it until he was gone. These come packed in a cardboard carton and the packaging is well engineered.. thick foam all sides.. top and bottom.. all loose parts.. wheel kit.. etc.. in their own little nook in the foam. It is very heavy but you can get it assembled and off the skid working alone.. I did and I'm 62 yrs old. I pulled the front until it overhung the skid about 10" and assembled the wheel kit then pivoted one side of the rear until it overhung and assembled that strut then blocked the rear strut up with a 4x4 and pulled the skid out of the way and assembled the other strut. I filled it with good synthetic blend oil and put about a gallon of gas in it. I turned the fuel valve on.. it's located a few inches to the right of the choke handle. I pulled the choke handle all the way out and tried to start it with the key... the battery was totally dead. I pulled it out and put it on the charger and stuck the battery outa my lawn tractor in it and tried to start it. It was running almost before I could let go of the key. These Powermax units all have an idle control on them so there's no speed adjustments of any kind possible and none needed. It idles very fast.. all generators do.. they have to to produce current. It ran smooth with no fluctuating noticeable in engine speed. Next I took my voltmeter and checked the output on all the current-carrying poles on all the receptacles. I got a steady 119 volts everywhere. With a target of 120 I considered this to be excellent.. my house current won't hold that. The reason I bought this big unit in the first place was I had hoped it would start and run my big window air conditioner... it is huge.. 30k btu's. I plugged the extension cord I had bought into the L14-30 240v receptacle on the generator and ran it inside the house and plugged up the conversion cord I'd made going to the 6-30 plug on the air conditioner and turned it on. It fired right up with no bogging down and I never noticed the engine on the genny pick up at all. I let it run about a half hour... let the compressor on the air conditioner cycle off and on many times and watched the voltmeter on the genny. It never moved.. engine really never picked up speed either so this generator runs that big air conditioner without any strain on it at all.. I was VERY relieved. The other things I plan to run during an outage won't even approach the surge requirements of that big air conditioner so that issue was put to rest. It turned out that the battery in mine was no good.. wouldn't hold a charge even a half hour. I called MaxTool and told them and true to their word there was no hassle.. they sent me a brand new battery and shipped it FexEx at no charge. I wondered if maybe I had been sent a generator that had been sitting in inventory a year or so but no.. the data tag on it shows a MFG date of May 2007.. I bought it in late August so I got a brand new one.. just had a bad battery. I tried the pull start several times and it always starts on one pull. I go out about once every two weeks and start it and let it run awhile to get oil thru it good.. keep a maintenance trickle charger on it all the time. I can't speak to what it will do over time but outa the box it's everything it was promised to be.. I love it so far. I almost bought a Coleman but those units got horrible reviews.. rampant with quality issues.. leaking gas all over.. horrible vibration issues.. etc.. also they have no idle control and most no electric start and are overpriced terribly. I'm glad I bought this Powermax... couldn't be happier at this point.. good luck to you.
with hardly any surge in the generator. Perfect for the backup I wanted. Used 50a 4 wire plug, 4/c #8 cord.I purchased the unit in October 2008 and had the first call to service in late January 2009 when ice and show caused wide spread, multi-day power outages. At first operation I discovered that the 50 amp receptacle on the generator was broken internally and as a result power surges were sent into the house. I quickly disconnected and an electrician discovered the broken receptacle ... totally cracked. He replaced it (in freezing ice and snow) and then everything worked fine. We went for three days with generator power. Never an problem after the intial surprise.
But the real motivation for this remark is the great customer service from Amazon. PowerMax gave me the standard, "we only replace the faulty part and you should have called us." No way was I going to freeze my family while I waited for their mail service part delivery. However, when I told this story to Amazon, they offered to totally reimburse me for the cost of the repair, parts and labor, with no hassle.
The generator worked great with long hours of continuous running. And the positive Amazon customer service attitude was the confirmation that I had purchaeed a good generator (after my repair) with superb customer service backup. John Reade, Lancaster, Ohio.I bought this item from another retailer for $150 less than Amazon. Great price for a 8,000 watt generator. This unit has a 50 amp plug, which is great. Electric start worked perfect. My only complaints are 1) the legs and battery connection are located in a very hard to reach spot. It took me perhaps 1 hour just to attach the legs and the negative battery terminal. Maybe it's just me. And 2) the handles look like they may bend or fail after a while of usage. But aside from those, the generator was packed nicely, no damage whatsoever. All parts intact and no leaks. Started instantly with the electric starter. Runs reasonably quiet, only a bit louder than my 4000 ETQ generator, which is 1/2 the size. I am looking forward to connecting this to the house via a transfer switch. I should be able to run a bit less than 1/2 the house, which will be plenty in the event of an outage.
Edited 12/2010:
I had a transfer switch installed on the house. When I went to test out the generator with the transfer switch, I noticed that the 50 amp receptacle on the generator was broken, and the plug would not connect. I called Duromax customer service (MaxTool), and was told to call another number. This number would always go to voicemail. I left 3 messages, and spoke to another person, and they just told me to leave another message. I never heard back from MaxTool. My feeling is that they knew this would require a replacement of the generator, and just did not want to deal with it. Fortunately for me, the part was only $6.00 at the local home improvement retailer, and I am relatively mechanically/electrically inclined. I dis-assembled the generator and replaced the recpetacle myself (very difficult, and risky). However, if this was a more expensive part, or something I could not fix myself, I would have just wasted $1,000. I have also noticed that the 'recharge' indicator is always lit, which does not make sense. Another faulty component. After I have fixed the receptacle, it seems to be working fine (except for the 'recharge' lamp).
If I had to buy another generator, I would not by a DuroMax. I feel that there is greater than 50% chance of a part being broken upon delivery, and if it's something critical, I don't trust MaxTool customer service to stand behind this product.We bought this last summer, after being run out of our brand new home with the New England Ice Storms December 2008.
The shipping was AMAZINGthe freight shipper hauled this thing all the way down to our house (we live on a lake), when I expected to meet him up on the main road with my trailer. This beast is HEAVY, make no bones about it, but worth all the hassle of moving it around to assemble it. The packaging is outstanding, with absolutely NO dings or mars on any part of the unit. It even comes with it's own "toolkit" of metric wrenches and multi-screwdriver. It's a cheapie kit, but I've owned motorcycles with junkier kits, so no issue.
I broke in the unit running some different power tools, and tried it out on it's 30-amp connection to power up the AC in our pop-up camper. Absolutely NO issues at all. After an oil change and some "Stabil" in the gas, it was time to wait for the next big "need". We got hit this week with a huge wind storm, which did more damage in my area than the "ice storm of 2008". In total, we've been 5 days without power.
I had the transfer switch set up in early December 0f 2009, so I was cutting it a little close, but when I flipped the whole house transfer switch over, my Wife didn't even notice we had changed power sources. It has it's limitations, but this is what we have:
What it WON'T do:
Electric Stove, Dishwasher, Clothes Dryer. I guess it MIGHT run these, if other loads were minimized, but I wanted more of the "creature" comforts all at once. I was willing to forgo the major power hogs, until the utility power came back on.
What it WILL do:
EVERYTHING else!
Other than having to eat microwave foods, it ran our well pump, fridge, 60 gallon hot water heater, forced air heater, and a humidifier, sometimes at the same time! There will be some small dimming of lights as each of the big loads switch in and out, and the Generator gets a little louder with each heavier load put on, but it ran them all in style! My Wife even snuck in a load of laundry in the washer, and I didn't notice.
At night, where minimal power is used, it quiets down more than any of my neighbor's units, which are all contractor-quality units, with racous "industrial" motors. Having it just outside my bedroom area, I could barely hear it over the air of the forced-air heater when it ran. It ran quieter than my neighbor's unit, 4 houses awayand that had a 16 HP Briggs & Stratton motor. Same size motor, but at least 1/2 (or less) the noise. The ONLY quirk we found is that it seems to be incompatible with digital clocksI know it's SUPPOSED to be a 60-hz unit, but when I scoped the output, it's only putting out about 56 hz. For most any component, it's no big deal. My laptop didn't care a bit about the difference, nor did my TV's or Stereo. It's just the clocks that ran slow. I'm looking into what can be done, if anything, to adjust this, but I don't think it really matters.
I read a comment where someone wasn't happy with fuel consumption, but my experience over these last 5 days have averaged only 5-6 gallons of gas in a 12 hour period, and that was with high nighttime usage, with several baths, and temperatures in the 20's (using the house heater pretty often). I'd fill it up to the top around 8 p.m., and when I re-filled it in the morning around 9 a.m., it would take exactly 5 gallons to top off. Daytime consumption, when it was just me at home sleeping, was like 3 gallons in a 9 hour period.
Maybe different units consume gas at different rates, but I seriously beat the snot out of this thing (in my opinion), and it didn't even quiver. Once I had the house wired up, I just rolled it outside, and after showing once, my Wife and Daughter could start it themselves with NO issues. I may add some swivel-wheels in the front, instead of the "feet" that came with it, as it's a little tough to horse aroundespecially in the mud. On dry land, my wife wouldn't be able to lift the footed end by herself, so I need to do something to make it more "portable" than it already is. Not an issue with the machine, just needing to modify it's ergonomics for our use.
This unit is now $200 more than when I bought it in 2009, but I'd buy it again, for today's pricein a HEARTBEAT. It's STILL the best value out there. I'm going home tonight (power is back on) and rolling it into the garage for a well-deserved bath, oil change and some wax for the shiny finish. This week, it became a member of the family. It just ran for over 120 hours straight, minus fill-ups, and I'm a happy camper.
By the way, this unit comes with every possible electrical connection you could want, as well as the plugs for each. It also has connections (and a nice little wire bundle connector with alligator clips) to charge 12 volt batteries WHILE you're running the rest of the house. This comes in handy, if you are in an all-out "outage", and car batteries become a problem for your household. In brutal winter months, car batteries take a beating too! Last summer I bought a sheet of blue matching neoprene on E-Bay (wet suit material) to make a "rain flap" for the electrical connections, and I'm glad I did. There's a LOT of different electrical connectors hanging out there on the panel, and we got BEAT with sideways, blowing rain. It looks nice, it's cheap, and it keeps things from getting shorted out.
While it's weak in some details (faint, hard-to-read manual, and the fact that its a chinese model) it comes with more features and options than you could ask for, at a very reasonable price.
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