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PTO driven vs Gas engine
If you don't care about portability and you have propane or natural gas at your house a gas engine with a propane/ng conversion kit makes a lot of sense. No need to store or haul fuel and you don't have to worry about the fuel going bad or gelling in cold weather. Sure, gas engines don't last as long as diesels but how often do you have outages? We have a Gillete propane generator with a Kohler engine and have zero complaints after four years and we have LOTS of outages where we are - sometimes a couple of outages a month.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
I suppose it depends on where you live, but if you are in the boonies and use propane for cooking or heating you could have your propane company install a 1000 gallon tank. We did, and they are VERY happy to fill it. We estimate about 10 days of 24/7 runtime out of a full tank and could stretch it out a lot longer by running the generator only as needed.
For us it would be difficult to store that much diesel fuel on hand and keep it reasonably fresh since the tractor is our only diesel engine and it only uses maybe 50-100 gallons a year.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
I keep thinking about those week long outages that we get. During a major snowstorm there would be no way for us to get out and fill up a tank so on-site storage is the only way to go. Diesel has longer shelf life than gasoline, but does it have a 10-year shelf life? This was my reasoning in going with propane.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
I've always thought there were LP conversion kits for most Honda engines, but in a generator I don't know if getting the engine running on LP is enough. Maybe there would be some tweaks required to the governor as well.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
Are you sure the problem isn't with your grill? I remember reading something about a safety mechanism in our Weber BBQ manual that shuts the propane off if it has been on too long without heat. Or, maybe it's a regulator problem.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
FWIW I just went out and tested a brand new tank that I had filled a few weeks ago, and no gas is released when opening the valve while disconnected.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
Happy to corroborate your experience. I learned something too.
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PTO driven vs Gas engine
Wouldn't be worth the trouble and expense, Murf. We don't heat with oil so we'd have to retrofit an oil furnace to our existing geothermal heatpump. The payback would probably exceed my lifespan.
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Gas Generator Weather Protecti
01-24-2004, 09:32 
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