[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. So is most everybody doing on those standbys, are they pretty much, is natural gas pretty much the most common way to go? It's the easiest. When you can

[00:00:15] Jared Grifo: get it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you already have it, I mean, there's no reason to do any other fuel. Um, the, the upside of propane is, uh, that you actually, you get, uh, they're rated higher if you will.

[00:00:28] Jared Grifo: So there's, there's more energy in propane. So you'll see a lot of these generators are actually rated at their propane rating. So let's take a generac 22 KW, 22 KW on, on propane 19 and a half on that. Ah, there we go. Okay. So, um, and that's not just, I shouldn't just say generac. It's That's just how everybody comes with the territory.

[00:00:51] Jared Grifo: You have less horsepower. You're in, you need horsepower to turn it back. Right. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, but we've got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome

[00:01:05] Eric Goranson: to the round the house show. This is where we talk everything about your home every single week.

[00:01:11] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us. This is going to be a powerful episode today. We got Jared Griffo from Power Equipment Direct. Let's talk power today, my friend. Welcome to

[00:01:22] Jared Grifo: Around the House. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:01:25] Eric Goranson: That's going to be a lot of fun, man. And you know, it's, it's interesting and I'm a West coast guy.

[00:01:30] Eric Goranson: So we are now starting to deal with power generation on a whole new level out here for backup power, because, you know, I'm in the Pacific Northwest and everybody'd go, ah, California, you're getting your power shut off. Uh, we're all good. Until last winter, when I saw our local power company, which are cool people, I'm not saying anything bad about them, but I saw them do a little test thing up on Mount hood where they shut it down before a windstorm.

[00:01:55] Eric Goranson: And I went, all right, guys, come into a city near you. This is going to be coming. And sure enough, we're [00:02:00] starting to see that when the red flag conditions go, you could be have. You could be shut down for two or three days and now it's a whole different ball game.

[00:02:07] Jared Grifo: Definitely. Yeah. We've definitely seen an uptick from, uh, the West coast, you know, with the, uh, not to name names, but the power companies just randomly shutting things down because of, you know, the wind blew a little too much or it's a little hot outside.

[00:02:21] Jared Grifo: And,

[00:02:22] Eric Goranson: you know, and I, and I get it from their point of view and I, I relate to their point of view because they're out there doing the best they can, but you get people. Firing off lawsuits because of power caused a fire and they're like, Whoa, okay. It's just like everything else with insurance companies. I see them going, okay, how are we going to limit our liability and do that?

[00:02:42] Eric Goranson: If we didn't have crazy people soon, then we wouldn't have that stuff going on. I think they'd want to sell me power.

[00:02:47] Jared Grifo: Yeah, I think it's kind of a, uh, you know, uh, just trying to get back at the people for suing them, like, Hey, we're just going to shut off your power now. And that's how we'll solve this issue.

[00:02:58] Jared Grifo: Yep. I

[00:02:59] Eric Goranson: mean, it [00:03:00] does solve it, but a lot of us hanging too. So definitely, well, you guys have, I wanted to get you guys on here. Cause you know, we've brought on, you know, each company on before in the past, but you guys have such a great selection. Of generators and you go across the country, which I love, you know, we've got, we're in the Pacific Northwest here on the radio, but we're out across the U S on the radio.

[00:03:24] Eric Goranson: And then, of course, the podcast, we go internationally. So we got a lot of people. I don't want to talk about my local store down the street because 99 percent of you guys out there, you know, that ain't going to help me a

[00:03:33] Jared Grifo: bit. Yeah, no, we, uh, we can pretty much touch everybody across the U S all 48 States we ship to and not Alaska or Hawaii.

[00:03:42] Jared Grifo: I mean, really need it. We can get you out there, you know, with a volcano going off. But yeah, I mean, the, the, the grid's pretty rough. I mean, the, the Northeast is a, is a big market. Um, you know, it's a very old grid. Um, obviously, you know, Florida, Texas, where you [00:04:00] get the weather based outages and things like that.

[00:04:03] Jared Grifo: Um, you know, after. Texas saw that huge freeze. It was nonstop from Texas as far as business goes. I wasn't selling it anywhere else. Like you wanted a generator, sorry. It went to Texas already, but yeah, and then West coast, you know, uh, with all these, you know, power outages and, you know, just the way that the grid is in general, uh, it's, it's becoming more of a necessity rather than a want.

[00:04:26] Jared Grifo: Well, yeah. And

[00:04:27] Eric Goranson: I'll, I'll tell you what my setup is at home, cause we haven't talked about this before the show, but I've got a, like a. Energizer, single gas generator. It's, you know, it's a, I got that a few years ago, they sent it out to me to test. And then I've got, you know, the, um, you know, manual transfer switch at the house, which it does great.

[00:04:44] Eric Goranson: Cause I mean, it, my house is led. It's pretty efficient. I can run most of the house off it. Cause I think it's like a 10. 5 KW or whatever it is on that thing. So it's big. However, the problem is, is when I had power outage because of an ice storm for five days, I [00:05:00] think even though the thing's energy efficient, I used like 40 gallons of gas in that thing, which I don't keep 40 gallons of gas around the house.

[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: So I was like, all right, I'm going to siphon it out of the back tank of my truck. I didn't want to have to drive for an hour to go get gas and finally ended up doing that. But yeah, now I'm going, okay, I'm going to have to put a trifle in my, in my life one day or just go automatic and, and, uh, and do it that way.

[00:05:23] Eric Goranson: But. That's one of the issues when you just have that gas generator is that it's good for short times, but man, that was starting to get hassle trying to find gas. Yeah. Generators

[00:05:33] Jared Grifo: primarily don't do a great job of being fuel efficient, whether it's gasoline or even the standby generators, you know, if you're looking at like propane on average, those things are burning like two and a half gallons per hour at like half load.

[00:05:49] Jared Grifo: Yeah. So, I mean. Even with a big propane tank, you really got to calculate out how long of an outage you're planning on having, you know, it's out for a week, two days, three days, [00:06:00] you know, it's a lot of propane and you know, prices of fuels in general are just not great no matter which way you cut it. So,

[00:06:06] Eric Goranson: yeah, and I can't go solar because I got trees.

[00:06:08] Eric Goranson: So it's pretty much I'm, I'm, I'm forced to go look at natural gas probably is how I'm going to have to do it on this. Yeah.

[00:06:16] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Definitely. Ideal. Natural gas. If you have it, you know, and that's, that's the other problem. Not everybody has that available, which that stinks if you have, you know, an all electric home, because then you're driving up the cost of the generator then, you know, I got to run everything.

[00:06:30] Jared Grifo: It's everything's electric. So

[00:06:34] Eric Goranson: absolutely. Well, you guys, what I love is you guys has different brands and you guys have, you know, Kind of, where do you guys start out? I know you do a lot of, you've done a lot of sales and consulting with these guys for a number of years and you're one of their experts, but, uh, where, where do your generators kind of start out?

[00:06:50] Eric Goranson: What do you guys, you know, what's some of your favorite stuff over there? I mean, it really

[00:06:53] Jared Grifo: just depends on the customer, you know, The standbys are definitely the bread and butter, you know, they're [00:07:00] great. It's really nice. It's convenient, but that always doesn't fit into everybody's budget. Right. And what a lot of people don't really see with those is, you know, it's a 6, 000 generator and then another 6, 000 to install it, you know, by a professional.

[00:07:17] Jared Grifo: So, you know, sometimes the portables just the way you have to go, but those have the limitation. Um, You know, you're not going to do any real HVAC or anything with a portable generator. And, you know, if I'm in Florida, I may want to run my HVAC. It's again, it's a necessity, not a want. Um, but yeah, I mean, starting, you know, portable generators, there's, there's some great units out there.

[00:07:41] Jared Grifo: They're really basic. I know, like you said, you have a manual switch. It really does a lot for you. Um, and a lot of people can just get by with that. You know, on the flip side of that, some people just don't have the means of, of, you know, hooking it up or they want to have that sense of security where maybe it's a lake house [00:08:00] and I'm not going to be there.

[00:08:01] Jared Grifo: So this generator will kick on and do its thing and I don't have to worry about it. And, you know, they've got. Fun stuff like, you know, wifi connectivity and it'll tell you if it turns on. So, you know, kind of moving into the 21st century with, with all that and they're getting a lot smarter and a lot better at what they do.

[00:08:17] Jared Grifo: Yeah,

[00:08:17] Eric Goranson: I mean, that, and that's my thing. I mean, I have no problem, you know, I've got a battery powered garage door opener, so it'll back up on that. So I have no problem going over, open the garage door, the power out, dragging the generator on outside, plug in the cord into the side of the house where I got it and doing that.

[00:08:32] Eric Goranson: But. If I'm not home and I got to have my wife do that, I just don't want to put her through that. Exactly. So that's always my fear. It's like, I don't want you to carry that, you know, roll that, you know, 190 pound generator out there and, and put that on you in the dark, you know, that's just not that she couldn't do it.

[00:08:49] Eric Goranson: I just don't want to make her do it if she had to. Well,

[00:08:51] Jared Grifo: you know, you've got that side of it. And I mean, like I was saying. Florida, there is a bit of older people down there. They, they don't want to be pulling a cord. [00:09:00] You know, if I'm 80, 90 years old, not saying they're not capable, but you know, it's an ease, it's a convenience.

[00:09:06] Jared Grifo: Maybe just have it turn on by itself, you know, it's

[00:09:10] Eric Goranson: really the way to go. But for the guys out there that, you know, for the homeowners to go, man, I lose power every couple of years. I just want to have something small. I just want to keep the food going, you know, and just keep it simple. What do you recommend?

[00:09:23] Eric Goranson: And, uh, I mean, you guys have a lot of different. Brands, which I love. I mean, you guys go from like generac to Westinghouse to champion to a lot of the different, you know, even the Cummins ones, which are really cool. Those coming on own one and Honda and all the, all the big brands. Yeah. Where do people start out with kind of what, what would you recommend if, okay.

[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: I can't spend 12, 000 bucks. Yeah. You know, but I want to get something that's affordable and I never send them down to the home center or one of the import stores because who knows what you're going to get.

[00:09:53] Jared Grifo: Exactly. I mean, starting out, I really, to simplify it, if you just want to run your home, [00:10:00] 8, 000 watts will cover pretty much most of everybody.

[00:10:02] Jared Grifo: If you have an all electric home, move up to 10, 12, 000. And the reason you go that route is due to the outlets on them. There's NEMA outlets, so they're all standardized, you know, 8, 000 watts is, you know, 33 amps. It'll have a 30 amp outlet on it, so I can utilize all that power out of that generator. If I need more, 12, 000 watts is 50 amps as a 50 amp outlet.

[00:10:26] Jared Grifo: I can utilize all that power. So, I mean, just to make it simple, you know, 8, 000 watts, if you're basic, just your necessities around the house, if you want more, move up to, you know, 10, 12, 000. And that'll cover your house. And there's just a plethora of generators out there that, and you'll see most of them in that, that range due to that fact.

[00:10:47] Jared Grifo: Yeah. So,

[00:10:48] Eric Goranson: and, and the other thing too, is that, you know, you and I haven't talked about this, but it's just one of the things that I'm always concerned about, man, is okay. And then now people have that. F 1 50 or the, or the, uh, you know, the new, [00:11:00] the new truck car that they got to charge. Right. So all of a sudden you've got, okay, cool.

[00:11:06] Eric Goranson: I don't have any power at the house, but I was really planning on plugging my car in tonight and, uh, it's, I don't have enough charge to get up to the supercharger or whatever to, you know, that's out of my area to get it there. Now you're stuck trying to depend on your generator to, uh, put something in it.

[00:11:21] Eric Goranson: So you got some quote unquote fuel to get there. Yeah.

[00:11:24] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Electric cars have definitely been giving me a headache. It's nothing wrong with them. The fact of it is, uh, you know, if you want to use those chargers that are already built into your house, everybody has something different. Right. They might draw a little bit different power here, different power there.

[00:11:41] Jared Grifo: And so, you know, sizing or helping my customers size to that. It's like, well, what do you have? And they don't know, you know, unfortunately, I don't expect them to, you know, they had somebody installed to their house, which they should, you know, you need a professional. And so, you know, whether it's a, you know, Tesla or a Ford or this and that, they're all going to vary.

[00:11:59] Jared Grifo: [00:12:00] Um, What people can do, though, is a lot of those cars do have just regular electrical outlet type plugs. It takes a lot longer, but it can, you know, if you're doing it overnight, you can at least plug right into a portable and, you know, get yourself. Back to a supercharger or something. Exactly, exactly.

[00:12:16] Eric Goranson: Um, well, you're so right about the Chargers though, man.

[00:12:18] Eric Goranson: 'cause you can get those. It's like, all right, it's, it's 30 amps. But my buddy just bought a brand new, uh, one of the F one 50 lightings, which in theory can back charge into the house. And he bought that charger that goes with it. That's a 70 amp charger. It's

[00:12:34] Jared Grifo: huge.

[00:12:35] Eric Goranson: So you're not going to just hook that up to your portable to do that, you know, you got a problem then.

[00:12:41] Eric Goranson: So now you're grabbing out your, you know, level two charger or something like you said that to put that in there, but you're not hooking that up to a portable generator very easily.

[00:12:48] Jared Grifo: No, no. The other issue that we see with those, uh, those lightenings now they have a generator built into them. So now they can be used actually to use on your house.

[00:12:59] Jared Grifo: [00:13:00] Sure. There comes an issue with, um, not to go over people's head, but GFCI stuff. Yeah! So, you have bonded neutrals and this and that, and that actually takes a specific transfer switch that breaks the neutral, otherwise it will trip the breaker every time you go to plug it in. And we see that with a lot of professional generators out there because OSHA regulates, it has to have GFCI across the entire, uh, front panel hadn't thought of that.

[00:13:28] Jared Grifo: Yeah. So, you know, you go to plug it in GFCI doesn't get the power back to it. It says, Hey, it's somebody who's getting electrocuted. Let's trip up GFCI. So there are special switches for that. Okay. That we do sell, but yeah, that's been kind of a headache because. I have a lot of people out about that. Yeah.

[00:13:46] Jared Grifo: I got the art

[00:13:46] Eric Goranson: fall breakers and everything else. And so you can be really messing with a lot of different stuff with all the new stuff. Oh, dude. I hadn't even thought about that. Great culture. And yeah, I can see where that's giving you a headache. Cause that's yeah. Cause all of a sudden you've got a whole [00:14:00] different neutral situation going on and it's, uh, oh, yeah.

[00:14:04] Eric Goranson: Great point.

[00:14:05] Jared Grifo: Great point. And it's all newer stuff. I mean, how long does. Ford's been out, I don't, I don't know, a couple years now. A year? Uh, a year

[00:14:12] Eric Goranson: now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they, I saw one almost a year ago, so, yeah. I mean, that's when they were first bringing it out, so, but uh, yeah, I mean, and yeah, that's gonna be a problem.

[00:14:22] Eric Goranson: And then of course, you're planning on with the Ford, and I love the thing, don't get me wrong, it's a super cool truck. Yeah. I wouldn't mind having one in my driveway. But you're also assuming that you pulled it home and it was fully charged. If you came home going, ah, man, I've been all over the place today.

[00:14:37] Eric Goranson: I got to get that thing. Oh, there goes the power.

[00:14:40] Jared Grifo: Yeah. It's a good job site thing, you know, running new tools, this and that. That's awesome. But for backfeeding your home in a pinch, in a pinch, I don't know if I'd set it up for that, but.

[00:14:55] Eric Goranson: Yeah, well, I've heard, you know, here's the other thing I heard from people in the RV world [00:15:00] out there.

[00:15:00] Eric Goranson: The RV campsites are having a problem now with people going out camping because they're bringing the trucks out there. Well, they didn't set the electricity up in the campsites to charge electric vehicles. So they're taking these maybe 20 amp setups and plugging in 30 chargers and either burning stuff up or, or kicking breakers off.

[00:15:22] Eric Goranson: And, uh, there's been a lot of issues talking to people in the RV world that are taking out there, you know, that are towing around the Tesla, or they got it, you know, towing the electric vehicle around that they go plug it in at the campsite and it's taking the whole campsite down.

[00:15:36] Jared Grifo: No, my gosh. Yeah. I haven't, uh, I deal a lot with, uh, we do onboard RV generators, the, uh, come and own in ones and those just, uh, they got hit pretty hard with COVID and everything and production delays.

[00:15:49] Jared Grifo: I mean, people were buying RVs with no generator on them that need a generator and they're waiting years for those to come out. But, uh, yeah, I couldn't imagine that. I mean, I, I never [00:16:00] thought that. You know, having to charge your vehicle is going to take down a whole grid and people are trying to enjoy their, their weekend.

[00:16:06] Jared Grifo: So

[00:16:07] Eric Goranson: exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's wild. So how are you guys doing on, on inventory and stuff too? I just want to ask that question. Cause I know we've had hurricanes now we had COVID we've had all the different, you know, I know everybody's here tired of hearing about the supply chain issues, but they were real.

[00:16:24] Eric Goranson: You guys have been doing pretty good on getting stuff back in

[00:16:25] Jared Grifo: stock. Surprisingly, yeah, I mean, uh, it seems like most of the major brands out there, you know, we, we, we sell everything we sell, or at least for standbys, Generac, Kohler, Briggs, Cummins, you know, the, the big major brands. And they're all doing actually pretty well on, you know, the, they're more popular items.

[00:16:43] Jared Grifo: Uh, I would say. Some of the bigger units, you know, when you get into the more of the commercial, those are taking a little bit longer to get out. Um, there's EPA restrictions, things like that, that they're running into on top of the production delays. So, um, yeah, [00:17:00] sorry, California. Yeah. Yeah. But that's actually one of them.

[00:17:04] Jared Grifo: We do have specific generators that have to ship into California. Um, they have to have like catalytic converters on them. And this is for. Even propane and natural gas. Oh, so

[00:17:16] Eric Goranson: brutal, brutal. Yeah, I could see where that's an issue. And of course, so you're building special ones for California. They're buying them up because of the power group issues they have down there.

[00:17:27] Eric Goranson: Okay. Yeah, I get it. What's the, what's the most common size of let's jump over into standbys a little bit because I know people see him, but I don't think they really understand how that all works. I mean, they're a great unit that you can slam in there, you know, next to your house, but you got to sit there.

[00:17:43] Eric Goranson: Like you said, you got to put a concrete pad in. Now you got to hook in, you know, natural gas or whatever fuel source you're going to be using and then hook it into your service and stuff. So yeah, you can spend starting about what, six grand on a unit, and then you probably double that for install.

[00:17:59] Jared Grifo: [00:18:00] Yeah.

[00:18:00] Jared Grifo: On average, it's, uh, you know, you can get into some of the smaller units if you're just trying to get by with, you know, again, lights, refrigerators, things like that, you know, maybe three or four grand, but generally, you know, we're Americans, we want the biggest and the baddest out there.

[00:18:18] Eric Goranson: I mean, you'll be as charged.

[00:18:20] Eric Goranson: I mean, I'm, I'm the same way. If I'm going to go spend six or eight grand on one, I'm going to pay 10 and have it do everything. Right. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, You're kind of, while you're at it, it's, you've already made the decision to do it. I, I just couldn't see going in and going, well, I'm gonna get this, this, this, and no man, just have it.

[00:18:36] Eric Goranson: So, you know, you're watching the game and the game's still on, you know? Yeah. Just, you don't wanna have to mess with that at that point. That's the whole ro that's the whole reason of getting that right. I mean, it's true. It's the power, everything. So, yeah.

[00:18:48] Jared Grifo: I mean, the average customer is probably buying something in the 20,000 to 20.

[00:18:53] Jared Grifo: For 26, 000 Watts. Yeah. Right around there. That's, that's pretty much where we stay. Um, [00:19:00] again, lower wattages, there's nothing wrong with them. It's just, you know, and when you're at, you know, 24, 000 Watts, you're talking, that's a hundred amps. That's if you have a 200 amp panel, you're feeding half of everything.

[00:19:11] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Never getting that. So you're feeding half the panel all at the same time. But the biggest reason for people going that large, honestly, is, uh, HVAC. Yeah. So. A lot of the generators are rated at what tonnage AC unit they can actually run. Nice. So, you know, an example, 14 ton or a 14 KW generator can run a three ton AC unit.

[00:19:34] Jared Grifo: Now, you know, 18 older for so on and so forth. So when we are dealing with, you know, again, Texas and Florida, which everything's bigger in Texas anyways, but, uh, but you know, they got two, two, five ton air conditioners and the generators need to compensate for that startup surge. You know, of a five ton, even with the very efficient stuff out there now with HVAC, you're still talking, you know, maybe surging [00:20:00] to a hundred, 120 amps instantaneously.

[00:20:03] Jared Grifo: Wow.

[00:20:03] Eric Goranson: So I hadn't thought about the surge. Cause yeah, like, like my AC unit, I just put a brand new, uh, uh, one end that's variable speed and everything, but that thing, you know, it's, everything's all digital motors and stuff on it, but still that thing is still using a 30 amp breaker. The AC side of things, you know, the furnace side as far as, as far as gas, but yeah, hadn't thought about it.

[00:20:23] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That could be more than 30 amps just in the startup phase on

[00:20:26] Jared Grifo: something like that. Yeah. We, we kind of take that for granted with regular power because it's pretty much unlimited, you know, it starts up, we don't care, you know, maybe the lights dim a little bit when my AC fires up, you know, the, the grid doesn't really care, but the generators do.

[00:20:42] Jared Grifo: Right. They have to be able to produce that power to actually start it up. So, uh, that, that's a big reason for going that big. And like you said, why not just have it do everything? I

[00:20:52] Eric Goranson: thought I had on mine. I put the, you know, I went from a gas water heater to electric, but I went to the heat pump water heater, which is great.

[00:20:58] Eric Goranson: Cause if I keep it, I [00:21:00] always keep it on the heat pump side. That thing only draw it's an 80 gallon tank. It only draws, um, 500 Watts. Oh, wow. And it's heating. So. That's awesome. Right? Yeah. You know, like 500 light bulbs. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm not, not doing too much of that. So I can be running the, the, the refrigerators, the water heater and stuff and still not be, you know, not be pulling too much on it.

[00:21:24] Eric Goranson: And with led lights, they're sure helping

[00:21:26] Jared Grifo: as well. Yeah, no, that's, that's actually awesome to have that low of consumption. Cause I've dealt with some people that have, you know, 60, 80 amp breakers on their electric hot water heater. And it's like, I need to sign you a pretty big generator.

[00:21:40] Eric Goranson: You're almost better to go buy a convert over to the water heater.

[00:21:43] Eric Goranson: Cause it's cheaper than having to double the size of your generator. Cause you can buy a, you know, 1, 500 heat pump water heater that pays for itself pretty quick. Cause you're also saving every day on doing the water and then you have to put less. On the generator side. So

[00:21:57] Jared Grifo: absolutely. That makes sense. [00:22:00] Um, what are those the on demand water heaters?

[00:22:02] Jared Grifo: Those are great too. Yeah,

[00:22:04] Eric Goranson: well, the electric, they're great. The electric ones, I'm sure are a headache for you guys that the electric on demand ones, because all of a sudden those are pulling 70. It's 70, you know, amps on that thing. Cause those things are not efficient. Just the coil.

[00:22:18] Jared Grifo: Yeah. The coils on solid state coil.

[00:22:20] Jared Grifo: Just pull up tons of power. Yeah,

[00:22:23] Eric Goranson: I get it. I get it. So how do you size up those, you know, like the, for instance, like the generics, I mean, that's a, uh, obviously a big brand name out there. There's a lot of different ones out there as far as the standbys, but eight generic Kohler, whatever. How do you size those up?

[00:22:39] Eric Goranson: Do you just kind of start working on, on the. How big a panel it is. And then kind of based on the, the AC tonnage as well.

[00:22:48] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much the get go. I mean, I've been doing it long enough where honestly, I just tell people what they need, but we do have, um, so every manufacturer has their own sizing calculator.

[00:22:59] Jared Grifo: You can actually [00:23:00] go down and it'll kind of just spit out a list of generators. We actually have one on our site that works great and it actually will. We, we try to oversize about 20 percent gives the generator a little breathing room. So, you know, if you are using it towards the max, you know, you're not really, you know, working it very hard, but I mean, the, the sizing calculators work fantastic.

[00:23:21] Jared Grifo: They're going to give you a good rough estimate of, you know, what's required. Um, that's one route, obviously calling us and asking us, we'll help you out. Um, otherwise, you know, one of the best ways. Because obviously you're going to need a installer anyways, would be to have somebody come out and do a load calculation.

[00:23:39] Jared Grifo: Um, a lot of places, you know, even I've dealt with it, even in California, they require a load calculation to be done before install anyways. Oh, cool. Make sure that we're actually meeting the needs of, of that home. So smart. Yeah. But it, it can cause issues. I mean, [00:24:00] because you're not, you know, you and I know we're never drawing 200 amps off a 200 amp panel.

[00:24:05] Jared Grifo: If

[00:24:06] Eric Goranson: you're undersized on the panel, to be honest, I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're loading that

[00:24:11] Jared Grifo: thing up. Yeah. Yeah. And your electric bill would be insane. Yeah. So. You know, the average person is probably actually drawing anywhere between amps throughout the day, you know, when the HVAC kicks on, maybe a little bit more, but.

[00:24:27] Jared Grifo: You know, it's, if you get something in the hundred amp range, cover half of your panel, usually it's going to be perfectly fine. You don't have to worry about much unless you have a gigantic home or, you know, a 400 amp panels split services, it starts to get a little messy, which we do deal with that. We actually have switches.

[00:24:47] Jared Grifo: We have transfer switches that are designed for split service. Oh, cool. It's like two switches in one and things. So. Um, there's all these different ways, you know, going about it. I would say, you know, if you're just getting started, try out one of the calculators or [00:25:00] give a call and then, you know, go through a professional too.

[00:25:03] Jared Grifo: Your code may need it.

[00:25:07] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. So when you're shopping for these things out there, of course, you know, the wifi stuff is to me, super important. Cause I'm a tech guy, but you see stuff like, you know, they've got the AC shedding or load shedding, you know, that kind of stuff. What does that mean when people are out there?

[00:25:23] Eric Goranson: Kind of doing their due diligence on, on just kind of looking around, thinking about what they want to get. So AC

[00:25:29] Jared Grifo: shedding is probably the most confusing thing for my customers, but it's actually probably the easiest thing to explain. So basically what it does is it allows the generator to automatically shut down a particular circuit.

[00:25:45] Jared Grifo: Let's say, let's say I have a hot tub, right? I really don't care that my hot tubs on, but that thing's on a 50 amp breaker. And you know, it's going to just draw half of the power of my generator all the time. You can use the load [00:26:00] shedding to actually either shut it down, you know, if it's going to overload the system, or you can actually completely lock out.

[00:26:08] Jared Grifo: A particular item, uh, coming on, um, which is, it's super cool because now we're making that, you know, a smaller generator seem bigger. It can do a lot more for my house because I don't have to compensate for all these other, you know, weird nuances. Um,

[00:26:24] Eric Goranson: that's great for hot tubs and pools and things like that, that you're like, I'm not worried about it today.

[00:26:29] Eric Goranson: It's summertime. If that thing doesn't kick on today, it's not the end of the world. And I guess it's different if you got a pool and you're trying to keep the water moving for freezing or something, but you can also deal with that, you know, individually as well. Seasonally.

[00:26:42] Jared Grifo: Well, the, one of the great uses for it is, uh, if you have multiple AC units.

[00:26:46] Jared Grifo: So if I've got two or three AC units, I don't want them all trying to come on at the same time. Again, we kind of talked about that surge, so it can actually manage them in a sequence. So it'll turn on one. If it has enough power, it'll turn on [00:27:00] another, or, you know, maybe I'm. Baking a cake and doing laundry and all this and that, and they won't come on until all those other items shut off.

[00:27:07] Jared Grifo: So it's just a simpler way of not having to load manage yourself, you know, go and shut off breaking breakers.

[00:27:15] Eric Goranson: And you're assuming that you're there to do that, right? You know, is that typically done through the app then is that usually how the, the most common way to do that, or is that through when you set that load shedding up, is that different kind of between each.

[00:27:28] Eric Goranson: Each manufacturer, so

[00:27:30] Jared Grifo: it depends on the manufacturer, but, um, a lot of it is just set it and forget it, which is what a lot of people want. Um, you'll, you'll get what they call like a, uh, management module. And that will actually tie into a specific breaker. A lot of them are wireless. So they're not actually using, uh, it's actually pretty cool how they do it.

[00:27:49] Jared Grifo: They're not actually using like wifi or anything. They send a signal over the neutral wire of the home. So it knows that the generator's on.

[00:27:57] Eric Goranson: Everything's wired. So yeah, of course.

[00:27:59] Jared Grifo: Yeah. [00:28:00] But I guess to bring it, bring it back, they can only be used on two 40 volt items. Oh, yeah, because of that, that

[00:28:07] Eric Goranson: makes sense is you got to have that neutral in the, in the ground and the, everything else in there with the, with the, with the 2 hots.

[00:28:14] Eric Goranson: So, yeah, coming in. So that makes sense. Okay. Yeah,

[00:28:16] Jared Grifo: but, uh, and then the coolest use that I've found for it, and especially in your side of the country, uh, for solar, because people have solar that'll back feed the grid and it'll go through like an inverter. And through like a, let's say a 30 amp breaker.

[00:28:32] Jared Grifo: Well, if the generator turns on, the inverter says, Hey, we got power back. And now it starts back to the generator, which is a no, no. Yeah. So what we do is we put one of those on that breaker. It locks out power from going to that. Inverter, and then the generator shuts down, unlocks that module and allows it to back that

[00:28:52] Eric Goranson: smart because yeah, I hadn't thought about that with solar because all of a sudden it comes on generative is like, whoo, we're done.

[00:28:58] Eric Goranson: Yeah, and the [00:29:00] solar is not bringing enough to power the house because it's only kicking a little bit out. Ah. And they thought everything on that. I love it. I love it. So is most everybody doing on those standbys? Are they pretty much is natural gas pretty much the most common way to go? It's

[00:29:15] Jared Grifo: the easiest when you can get it.

[00:29:16] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you already have it, I mean, there's no reason to do any other fuel. Um, the, the upside of propane is, uh, that you actually do get. Um, they're rated higher, if you will. So there's, there's more energy and propane, so you'll see a lot of these generators are actually rated at their propane rating.

[00:29:39] Jared Grifo: So let's take a generac 22 KW, 22 KW on, on propane, 19 and a half on natural. Ah, there we go. Okay. So, um, and that's not just, I shouldn't just say generac. That's across the board. It just comes with the territory. You have less horsepower, you're in, you need horsepower to turn a magnet. Right. Yep.

[00:29:58] Eric Goranson: So, [00:30:00] so it's like when you're, when you got a car that's flux fuel and you go use the E85, all of a sudden it's like, Hey, that's cool.

[00:30:06] Eric Goranson: It's cheaper, but that also cuts down your power by 20%, you know?

[00:30:11] Jared Grifo: Yeah, it cuts down your power. And then it also like drains your fuel tank. Cause it takes two times the amount.

[00:30:16] Eric Goranson: Yep. That too. So, but yeah, but you'd have to have a massive propane tank to fill these though. I mean, that's the other, the downside of that, right.

[00:30:25] Eric Goranson: You gotta have a. You know, a solid, like what you see at the gas station style propane tank. If you're going to lose power for four or five

[00:30:32] Jared Grifo: days. Minimum size that you're going to want is about 250 gallons. That's the minimum. Not everybody has the space for that. You know, and especially if you've got a homeowner's association and you can't bury it, you can't

[00:30:44] Eric Goranson: bury it.

[00:30:44] Eric Goranson: HOAs love you on that one.

[00:30:47] Jared Grifo: Yeah, I've had HOAs that made people paint their generator the same color as the house. Oh, just a minute. So everything matches and

[00:30:56] Eric Goranson: yeah, I could do a whole show on each way. Horror stories, [00:31:00] you know, or condo associations are just as bad too. Yeah. You know, those are the worst too.

[00:31:05] Eric Goranson: So, oh yeah, that's hadn't thought about that, but that's the thing with those big tanks. You got to figure out where to put those things and have access for the propane company to come out and fill it up too.

[00:31:16] Jared Grifo: Yeah, that's all part of it. Plus, I mean, if you're in a cold climate. Again, there's a, it expands and contracts with cold.

[00:31:23] Jared Grifo: So if I'm, you know, got a 250 gallon tank. It's below 40 degrees. I might only have like a hundred usable gallons in there. Oh yeah. So, and my BCUs,

[00:31:32] Eric Goranson: yeah. Yeah. So my son that lives in, outside of Bismarck, North Dakota that just moved there, , he'd have some serious troubles when it's negative 30 outside.

[00:31:41] Jared Grifo: Oh yeah, definitely

[00:31:43] Jared Grifo: Okay. But he probably has natural gas, you know, it's, he does Midwest. Yeah, it's a Midwest thing. Yeah. Or Midwestern.

[00:31:49] Eric Goranson: Yep. They're smart on that. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. I like that. And does anybody on the residential side do anything like diesel or stuff? Or is that pretty much more [00:32:00] commercial farmers,

[00:32:01] Jared Grifo: farmers, a lot of farmers will do it.

[00:32:04] Jared Grifo: They have a ton of diesel on their property. Why not? Yeah.

[00:32:06] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Farm, farm fuel out there. So it's easy. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:09] Jared Grifo: And they can use that. I guess the biggest misconception is people think they can use heating oil in them. And yeah, no, that will just destroy a generator. I've had, I've had too dirty, right?

[00:32:21] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Too dirty. This has to be the low sulfur low output stuff. Um, I mean, diesels are great. I mean, they're built like tanks. Oh yeah. The cost is really what kind of comes into play when, you know, an example would be a 20 KW, um, air cooled. Thanks. Uh, you know, let's say generac is roughly. Again, five, 6, 000 a diesel is probably, you know, 15, 16, 000 body.

[00:32:47] Jared Grifo: Yeah. Different animal though,

[00:32:49] Eric Goranson: you know, different animal, but you know, if you've got the farm and the fuel and you don't have natural gas, then that might make good sense for you.

[00:32:56] Jared Grifo: Yeah. That makes more sense on that aspect. Or, uh, we have a [00:33:00] lot of, uh, PTO driven generators. Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah.

[00:33:04] Jared Grifo: Yeah. A lot of the farmers will do that though, because they already have a tractor. You can get a huge generator forever.

[00:33:10] Eric Goranson: And the power's there. The tractor tractors used to run and all that time. And you can just, I forgot, totally forgot about PTO. That's

[00:33:20] Jared Grifo: awesome. Yeah, I actually love PTO generators.

[00:33:23] Jared Grifo: They're so simple. And

[00:33:24] Eric Goranson: so everybody out there, what that says, just, if you're not like a Midwest person or a farmer person that I like, I used to, you know, so you've got a tractor or even a truck sometimes we'll have a power takeoff is what this is. And so it's just a, a shaft that comes out of the transmission, basically that you could turn off and on, and that's what farmers will sit there and.

[00:33:43] Eric Goranson: And, uh, turn on the, the, you know, maybe the mower deck that's behind them or whatever else they're dragging around. So instead of running that blade, you can put on a generator and run your, your power that way. So hadn't thought of that because now all of a sudden you don't have to worry about a power source.

[00:33:59] Eric Goranson: [00:34:00] You just have to worry about the, the power creation side of things. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Pull the tractor up and off you go.

[00:34:09] Jared Grifo: No, they're, they're actually fantastic. I mean, obviously these people have invested a lot of money in a tractor. We're not talking like, you know, a regular lawnmower or anything like that.

[00:34:19] Jared Grifo: So, you know, these are, you know, cost more than my car, you know, some

[00:34:24] Eric Goranson: people's houses in our list of the audience. Let's get serious. Yeah. Nice. Oh. Yeah, those tractors, some of those tractors. And if, if you're not in a farm area, uh, when I was in high school, I'll tell this funny story and you'll kind of laugh.

[00:34:39] Eric Goranson: We used to go out for buying and mudding and doing all that stuff growing up in the, I was in the tri cities, Washington there. And, uh, I gotta be careful because the listening audience of the place that we used to do this at is now listening to this on the radio, but I won't even mention what brand it is, but we'd go out for buying and it.

[00:34:56] Eric Goranson: 11 o'clock at night. We got everybody stuck. We'd always have one person. [00:35:00] We'd drive like 10 miles on the freeway, go over to the tractor dealerships. Cause all my buddies worked there. We'd get the flag cars and run the tractor out the freeway in the middle of the night, go out there, pull everybody out, run it back, spray it off, put it back up in the line.

[00:35:14] Eric Goranson: And nobody knew any different. No man. But I'm not going to say brands. Cause I know A lot of people that still work around there. I don't want to get anybody in trouble, but if you saw, if you saw us running down the street, uh, on the freeway at two o'clock in the morning, uh, in the nineties or late eighties, that was me.

[00:35:33] Jared Grifo: See, that's just normal around here. I mean, we're in Illinois. So, you know, Illinois, if you're not in Chicago, you're in a farmland. I mean, that's pretty much it or Chicago, which we're in the burbs, but.

[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. But yeah, that's a, that's a good one though, man. I hadn't thought about that, that, uh, I totally forgot about the whole PTO option and for the farming community out there.

[00:35:55] Eric Goranson: Brilliant. Brilliant. And then you guys do also the service on the RV [00:36:00] and replacements on RV generators as well. Right?

[00:36:02] Jared Grifo: Uh, servicing and whatnot, we don't,

[00:36:04] Eric Goranson: um, yeah,

[00:36:07] Jared Grifo: we can, yeah, we do more of the just sales on those. Um, gotcha. Those are a little difficult. Uh, they definitely, it's almost like a standby generator, but.

[00:36:18] Jared Grifo: On your, your RV or your truck, or, I mean, we even sell commercial models for like boom trucks. They'll have like a, again, a PTO or a hydraulic pump driven on for the hydraulics, but, uh, yeah, uh, just strictly sales. Okay,

[00:36:33] Eric Goranson: good. And the, and the crazy part of those things is it's not only do you have to figure out how it's going to power stuff.

[00:36:38] Eric Goranson: You also got to make sure it fits in the

[00:36:39] Jared Grifo: box. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of people don't think that again, they want the biggest and baddest for their RV or whatnot. It's like, well, the, you know, little cubby hole you have built for this is, you know, only this big. So instead of 7, 000 Watts, you're getting four.

[00:36:53] Jared Grifo: So sorry, sorry, sorry.

[00:36:55] Eric Goranson: That's what it is. That's what it is. So what else should we talk about with [00:37:00] generators here that we haven't really talked about, man? Cause you know, there's. I used to say generators, you'd see it a lot on job sites now, and there's less and less of that with, with, uh, the cordless power tools, because almost everything out there is cordless power tools, but there's still guys out there doing it, but I see more of, of, you know, people out doing campsites and stuff with it probably now than, and you guys sell those, by the way, the, the, the smaller ones that you'd use for maybe a job site or a campsite.

[00:37:27] Eric Goranson: Yeah,

[00:37:28] Jared Grifo: absolutely. Um, one of the big popular units right now, and you'll, you'll hear the terms thrown out there, which it's used pretty loosely in the industry is inverter type generator. So, you know, we talked about the solar and they have inverters and, you know, this and that, you know, an inverter, meaning it takes it from 1 power to another and then converts it back.

[00:37:48] Jared Grifo: So the small, little generators, you know, um, some of the Hondas and, you know, a champion makes a good ones and then Westinghouse, um, basically what they do is they [00:38:00] take the power out of the generator, they turn it into DC, and then they turn it back to AC, which makes it extremely clean. So a very clean sine wave.

[00:38:08] Jared Grifo: So, um, you know, you get people like mobile DJs. If I had a, you know, just a normal generator going, you might hear actually the harmonics of that coming out of the speakers. So a very clean, uh, power output is. Pertinent in that portion, um, that and like server rooms, a lot of people with server rooms and, um, you know, they're not only the, well, they have the servers, but they have HVAC equipment that's attached to that.

[00:38:35] Jared Grifo: So, uh, those are a little bit, uh, tricky to size for, but yeah, the low inverters are fantastic. You know, you use it for camping, you can use it for RVs. You can even use it for home use, you know, if you're just trying to run

[00:38:49] Eric Goranson: it says inverter on it. So, I mean, and it's a, it's a big one, you know, so, but yeah, the power coming out of the thing.

[00:38:56] Eric Goranson: I've had no issues as far as that, you know, other than [00:39:00] massive gas consumption. But other than that, you know, it gets the job done. I mean,

[00:39:04] Jared Grifo: some of the newer ones are pretty cool where, um. Because they're an inverter, so the way the magnets work, they have to spin at 3, 600 RPM to get 60 Hertz. Everything in the US is 60 Hertz, right?

[00:39:16] Jared Grifo: So 3, 600 RPM with the magnet. Well, the inverters, because they're taking in that power, they can almost work like a three phase where they can lower their RPMs to let's say 2, 500 RPM. So you'll conserve on fuel because it doesn't have to put out a lot of power.

[00:39:33] Eric Goranson: Cause of the inversion process. Yeah, that

[00:39:35] Jared Grifo: makes sense.

[00:39:36] Jared Grifo: So that might be what you need. Take yourself a

[00:39:39] Eric Goranson: couple of gallons, right? Oh yeah. I'm due for an upgrade. I think it's one of those things that I'll probably be getting ahold of you guys for, for doing a standby one of these days. Cause it's just going to have to be that way. And I mean, I've got, um, you know, I kind of have that, uh, uh, it's one of the reliance, you know, manual switch over switches, which works great, but [00:40:00] that's only 30 amps.

[00:40:02] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, and that's the problem that, uh, that, uh, that that does is it doesn't do everything, even though my generator puts a little bit more out than that, that's what I put through that switch and I probably should have gotten with a bigger switch, but that's all I could get at the time. Cause I did it during COVID and it was like, well, 30 amps, do they make actually bigger transfer switches for that?

[00:40:22] Eric Goranson: Or is 30 amps pretty much the biggest they do for that? I guess that's the question that have you seen anything bigger that on those transfer switches?

[00:40:28] Jared Grifo: Yeah. So 30 amps is common. 50 amps is the step up from there. Again, we were talking, you'll see the 30 amp outlets, 50 amp outlets, everything just kind of flows together.

[00:40:38] Jared Grifo: And then even on top of that, we've got like whole house type switches where almost like an interlock, but, uh, what it'll do is it's rated for like 200 amps on one end and then on the opposite side, you'll have like a 50 amp or 125 amp breaker shut off the main. Flip or shut off that main breaker, flip it over to, uh, the generator side.

[00:40:59] Jared Grifo: And [00:41:00] now I'm feeding my whole house with generator power. All right. I like that.

[00:41:04] Eric Goranson: That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. If I wanted to take that project on, that might be a way to go, but, uh, I think I'm just going to have to go the other direction with that, you know,

[00:41:13] Jared Grifo: a lot of people don't like it because you have to get pulled permits and whatnot.

[00:41:16] Jared Grifo: Cause you have to pull the meter can't, you can't. It has to be installed before the main breaker. So, yep. Well, I

[00:41:23] Eric Goranson: actually tried to do one of those, uh, you, where you pull the meter and that plug goes in and the meter goes on top of it, my local power company, uh, quit letting you do that.

[00:41:32] Jared Grifo: Yeah, those are actually pretty awesome.

[00:41:34] Jared Grifo: I've been trying to get my hands on those myself, but they really do kind of, uh, curtail a little bit more to power companies where they'll be like, Oh yeah, our power company will come out and install this. It's actually a fantastic option. Um, because you just. Plug right into that. And it does its thing.

[00:41:50] Jared Grifo: Um, you know, beyond that, if you just get a, you know, like a reliance switch, 30 amp with 10 circuits or however many you need, uh, they work very [00:42:00] well, you know? Yeah. It's mine's

[00:42:01] Eric Goranson: foolproof. I like it. And it seems to be a good brand and it, uh, pretty simple to install too. Yeah. I

[00:42:07] Jared Grifo: like the fact that you're not flipping on and off breakers.

[00:42:10] Jared Grifo: They have switches on it because a lot of people don't know a breaker is not a switch. It'll wear down. Right. So having a switch there, you know, avoids that wear of that breaker for safety.

[00:42:22] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how many commercial, you know, you think about commercial buildings all the time, people go in and turn the warehouse lights on and they're clicking breakers every morning when they leave, they're clicking.

[00:42:32] Eric Goranson: It's like, you know, those weren't really

[00:42:34] Jared Grifo: designed to do that. No, that's how you wear that

[00:42:37] Eric Goranson: stuff out. So Jared, what else have we not talked about today? That is, uh, some good tips out there. I mean, you guys, of course, power equipment, direct. com is where we find you guys, but, uh, what do you recommend? Is there anything else that, uh, we didn't talk about that, uh, people should know before they start going out and thinking about, uh, either getting a generator or upgrading that [00:43:00] generator?

[00:43:00] Jared Grifo: Um, I guess one of the genres that we didn't cover is the batteries. So there's a lot of batteries, everybody's got batteries now, it's, it's the hot new thing, right? Um, if you are buying something along those lines, be careful of the limitations. A lot of people don't understand what a watt hour is. Um, you know, so if I have a thousand watt hour generator, or.

[00:43:27] Jared Grifo: Battery system, let's say, um, that means that if I've draw a thousand Watts from that battery, it's going to give me power for one hour. Yeah, so a lot of people think, oh, it's going to put out a thousand Watts and then, you know, all of a sudden it doesn't live up to their expectations. Um, on, on top of that, a lot of these companies, uh, generac and Kohler especially are coming out with a whole house battery

[00:43:53] Eric Goranson: systems.

[00:43:54] Eric Goranson: Those are pretty cool. Those are pretty cool. You know, uh, make me a little nervous, but, uh, you [00:44:00] know, they're, it's new, but they work super cool. I mean, I like

[00:44:04] Jared Grifo: them. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, almost like a, just a gigantic UPS system. Yeah.

[00:44:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, the Tesla car battery on the wall, basically,

[00:44:13] Jared Grifo: that's right in your house.

[00:44:14] Jared Grifo: And that's who they're, I mean, that's who they're competing against is, you know, the Tesla wall, but I could see where it's really nice if you live in an area where you have really high peak hours. Of of power, because you can actually set those things up, so it'll turn on at a certain time of the day, you'll run off batteries and then charge back the batteries, either on solar or off of the grid at your lower peak period.

[00:44:39] Jared Grifo: Nice. So that's kind of nice. You know, the US isn't terrible. I mean, so certain places are, um, as far as grid power, but. Uh, it definitely is a great option, a little pricey. I mean, this comes with the technology, you know, it's new. It's that shiny new thing. Everybody wants it. So,

[00:44:57] Eric Goranson: uh, so are they, are they a lot more than, uh, I haven't looked at [00:45:00] pricing recently, are they a lot more than just doing a standby generator, having it done, or are they up in that price point?

[00:45:05] Jared Grifo: Uh, they're quite a bit more, I mean, if you're looking for backup power, I don't think you're going to beat the pricing on a generator. Okay, that's what I was thinking, because you're talking, you know, they say, you know, for a good system, probably 30 grand, and that's like batteries. You'll be running for days off batteries, but yeah.

[00:45:25] Jared Grifo: But

[00:45:27] Eric Goranson: yeah, yeah, that's, uh, my, my, I want to wait till technology gets a little bit better. And that price goes down if you're thinking battery to me

[00:45:35] Jared Grifo: soon enough, the market will have enough out there and the technology will catch up and we'll have some pretty nice systems that are more reasonably priced out there.

[00:45:43] Eric Goranson: I noticed recently that, uh, Tesla and their solar roof. Kind of just got quiet and went away. I saw that, uh, heard from some listeners that had, uh, that, uh, had scheduled installs and all of a sudden they went, um, no longer available [00:46:00] and gave them their deposits, showed up in their bank account and, uh, off they went.

[00:46:04] Eric Goranson: So I think that, uh, that one is going away, but I'm sure there's other stuff that's happening out there, but, uh, some of that stuff's changing quickly.

[00:46:11] Jared Grifo: Yeah, with the limitation on certain things, you know, there's still micro processors and stuff like that, uh, you know, it's, it's a weird market and I think, uh, Tesla's always ahead of the game, but maybe too far ahead where they don't see, you know, the market changes so quickly that, you know, they're all great intentions, but.

[00:46:32] Jared Grifo: Yeah,

[00:46:32] Eric Goranson: they're just, they're just, you know, being the leader sometimes means it means you get your head hand slapped a few times too. So it does. But I tell you what, they are the worst as far as the media trying to get ahold of those guys to talk about something. It is. It's easier to talk to a manager at Apple than it is a Tesla.

[00:46:49] Eric Goranson: And they tell you how hard that is. So

[00:46:51] Jared Grifo: you can probably get ahold of Elon Musk on Twitter easily, more easily than talking to one of their PR people.

[00:46:56] Eric Goranson: 100 percent I have a better chance. Cause [00:47:00] man, I, I have reached out probably 40 times to those guys and I get crickets and I know people that are huge news people out there that crickets, they just don't want to talk to anybody.

[00:47:11] Eric Goranson: They're like, all right. That's their game. They're just

[00:47:13] Jared Grifo: going to be quiet. They got the secret sauce and they don't want to give the formula. No kidding.

[00:47:18] Eric Goranson: 14 herbs and spices.

[00:47:23] Eric Goranson: That's awesome. Well, Jared, is there anything else we missed man? That battery is a good one. I forgot to even mention that brother.

[00:47:29] Jared Grifo: Uh, no, the batteries are great. Um, You know, as far as generators go, if you really are interested in them, you know, give us a call or, you know, there's tons of information online.

[00:47:40] Jared Grifo: The Internet's great, right? But it's the wild West. You're going to get conflicting information here. There go with this. Go with that. Again, I've been doing this a while. Give us a call. You know, that's a good place to even start, even if you're not buying anything, it's, it's hard to find a person that is, [00:48:00] you know, been in the business long enough that's professional, that actually wants to give you information,

[00:48:04] Eric Goranson: right?

[00:48:05] Eric Goranson: And that's one of the things that kind of brought me to bring you on here is, is that I love that you carry so many different brands. So when you talk to somebody on the phone, you're not giving them the, the brand pitch, you're going, all right. Really this brand and this model is really what you're looking for, for your situation versus, Oh, this is going to kind of work, but that's all we make.

[00:48:26] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:48:26] Jared Grifo: And that's what I love about this is, you know, I can actually help the customer pick what they need and I don't have to oversize them or because I'll get a lot of, you know, installers where they'll strictly only install, you know, a 22 KW. That's it. Doesn't matter what the install is that because they know it's going to work.

[00:48:43] Jared Grifo: Yeah. And it's like, well, you know, some people just don't need that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's

[00:48:49] Eric Goranson: kind of like oversize and AC units. Sometimes it's not the best plan. Oh, definitely not

[00:48:53] Jared Grifo: with that short cycling and humid in your house. Yeah.

[00:48:59] Eric Goranson: And that can't be good though, [00:49:00] too, with, uh, if you've got a, you know, generator, that's a standby generator, that's, that's way big and it's just kind of idling along.

[00:49:07] Eric Goranson: That can't be that great for it either. Yeah. You'd think you'd want to kind of have it sized correctly. Yeah. I mean,

[00:49:13] Jared Grifo: if you're in the 50 to 80 percent range, that's, that's about where they like to sit, right? Fuel consumption wise and output. That's just going to probably be the longest life of it. If you, if you buy it or size it in that range, like the diesels, you get issues with wet stacking if they're undersized.

[00:49:32] Jared Grifo: So those are a little bit more finicky. But again, most people that are buying diesels up Pretty much know what they want. You're not going to come into it. You know, come on, call me up being like, I want this 18, 000 generator on my house, you know, you're doing a little bit more research. Amen.

[00:49:48] Eric Goranson: Amen. Well, Jared, man, I want to get you back on again here in the future.

[00:49:52] Eric Goranson: This has been great today, man. And, uh, best place to, for people to get ahold of you is over at, uh, power equipment, direct at power equipment, direct. com or give [00:50:00] you a call on the phone.

[00:50:02] Jared Grifo: And actually, uh, right now, actually, we have a promo for your show. Uh, first people, yeah. First hundred people, they use the promo code ATH.

[00:50:11] Jared Grifo: Uh, they'll save 50 bucks on a, uh, qualifying portable generator on our site. Uh, yeah, they can do a power equipment direct, which actually we have multiple sites with that, uh, you know, we do air compressors and all kinds of fun stuff. Uh, otherwise electric generators, direct. com. Uh, they can talk to me on the phone.

[00:50:31] Jared Grifo: I'm there. Nice, man.

[00:50:34] Eric Goranson: That's great. And thanks for that promo. Who doesn't want 50 bucks? Right? Yeah. I mean, especially nowadays. Right. That'll fill one of the tanks up in a truck. Maybe. Yeah. Fill the tank in your generator. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Haha. That's awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time today, man.

[00:50:52] Eric Goranson: I really appreciate it. I even learned stuff today. So that's awesome.

[00:50:55] Jared Grifo: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Thanks Jared.

[00:50:57] Eric Goranson: I'm Eric G and you've been listening to [00:51:00] around the house.