Air- vs Liquid-Cooled Standby Generator for Winter Outages – GreenBuildingAdvisor

We plan to add a LPG whole-house standby genset.  We’ve already modified our service panel, poured a concrete pad (under our driveway, 12 feet overhead, open air), and new LP gas lines to support the genset.  We’re thinking 22-26 kW.

We’re debating air-cooled vs liquid-cooled, and we’re debating Generac vs Kohler.  Kohler has a strong reputation, but there are proponents of both brands.  Reliability and maintenance are important, because we need it to work when we need it most.

We’re in IECC CZ7, and get anywhere from 400-700 inches of snow each winter.  500+ is typical.  Elevation 6600 feet.  Winter is really the time when the standby genset matters most.

We get avalanches.  We wake up to the Gazex every morning for about 30 minutes, and throughout the day when its snowing heavily.

We’re about 5 minutes from the lodge where the 1982 avalanche in Alpine Meadows occurred (documented in the recent Netflix movie “Buried”).  I mention this because often it’s an avalanche that’s taken out a power pole or transformer.  Fortunately they’ve slowly improved our infrastructure over the years.  There’s a lot of granite here, so underground power is prohibitively expensive, as are natural gas lines.

Outages that impact us personally are exclusively winter.  If there’s a wildfire, we pack and lock up.  Might an air-cooled genset be fine for winter?  Or is liquid-cooled better in freezing temps?

The genset is close to our future family room, and being under the driveway it might echo.  I know liquid-cooled gensets can be noticeably quieter than air-cooled by as much as 10 dB.

Peak load – everything simultaneously = 66 kW (adds washer, dryer, oven, microwave, hair dryer, (includes aspirational sauna and spa, perhaps one day))

Hoping to draw on the wisdom and experience of the GBA community!