Generac 7117 Gp2200I W 50St Inverter, Orange

I had always wanted one of these low noise, compact generator to keep in the house and use when the electricity goes out when we go car camping or are tailgating. After much research and not wanting to spend twice as much on the "red" ones I settled on this Generac which was at a great deal and had many many great reviews and youtube video reviews. I used it for the first time yesterday when our electricity went out and we were left in the dark and dare I say it "without TV...." NO..... I got this little thing out of the closet ( I had primed and filled it with oil upon getting it so I know it could be fired up when called upon!) and it fired right up. Now, it ran a little rough for a bout 5 minutes until I read somewhere that they needed to be warmed up with the choke on for about 5 minutes before setting them up on run all the way. After the warm up period, was I pleased with thing! totally quiet as we had it right outside the den under the porch literally a couple of feet from where we were sitting inside. It ran on economy perfectly and with less than a gallon of gas went strong for at least 4 hours. I do realize the gas consumption is greatly function of the power draw but it seems very reasonable. The compactness and built is also something that pleased me. The weight is extremely manageable and can easily stay in your utility closet on a shelf or on in your garage. I cannot wait to use it on our next tailgate or outdoors event.

Ordered on September 4, the day the State of Emergency was declared here in Florida for Hurricane Irma, with plenty of time to get it fueled up and oiled up and checked out before we lost power early morning of the 11th. Generator handily powered both a side-by-side refrigerator and a small chest freezer, as well as a desktop PC, cable internet modem and wifi router, and various fans and LED light fixtures, all simultaneously, along with intermittent use of a hot plate and 700 watt microwave. Typical runtime with that load was 9 - 10 hours. Overnight we would disconnect the refrigerator and freezer (both stayed plenty cool overnight) and run the unit on Eco Mode from about midnight to 8am, and then would boil enough water for coffee and tea using an electric kettle, and fry up a quick breakfast using an electric hotplate before hooking up the fridge and freezer again. This load would get us about 12 hours on a tank of gas. I estimated for our purposes it used about 2 1/2 gallons per 24 hours of runtime. For the first couple of days we ran only ethanol-free gas through it, after that we had to refill our cans and had to settle for what we could get, but the generator still seemed to run fine on E10. Would still only recommend a quality branded ethanol-free gas however. After the initial breakin period, replaced manufacturer provided oil with Mobil 1 5w-30 that I already had, but when we got our internet service back and reading some threads and advice on the Bobistheoilguy.com forums, replaced that after 24 hours with Shell Rotella T6 5W-40 to get a little more safety margin running in the Florida heat. Also, the Rotella was on sale for $21 for a gallon, which I figure will probably last me quite a few years with this generator.Pros:- Compact and relatively lightweight. About the size of a bulky suitcase.- Quiet. My neighbor's portable non-inverter gensets were for the most part perceptibly louder to me inside my house than this thing unless it throttled up to handle a transient load. Overnight at minimal load it was difficult to hear over the fan I had running in my bedroom. On the back porch, it was impossible to hear from the street, which much reduces the odds of it becoming a target for theft, which is important considering how easy it would be to carry this thing off.- Sips gas. We didn't have any 5 gallon gas cans before the storm, only two 2 Gal cans, a 2 1/2 Gal can, and a 1 Gal can. That would have been enough to last us the entire outage of 3 1/2 days of constant running including what I had already put in the generator. 3 5 gallon cans + a 2 1/2 gallon can (to make the generator easier to fill) should last an entire week.- Easy to start. All it needed was to turn the dial from Off to Choke or Run, make sure the gas cap vent was turned to On, and Eco Mode was turned to Off. The starter cord was easy to pull, and the machine usually started on the first or second pull.Not really a Con:- Can't always start our side-by-side refrigerator on Eco Mode. Turning Eco Mode to Off keeps the generator running at high idle, which is good for quickly handling transient loads like starting electric motors, but uses more gas. Eco Mode drops the running speed down to the minimal possible idle for the current load and only spins back up as increasing load is applied, saving gas. I found that sometimes our fridge refused to start when the generator was in Eco Mode, as the generator couldn't spin up fast enough to handle the demand. The fridge's compressor would trip off in overload while the generator spun up to maximum power, then reset and try again a few minutes later, repeating the cycle. It wasn't consistent, and I think whether the Generac could start the fridge in Eco Mode depended on how recently the fridge had been running [liquid refrigerant in the compressor makes for hard starts] or if other loads on the generator were keeping the speed enough that it could respond quickly to the demand from the fridge. At any rate, the fridge started every time when I turned Eco mode off, and then once started I could turn the Eco Mode back on to let the generator slow down again. As I didn't want to leave the genset in Eco Mode Off full time to make sure the fridge would start if I wasn't attending to it, I would disconnect the refrigerator overnight. Our chest freezer never had a problem, and I expect newer and small fridges than our 17 year old GE side-by-side wouldn't either. This isn't enough to subtract a star from my rating, just my observation.Altogether, I highly recommend this little generator for exactly the purpose we used it for, which was to keep essential appliances running through an extended power outage. I think many people would also find this generator to also perfectly suit their needs for brief voluntary periods off the grid, such as tailgating, camping, weekends at the cabin, or running power tools and electronics at a remote job site.

***2nd update***I decided to exchange this generator for a Westinghouse igen2500. The rough surging of this generator engine swayed me to return it, and instead of getting money back. I decided to go with a more powerful slightly more expensive generator.***update***Runs strong, sips fuel. Ran it for a couple hours the fuel level barely dropped. I didn't have much on it, but runs great, easy access to everything that needs maintenance.So far so good, I will update further after hurricane Irma. Purchased this labor day got it a day before ups shut down deliveries for the storm. It's a bit bigger than I thought, bulkier, but surprisingly lightweight. Loaded with fuel and oil brings the weight up a bit but not bad. It's super quiet, even at full throttle it's quiet. If you can't find it, since I had trouble, break in period is 30 hours then change the oil to whatever they recommend, then every 50 hours. I'll be running 5w30 full synthetic due to how insanely hot it is in South Florida.Initial setup was easy, the engine had some oil in it, I'm assuming machine oil, be slow and careful filling it with oil initially. They designed a little oil ramp if you over fill and for draining so it doesn't drip into the case easily. Fuel fill is designed similarly. There is an inline fuel filter and fuel screen in the filler. Access to the motor is easy with removing 2 Philips heads. Pretty cramped in the there though.Running this thing is quiet, it runs just a tiny bit rough, might be an adjustment to the carb or breaking in, not sure yet, I'll investigate further later.Under load haven't tested fully yet, but seems fine, handles a full size fridge like a champ.Overall recommended product, I got it labor day for 499 shipped, the next day it was 100 more due to the storm I imagine. price gouging I would suspect, but a great product that will find many uses for my home and abroad.

Put oil and gas in it and it started up instantly. I got a generator just in case. and I liked this one is easy to move around not to heavy has a handle. Easy to use.Then 2 weeks after I bought it , my power went out. Plugged in my refrigerator and a fan ran no problem. It seems rather quiet and runs good. My buddy’s power went out a few days let him borrow it. He liked it, and it ran great. So far I’m happy that I have one.My only complaint is tell people exactly how to fill oil properly. Dip stick screwed in to ck level or not. EtcI understand how to ck oil levels but still had to rethink that one.

El generador llegó rapidísimo, y al momento de llegar lo probamos para ver qué funcionara todo bien, este arrancó sin problemas pero aún no lo eh utilizado suficiente tiempo como para decir que así va a estar funcionando las siguientes veces, esperamos que sea muy duradera y si no vendré a modificar o crear otra opinión para compartir nuestra experiencia.

So far I have only 2 hours on it, will update later on if I run into an issue with additional run time.The manual doesn't really indicate any sort of break in procedure other than changing the oil after its first 30 hours, then every 50 afterwards, also to use the oil it came with and not switch to synthetic until the 30 hour mark.I installed an hour meter to keep track of it for maintenance intervals.Since there was no written procedure for breaking in this engine, I devised my own based on my experiences with small engines.During the first 90 minutes I let it idle in Eco mode with no load. I was shutting it down and letting it cool several times in the first 90 minutes to heat cycle it. Then after the 90 minutes I took it out of eco and let it idle with no load for another 30 minutes. After that I put a 600 watt load, then a 1000 watt load on it, cyclingthe load on and off to again heat cycle the motor.The motor was running very nicely after this, as during the first little while it would sputter and miss occasionally. Now it idles smooth as silk and can take on a sudden load with no issue. Also keep in mind to fine tune the choke if it is sputtering a lot. This setting will change depending on the air temp. The Run position will make it run, but maybe not as nice as it could be. Let it warm up and tweak as needed.I checked the spark plug gap before starting it, as the manual does not state what it should be. I measured 0.022", so will use that for future reference.The noise level is good. I live in a conjested neighborhood but I think no one will get upset about this running...unless the food in their fridge is going bad :)They want the valves adjusted after 100 hours of run time, but the frame is in the way of 1 or 2 valve cover bolts, so will see how that goes.Overall very happy so far, I hope to have this generator for a long time and not so worried about a power outage anymore.

I was pretty impressed that thing thing started up out of the box (AFTER adding oil of course!) - The oil is (as with all small motors) kind of a pain to get in, but tilting it 45 degrees on its side and knowing that it takes the whole bottle for the first fill would have saved me some hassle.It's really quiet, it doesn't seem to hiccup and I am really impressed so far! - I haven't had much chance to use it, since it's mostly for emergencies but from the few test runs, I am very impressed so far.I really wanted to get a Propane generator, and for long term use, I still will - But I figured this one was small and quiet enough for portable use.Hopefully you find this review helpful!

I waited about a year now to write this review as I thought I would use it first to provide a useful evaluation of their product. I received this generator by mail and it had zero damages or issues from new. I contacted Generac to register the warranty and they were very helpful and polite. This thing is amazing on fuel, quiet and lightweight. I have only had to change the oil (easy as pie) and put fuel stabilizer in it when I am done for the season (camping in Canada). I am really happy with this purchase and compared to brand name products, I could almost purchase 3 of these to end up at the same financial place. I do not use this for a commercial application, just a few camping trips a year and it has worked out just fine (probably 50-60 hrs on this unit so far).

Works very well and has been for a couple years. I run this thing alot and has never failed me. Just remember to keep up on oil changes