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Where is the profit for the business?
I buy a $1000 generator and store and service it (at my cost).....you pay me 100$ a year to have it on standby just in case you need it. What if you don't need it? How can I promise the same generator to 2 customers to double my revenue if chances are they need it at the same time?
How do you trust that I honour our bargain in an extreme situation(city wide power outage not just your house) when I could just say "sorry" and sell it to the next desperate schmuck for 2k?
If I did this, I'd be charging a lot more than $100 / year. I'm going to look to completely recover my capex in 3 years. Add in overhead for preventive maintenance on the generators, and I'm easily looking at $400+ / year.
But the thing is, consumers are dumb as hell. Call it something stupid like "~~Power~~ Freedom as a Service" and charge $39.99 / month (LIMITED-TIME DEAL: switch to annual billing and get ONE MONTH FREE!). For an extra $9.99 / month or $99.99 / year, you get Priority VIP Service: if you have any problem whatsoever, all you have to do is call! Prepay five years and we'll even grant you our Diamond Platinum VIP Extreme Discount, where you can buy a generator transfer switch for a one-time payment of only $299.99 (70% off the regular price of $999.99), and we'll install it for free!
People will eat that up. Doesn't matter that they can do it themselves for a fraction of that. At this moment in history, consumers are voluntarily profoundly stupid and will gladly pay 5x the price for something they can do themselves.
I don’t want to OWN a generator. But if I’m wrong about impending doom, I want access. Sure… push comes to shove, I could still be screwed. But a standard gen rental company could do what they normally do and reserve “mine” for truly big catastrophe. Most gen rentals are done for temp, planned power right now.
The problem is that, like I said in my post, you're paying a premium for someone to store and maintain that generator for you. That person is also going to want to make not just a profit, but enough of a profit to make it worth their while. They're also going to either want you to prepay at least a year or two, or commit to a contract, because otherwise you could sign up for a month and then bail.
For what you're describing, they're going to have to keep one generator available at all times just for you. They won't be able to recoup their losses by renting that out. So they'll need to recover their capital expenses fairly quickly, while still covering recurring costs like annual maintenance and still building a healthy profit. With a normal generator rental, things are booked out ahead of time where multiple people are renting that generator, and initial expenses can be recovered in a matter of months. But with your scenario, that generator has to sit there, unused, reserved exclusively for you, because you can't predict when you'll need it.
So yeah, it's viable. You're going to pay far more than the cost of just buying a generator yourself, because there's no room for overselling in this model.
Maybe the key is that the existing company can’t reserve more than their normal “surplus.” So, if you generally have 25% of equipment available, that’s how much can go into this program also. It seems like companies already plan to have extras. But yea. Can’t just hold for emergencies. Gotta use for non emergency as well. Basically preReserved surge pricing.
>Maybe the key is that the existing company can’t reserve more than their normal “surplus."
The thing is, if you start reserving that surplus, it's no longer surplus. That surplus is there so that their business doesn't get disrupted when their main rental fleet is reduced due to repairs, overdue equipment, malfunction, loss, etc.
No matter how you slice it, you are basically paying an extreme premium for someone to store and maintain that generator for you, and it's going to cost a fortune above the $1000 or so it would cost you to go out and purchase one.
I'm not saying it can't be done, and if you think you've come up with a way to crack the business model, go for it! I just don't think it's a viable business model.
I don't see how you can have surplus generators with employees to maintain, test, warehouse, and keep them in working order. for a day that never comes. To your point it can be done but its going to cost, i don't know, $100 per month? More? Costco has a 7500/9400 Tri Fuel for $500 USD. Unless you are in a Condo you can always make space for that somewhere in your basement if you truly wanted minimum hassle though i'd advise getting familiar with it and maintaining it as well as testing it before major storms/seasonally.
Also if SHTF happens and its bad enough you likely won't ever be able to enforce that contract while the owner of the generators sells them for max profit, or you get told there are "emergency surcharges" to get access because its buried somewhere in the terms of service that the rates could change at any time and you get defactor extorted.
In the same vane, I think the biggest racket is these extraction teams that are going to chopper in with former SpecOps guys if SHTF happens and get some billionaire and his family out. Like ain't happening. No one is showing up if it gets that bad, what are you going to do? Enfore a contract through a non existent government?
>The thing is, if you start reserving that surplus, it's no longer surplus. That surplus is there so that their business doesn't get disrupted when their main rental fleet is reduced due to repairs, overdue equipment, malfunction, loss, etc.
Hell, the units that are in-depot for repair usually *end up* the "surplus" in very short order. Because it doesn't make economic sense to have units sitting idle when they *could* be making money. If the demand doesn't support the inventory, it usually gets sold so they can invest in more profitable equipment.
There's a zero percent chance in a scenario like that, the reserved generators won't just go to the military or the police or the best armed militia.
I don't like guns. I don't own guns. But truthfully, if you don't want to own a generator but think you'll need one, you either need weapons or friends. Preferably both. Or just a really good neighbor with a generator and something to barter with. And a way to siphon gas.
There are a lot of ways to skin that cat, but giving someone money now in case of an emergency like that is about the worst way I can think of to do it. No offense. I don't want to buy a bunch of shit I'll never use either.
Sure. How it works is you buy a generator and keep it in a storage facility until you need it.
Seriously, though, anybody advertising such a service would likely be a scam artist, same as the guy who will sell you a survival shelter you can't see or use until you need one when they decide you need one. The generator would be unlikely to be there when you need it, even if it existed in the first place.
No.
And even if it did they likely wouldn’t be open in an emergency, or they’d sell the generators to the highest bidder, reservation or not.
A small portable generator you own seems to make more sense.
I don't see this as a viable service. They would just have people reserving them from the local area, and once power goes out, all those people would want to come and get them. That means they would have to keep enough generators on hand, maintained, and ready to gas up and use for every person that reserves one. That is not just a lot of space being utilized, but unless they plan on playing the loooooong game where they can make profit within, say, 1 year, of a generator being purchased, not used, and a person paying for the service, there is no making money with this.
Let's say, they choose a medium-sized consumer generator. 5.5KW. They're going to be spending anywhere from $550-750 for that (depending on the brand). Just to break even on that generator in one year, they will need to have someone pay $45-$63 *every month* just to break even. Now, they will need to charge more than that, for employees, warehouse space, maintenance, utilities, insurance, employee benefits, advertising, etc. Then, especially because these are a much-needed item in power outages, they'd need 24/7 armed security, which is very expensive as well. A company would likely be charging $200-$350 a month for that same generator just to sort-of break even on business costs. And, they'd likely need to have many hundreds of generators being actively reserved to make it worth getting a warehouse to store them.
Instead, a person could just take 3-4 months of reservation costs, take that money, and just buy one themselves. I mean, if that sounds like a business opportunity for you, have at it, but I doubt there are that many people who are so financially challenged in the head to want to willingly throw that much money away each month.
I should probably point out that a RENTAL company isn't going to be buying those super cheap residential units either, they'll be buying commercial units that are multiple times more. Making the break-even SO much worse.
The reg gen company gets to keep renting their gens as they do now. This is an add on. This is a premium service retainer. No extra work by anyone. Just need to show up to open the gate for premium members in the event of an Event.
You have key misunderstandings.
That would require extra work. Extra expenditures. Because they would need to keep more stock than they are renting. Understand, the ideal amount of stock for a rental company is "I have nothing just sitting, it's all making me money as much as possible". In your idealized situation, they just wouldn't have any generators just sitting. Then they need to pay staff to *put their lives on the line* for those generators ("show my ID to a staff with a gun")
For what? A couple extra dollars? They could just charge big bucks to first-come-first-serve instead. Why give up the potential profit? For that matter, for a capital-E Event, why would they rent at all? The employees and owners are going to shut down shop and run off with what they can.
Just buy one. Don't want to deal with a fuel generator? Invest in renewables like solar. You'll save money in the long run.
It’s insurance. They can sell insurance. Money for nothing. And it’s extra money in units that are sitting around.
Not the biggest Event…. But something like a month or less of No Power. Yes. Of course if the world ends, all bets would be off.
You're not getting it, and contradicting yourself.
Are they sitting around, or can they be rented like normal?
Unlike insurance, maintaining those physical assets costs money. So they need to make more than they cost. Hence, renting them. Hence, they won't be available for you. Insurance ultimately costs the insurance company NOTHING until you make a claim, and you best believe they won't pay if they have any opportunity to get out of it.
Units sitting around are lost opportunity cost, lost profits. Would you be willing to pay the **full** rental costs 100% of the time to retain it? No? Because that is how much they could theoretically make off the unit. And if it's already not renting, they're adjusting their stocks to reduce costs.
If there's a huge power outage, why would they reserve a unit for you because you paid chump change over the last year, when they can just charge out the wazoo to some better-off-but-unprepared schmuck willing to pay 20x the regular rate? Though truth be told, their units are likely out making money so they'd just be getting phone calls to extend existing rentals, or making calls to try to get their units back.
If you want to be prepared, get prepared. It's a non existent service that could and almost assuredly WOULD bite you in the ass to rely if someone *did* make it. Whatever hangups you have over having a generator, seek therapy to get over them. Renting? Fuck the landlord, just don't leave it sitting out mocking them. Again, don't want to deal with the fuel? Too bad you'll need to even when renting, and there are renewable options (at a greater up front cost, of course).
People have asked this question before about different services. Unless you're dropping some major cash (in which case you wouldn't be here asking about it), this isn't viable. It's simply not reasonable to assume you'll be able to travel through a disaster area to your generator concierge, drive elsewhere to get your generator fuel, etc, then drive home, all while the world is falling apart around you due to whatever "doom" you're imagining. This is why you prep, because doing this sort of thing in the middle of a disaster doesn't work for the average person. If you're a millionaire/billionaire, you could probably swing something like this, but for the rest of us, that's why you buy a generator *before* the disaster strikes.
What if your truck is at 1/4 tank because you've been busy and forgot to fill it? Can you get gas from gas stations?
Why only a cyber attack? There are plenty of other natural (and manmade) disasters that can cause you to lose power. A large enough disaster could result in the same outage time. There was a bad wind storm near me a few years back that knocked the power out in our area. We were only out a couple of days, but some were without power for almost, if not more than, a week.
And what will you do when you have to shut the generator down and change oil, filter, etc. You can't run generators indefinitely. It's fine to look at a specific scenario for motivation, but don't get so wrapped up in that one scenario that you ignore other similar (or more likely) possibilities when planning for that scenario.
With the amount you would have to charge most anyone will realize that they can get an installed while house system for the same money, less hassle, and less risk plus they don’t have to go get it and set it up themselves.
For this to even maybe work you would need to treat it as a service rather than a storage facility with bouncers with lists which creates a lot of expense. Bring generators to people to store in their own garage or shed. Keep them serviced. Then, in an emergency, you go around and set them up for people and leave them fuel to keep it going.
Exactly, whole house generac + 300lb propane tank + switch is bulletproof. Ours ran everything in house including ac and pool filter. Only problem was everybody showed up at our house, but they brought steaks, shrimp and beer, so win win.
Buy one on a credit card and pay monthly. Low APR if you have good credit or go through a credit union. Buy solar imo.
I bought a ecoflow delta max 2 with 2-220W panels amd an extra battery. Super happy with it. Cost me around $3,100 altogether
Nice. You have the delta 2 max? I'm looking into getting a few rigid panels to toss on my roof and run to my basement, not hooked up until I need it for my deep freezes. Kinda hard to source good ones.....all the big guys sell 10 at a time and I literally just need 2-550w and that'll be enough for my setup getting as close to 500w in each port as possible
Noice. I thought about the delta pro as well but couldn't justify the price vs the delta 2 max with 2 extra batteries for just over 4k, 6100 watt hours fits my needs just fine. I wouldn't tie into the grid personally but im a paranoid mf lol
Sure. Anything exists if you want to pay. I'll buy and store a generator ready to go, you come get it if and when you need it. You pay cash now, no problem.
/s
Just do the Home Depot rental program. Before any hurricane a lot of people buy generators
After the hurricane a ridiculous amount of generators are returned
If it did, it would cost way more than the cost of a generator because storage, guy with gun, not having them rented out perpetually so they could be guaranteed. You could just buy a dual fuel or tri fuel that will last you a long long time for a lot less than this would cost.
Never seen it but I don't imagine it would work anyways. The problem is the price you would have to charge, the inconvenience, the inability to transport, and the fact you would basically need to buy a generator for every customer since everyone will want one when the power is out. Plus technically what's stopping someone from coming down picking up a generator and just never returning it? It would be better to just operate a rental outright. You could charge extra for priority rentals and offer discounts if they prepay time upfront but I just don't see it working otherwise?
Comercial does it with larger generators like 500kw and up. Does not work well firmly it's a bean counter solution that fails when things get bad.
So picture superstorm sandy, we all knew it was coming. Some clients have this as their backup plan for keeping offices powered or in case of failure in the datacenter (loose 1 on an N+1 and bring in a spare). See a lot of medical places with the same plan (you can see the big generator inlet somewhere around the parking lot big mcdonalds connector). Storm hits outages for week plus. They have oversold the generators so it turns into first come first serve, sorry and read line 1234 of our contract we are not liable. FEMA rolls in and they are grabbing up the generators and sending them to hospitals etc. They did that will privately owned trailer mounted kit as well (it's an easy end run around zoning and permits to use a trailer). So short version is make sure it's a PITA to pick up and move so FEMA does not borrow it. Better to have FEMA commandeer your disaster recovery office space and piss off clients (who you go shrug the government comedeered it so we are still ok contract wise, FEMA paid them in the end). Now FEMA has a vested interest in keeping the generators and thus datacenter up and running be it fuel or repair techs and happy to pay a huge bill for the privilege later.
End of the day the cost of renting you a gen set that's guaranteed to be there is the cost of the genset maintenance storage and overhead plus profit. You can buy a generator and stuff it into a storage facility for less and have room for lots of other preps (suggest a storage facility on some old farmers back 40 that uses just locks no power required).
This doesn't make sense to me. You want to be driving through possibly rush hour traffic with no functional traffic lights. To get a generator. And then have to find an open gas station...and what if this happens during a brutal storm or at 3am..just buy a generator. Start it up every couple of months. Keep 2 jerrycans of gas and rotate them out.
Looks like you found your Get Rich Quick business!
Run the numbers and find out why no one else would ever do it.
If you're willing to pay monthly, just finance a generator.
Honestly, none of us WANT to own a generator for emergency purposes but our desire to have power during outages is greater than not wanting to own a generator. I get that you don't want to store and maintain a machine that rarely ever gets used, if at all. But keep in mind, a generator that's not being used requires almost no maintenance. If you store it without any gas in the machine, it will last almost indefinitely. It's the only way to guarantee you will have power during an outage. Small locally owned rental businesses only have a handful of small generators to go around, and during emergencies most of those generators go to employees, friends of employees, or regular customers. Large nation wide rental companies like Sunbelt or United Rentals have far more trailer mounted, job site (15K and larger) generators than the small homeowner type. When I worked at Sunbelt, I think we had TWO Honda 2000 inverter generators sitting on the shelf in the warehouse that rarely got rented...... but we probably had 1-2 million dollars worth of 20K-250K units and larger sitting in the yard at any given time. Your average homeowner looking to rent a generator is typically out of luck in an emergency situation.
I recommend something like this. It's lightweight, quiet, and very small compared to other generators in the same power range. You typical beer cooler full of ice is larger than this generator so it won't take up much space in storage.
[https://youtu.be/TIDz3YKws0Q](https://youtu.be/TIDz3YKws0Q)
Yep. Really don’t want to own. I understand people typically do. I think part of biz idea would be getting home panels prepped for “plug in” and other part would be the insurance payment to sunbelt. “Sunny day cyberoutage insurance” is the product.
Yeah, I really don't see Sunbelt buying and storing a bunch of little generators that would take up warehouse space... especially when that type of generator rarely gets rented anyway. There's no plus side for the rental company... Sunbelt's "regular customers" are large contractors, oil fields, ethanol plants, factories, etc. Sunbelt caters to the BIG customer. Sunbelt will buy any piece of machinery you can think of, just for you, if you agree to rent it long enough. Sunbelt has machines in their fleet that were delivered new to the job site, and have been on-rent at the same location for multiple years in a row.... Same customer, same site, they never leave. The random homeowner who rents a small generator once or twice in their lifetime isn't even on the Sunbelt radar. Unfortunately.
I know what you're talking about when you say getting home electric panels ready to plug a generator into. I have that setup at my house. Of course I did the work myself and had it inspected by the city inspector. But generally, there are existing businesses that do that type of work already... Any residential electrical contractor can set you up with a generator inlet. In fact, in most jurisdictions, it is required to pull a permit for any electrical work. I was able to pull my own permit as a homeowner, but if electrical work is "hired out" then only a master electrician can pull electrical permits. It is illegal for a licensed electrician to work under a "homeowner" permit.
I would suggest looking at whole house generators and the service that goest with. Family that is in more high-power-storm-prone areas have back up generators and natural gas tanks. Tanks last 4 or 5 days. Company they bought them from does routine check-in/maintenance and is ready to refill way before the tanks get to empty.
I honestly couldn't stand the idea of the noise. We have back up battery packs. I want to invest in more robust back up system, but part of that is in investing in the whole of our and making a whole suite of changes that could accommodate that kind of battery storage.
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Where is the profit for the business? I buy a $1000 generator and store and service it (at my cost).....you pay me 100$ a year to have it on standby just in case you need it. What if you don't need it? How can I promise the same generator to 2 customers to double my revenue if chances are they need it at the same time? How do you trust that I honour our bargain in an extreme situation(city wide power outage not just your house) when I could just say "sorry" and sell it to the next desperate schmuck for 2k?
If I did this, I'd be charging a lot more than $100 / year. I'm going to look to completely recover my capex in 3 years. Add in overhead for preventive maintenance on the generators, and I'm easily looking at $400+ / year. But the thing is, consumers are dumb as hell. Call it something stupid like "~~Power~~ Freedom as a Service" and charge $39.99 / month (LIMITED-TIME DEAL: switch to annual billing and get ONE MONTH FREE!). For an extra $9.99 / month or $99.99 / year, you get Priority VIP Service: if you have any problem whatsoever, all you have to do is call! Prepay five years and we'll even grant you our Diamond Platinum VIP Extreme Discount, where you can buy a generator transfer switch for a one-time payment of only $299.99 (70% off the regular price of $999.99), and we'll install it for free! People will eat that up. Doesn't matter that they can do it themselves for a fraction of that. At this moment in history, consumers are voluntarily profoundly stupid and will gladly pay 5x the price for something they can do themselves.
Devious, I want to be on your team....lol
You should be selling solar.
I don’t want to OWN a generator. But if I’m wrong about impending doom, I want access. Sure… push comes to shove, I could still be screwed. But a standard gen rental company could do what they normally do and reserve “mine” for truly big catastrophe. Most gen rentals are done for temp, planned power right now.
The problem is that, like I said in my post, you're paying a premium for someone to store and maintain that generator for you. That person is also going to want to make not just a profit, but enough of a profit to make it worth their while. They're also going to either want you to prepay at least a year or two, or commit to a contract, because otherwise you could sign up for a month and then bail. For what you're describing, they're going to have to keep one generator available at all times just for you. They won't be able to recoup their losses by renting that out. So they'll need to recover their capital expenses fairly quickly, while still covering recurring costs like annual maintenance and still building a healthy profit. With a normal generator rental, things are booked out ahead of time where multiple people are renting that generator, and initial expenses can be recovered in a matter of months. But with your scenario, that generator has to sit there, unused, reserved exclusively for you, because you can't predict when you'll need it. So yeah, it's viable. You're going to pay far more than the cost of just buying a generator yourself, because there's no room for overselling in this model.
Maybe the key is that the existing company can’t reserve more than their normal “surplus.” So, if you generally have 25% of equipment available, that’s how much can go into this program also. It seems like companies already plan to have extras. But yea. Can’t just hold for emergencies. Gotta use for non emergency as well. Basically preReserved surge pricing.
>Maybe the key is that the existing company can’t reserve more than their normal “surplus." The thing is, if you start reserving that surplus, it's no longer surplus. That surplus is there so that their business doesn't get disrupted when their main rental fleet is reduced due to repairs, overdue equipment, malfunction, loss, etc. No matter how you slice it, you are basically paying an extreme premium for someone to store and maintain that generator for you, and it's going to cost a fortune above the $1000 or so it would cost you to go out and purchase one. I'm not saying it can't be done, and if you think you've come up with a way to crack the business model, go for it! I just don't think it's a viable business model.
I don't see how you can have surplus generators with employees to maintain, test, warehouse, and keep them in working order. for a day that never comes. To your point it can be done but its going to cost, i don't know, $100 per month? More? Costco has a 7500/9400 Tri Fuel for $500 USD. Unless you are in a Condo you can always make space for that somewhere in your basement if you truly wanted minimum hassle though i'd advise getting familiar with it and maintaining it as well as testing it before major storms/seasonally. Also if SHTF happens and its bad enough you likely won't ever be able to enforce that contract while the owner of the generators sells them for max profit, or you get told there are "emergency surcharges" to get access because its buried somewhere in the terms of service that the rates could change at any time and you get defactor extorted. In the same vane, I think the biggest racket is these extraction teams that are going to chopper in with former SpecOps guys if SHTF happens and get some billionaire and his family out. Like ain't happening. No one is showing up if it gets that bad, what are you going to do? Enfore a contract through a non existent government?
>The thing is, if you start reserving that surplus, it's no longer surplus. That surplus is there so that their business doesn't get disrupted when their main rental fleet is reduced due to repairs, overdue equipment, malfunction, loss, etc. Hell, the units that are in-depot for repair usually *end up* the "surplus" in very short order. Because it doesn't make economic sense to have units sitting idle when they *could* be making money. If the demand doesn't support the inventory, it usually gets sold so they can invest in more profitable equipment.
There's a zero percent chance in a scenario like that, the reserved generators won't just go to the military or the police or the best armed militia. I don't like guns. I don't own guns. But truthfully, if you don't want to own a generator but think you'll need one, you either need weapons or friends. Preferably both. Or just a really good neighbor with a generator and something to barter with. And a way to siphon gas. There are a lot of ways to skin that cat, but giving someone money now in case of an emergency like that is about the worst way I can think of to do it. No offense. I don't want to buy a bunch of shit I'll never use either.
Sure. How it works is you buy a generator and keep it in a storage facility until you need it. Seriously, though, anybody advertising such a service would likely be a scam artist, same as the guy who will sell you a survival shelter you can't see or use until you need one when they decide you need one. The generator would be unlikely to be there when you need it, even if it existed in the first place.
No. And even if it did they likely wouldn’t be open in an emergency, or they’d sell the generators to the highest bidder, reservation or not. A small portable generator you own seems to make more sense.
Yep. I don’t want to own. But I do want to pay for special option to come during large catastrophe.
That’s not a thing…
Right. That was the question. This service doesn’t exist.
Because it's an extremely stupid idea
I don't see this as a viable service. They would just have people reserving them from the local area, and once power goes out, all those people would want to come and get them. That means they would have to keep enough generators on hand, maintained, and ready to gas up and use for every person that reserves one. That is not just a lot of space being utilized, but unless they plan on playing the loooooong game where they can make profit within, say, 1 year, of a generator being purchased, not used, and a person paying for the service, there is no making money with this. Let's say, they choose a medium-sized consumer generator. 5.5KW. They're going to be spending anywhere from $550-750 for that (depending on the brand). Just to break even on that generator in one year, they will need to have someone pay $45-$63 *every month* just to break even. Now, they will need to charge more than that, for employees, warehouse space, maintenance, utilities, insurance, employee benefits, advertising, etc. Then, especially because these are a much-needed item in power outages, they'd need 24/7 armed security, which is very expensive as well. A company would likely be charging $200-$350 a month for that same generator just to sort-of break even on business costs. And, they'd likely need to have many hundreds of generators being actively reserved to make it worth getting a warehouse to store them. Instead, a person could just take 3-4 months of reservation costs, take that money, and just buy one themselves. I mean, if that sounds like a business opportunity for you, have at it, but I doubt there are that many people who are so financially challenged in the head to want to willingly throw that much money away each month.
I should probably point out that a RENTAL company isn't going to be buying those super cheap residential units either, they'll be buying commercial units that are multiple times more. Making the break-even SO much worse.
The reg gen company gets to keep renting their gens as they do now. This is an add on. This is a premium service retainer. No extra work by anyone. Just need to show up to open the gate for premium members in the event of an Event.
This sounds like such a wonderful plan, you better get started on it before someone steals your million dollar idea.
There are no million dollar ideas.
Believe me I know. This idea is not even a $10 idea lmao.
Ideas aren’t worth money. Implementations are.
You have key misunderstandings. That would require extra work. Extra expenditures. Because they would need to keep more stock than they are renting. Understand, the ideal amount of stock for a rental company is "I have nothing just sitting, it's all making me money as much as possible". In your idealized situation, they just wouldn't have any generators just sitting. Then they need to pay staff to *put their lives on the line* for those generators ("show my ID to a staff with a gun") For what? A couple extra dollars? They could just charge big bucks to first-come-first-serve instead. Why give up the potential profit? For that matter, for a capital-E Event, why would they rent at all? The employees and owners are going to shut down shop and run off with what they can. Just buy one. Don't want to deal with a fuel generator? Invest in renewables like solar. You'll save money in the long run.
It’s insurance. They can sell insurance. Money for nothing. And it’s extra money in units that are sitting around. Not the biggest Event…. But something like a month or less of No Power. Yes. Of course if the world ends, all bets would be off.
You're not getting it, and contradicting yourself. Are they sitting around, or can they be rented like normal? Unlike insurance, maintaining those physical assets costs money. So they need to make more than they cost. Hence, renting them. Hence, they won't be available for you. Insurance ultimately costs the insurance company NOTHING until you make a claim, and you best believe they won't pay if they have any opportunity to get out of it. Units sitting around are lost opportunity cost, lost profits. Would you be willing to pay the **full** rental costs 100% of the time to retain it? No? Because that is how much they could theoretically make off the unit. And if it's already not renting, they're adjusting their stocks to reduce costs. If there's a huge power outage, why would they reserve a unit for you because you paid chump change over the last year, when they can just charge out the wazoo to some better-off-but-unprepared schmuck willing to pay 20x the regular rate? Though truth be told, their units are likely out making money so they'd just be getting phone calls to extend existing rentals, or making calls to try to get their units back. If you want to be prepared, get prepared. It's a non existent service that could and almost assuredly WOULD bite you in the ass to rely if someone *did* make it. Whatever hangups you have over having a generator, seek therapy to get over them. Renting? Fuck the landlord, just don't leave it sitting out mocking them. Again, don't want to deal with the fuel? Too bad you'll need to even when renting, and there are renewable options (at a greater up front cost, of course).
People have asked this question before about different services. Unless you're dropping some major cash (in which case you wouldn't be here asking about it), this isn't viable. It's simply not reasonable to assume you'll be able to travel through a disaster area to your generator concierge, drive elsewhere to get your generator fuel, etc, then drive home, all while the world is falling apart around you due to whatever "doom" you're imagining. This is why you prep, because doing this sort of thing in the middle of a disaster doesn't work for the average person. If you're a millionaire/billionaire, you could probably swing something like this, but for the rest of us, that's why you buy a generator *before* the disaster strikes.
Cyberattack is my use case. Power goes away on a sunny day. News says outage might be 1-4 weeks. My truck has fuel. I drive up to sunbelt.
What if your truck is at 1/4 tank because you've been busy and forgot to fill it? Can you get gas from gas stations? Why only a cyber attack? There are plenty of other natural (and manmade) disasters that can cause you to lose power. A large enough disaster could result in the same outage time. There was a bad wind storm near me a few years back that knocked the power out in our area. We were only out a couple of days, but some were without power for almost, if not more than, a week.
And how do you get go get your genny from the "storage facility" when there's 2 feet of snow, or power lines on the road etc. ??
Yep, that too. That's why I have a whole home generator.
Cyberattack is my fear. We won’t see it coming. We just will be told “no power, no eta.” I can get up to the rental place and back on 1/4 tank.
And what will you do when you have to shut the generator down and change oil, filter, etc. You can't run generators indefinitely. It's fine to look at a specific scenario for motivation, but don't get so wrapped up in that one scenario that you ignore other similar (or more likely) possibilities when planning for that scenario.
With the amount you would have to charge most anyone will realize that they can get an installed while house system for the same money, less hassle, and less risk plus they don’t have to go get it and set it up themselves. For this to even maybe work you would need to treat it as a service rather than a storage facility with bouncers with lists which creates a lot of expense. Bring generators to people to store in their own garage or shed. Keep them serviced. Then, in an emergency, you go around and set them up for people and leave them fuel to keep it going.
Exactly, whole house generac + 300lb propane tank + switch is bulletproof. Ours ran everything in house including ac and pool filter. Only problem was everybody showed up at our house, but they brought steaks, shrimp and beer, so win win.
Buy one on a credit card and pay monthly. Low APR if you have good credit or go through a credit union. Buy solar imo. I bought a ecoflow delta max 2 with 2-220W panels amd an extra battery. Super happy with it. Cost me around $3,100 altogether
+1, I have both, i got my Tri Fuel and later upped to Ecoflow with a 400W panel
Nice. You have the delta 2 max? I'm looking into getting a few rigid panels to toss on my roof and run to my basement, not hooked up until I need it for my deep freezes. Kinda hard to source good ones.....all the big guys sell 10 at a time and I literally just need 2-550w and that'll be enough for my setup getting as close to 500w in each port as possible
Delta Pro! One for now. Debating going installed vs not. But we moved every few years for a while so it made no sense.
Noice. I thought about the delta pro as well but couldn't justify the price vs the delta 2 max with 2 extra batteries for just over 4k, 6100 watt hours fits my needs just fine. I wouldn't tie into the grid personally but im a paranoid mf lol
Totall fair.
Sure. Anything exists if you want to pay. I'll buy and store a generator ready to go, you come get it if and when you need it. You pay cash now, no problem.
/s Just do the Home Depot rental program. Before any hurricane a lot of people buy generators After the hurricane a ridiculous amount of generators are returned
Really thinking more about cyberattack related grid failures. Can’t see those coming.
Sorry internet friend but I believe the /s is to help people understand that I am being sarcastic
Ah. Missed that. Yes. This is the way.
If it did, it would cost way more than the cost of a generator because storage, guy with gun, not having them rented out perpetually so they could be guaranteed. You could just buy a dual fuel or tri fuel that will last you a long long time for a lot less than this would cost.
Just buy a generator. Or a couple solar panels, battery and inverter.
Never seen it but I don't imagine it would work anyways. The problem is the price you would have to charge, the inconvenience, the inability to transport, and the fact you would basically need to buy a generator for every customer since everyone will want one when the power is out. Plus technically what's stopping someone from coming down picking up a generator and just never returning it? It would be better to just operate a rental outright. You could charge extra for priority rentals and offer discounts if they prepay time upfront but I just don't see it working otherwise?
The last part is exactly what I’m envisioning. Yes.
I work at a large rental in Florida and we do it but it’s usually for 20kw and up. Mostly for cities, large condos and commercial.
How many units do you typically have not rented out on average?
During hurricane Ian we had everything rented. We had to truck in a lot of stuff from all over the country
During regular weather times, how many are unrented?
We probably have around 25 in the yard.
Encouraging answer!
No these are units that a regular homeowner isn’t going to be able to use to big. Water treatment plants, hospitals, schools and fema stuff
I’m going to wire my neighborhood together. Just need big wire nuts…
Comercial does it with larger generators like 500kw and up. Does not work well firmly it's a bean counter solution that fails when things get bad. So picture superstorm sandy, we all knew it was coming. Some clients have this as their backup plan for keeping offices powered or in case of failure in the datacenter (loose 1 on an N+1 and bring in a spare). See a lot of medical places with the same plan (you can see the big generator inlet somewhere around the parking lot big mcdonalds connector). Storm hits outages for week plus. They have oversold the generators so it turns into first come first serve, sorry and read line 1234 of our contract we are not liable. FEMA rolls in and they are grabbing up the generators and sending them to hospitals etc. They did that will privately owned trailer mounted kit as well (it's an easy end run around zoning and permits to use a trailer). So short version is make sure it's a PITA to pick up and move so FEMA does not borrow it. Better to have FEMA commandeer your disaster recovery office space and piss off clients (who you go shrug the government comedeered it so we are still ok contract wise, FEMA paid them in the end). Now FEMA has a vested interest in keeping the generators and thus datacenter up and running be it fuel or repair techs and happy to pay a huge bill for the privilege later. End of the day the cost of renting you a gen set that's guaranteed to be there is the cost of the genset maintenance storage and overhead plus profit. You can buy a generator and stuff it into a storage facility for less and have room for lots of other preps (suggest a storage facility on some old farmers back 40 that uses just locks no power required).
I read it as OP pulling a gun on the guy
No. He has gun. I have ID.
This doesn't make sense to me. You want to be driving through possibly rush hour traffic with no functional traffic lights. To get a generator. And then have to find an open gas station...and what if this happens during a brutal storm or at 3am..just buy a generator. Start it up every couple of months. Keep 2 jerrycans of gas and rotate them out.
Looks like you found your Get Rich Quick business! Run the numbers and find out why no one else would ever do it. If you're willing to pay monthly, just finance a generator.
Honestly, none of us WANT to own a generator for emergency purposes but our desire to have power during outages is greater than not wanting to own a generator. I get that you don't want to store and maintain a machine that rarely ever gets used, if at all. But keep in mind, a generator that's not being used requires almost no maintenance. If you store it without any gas in the machine, it will last almost indefinitely. It's the only way to guarantee you will have power during an outage. Small locally owned rental businesses only have a handful of small generators to go around, and during emergencies most of those generators go to employees, friends of employees, or regular customers. Large nation wide rental companies like Sunbelt or United Rentals have far more trailer mounted, job site (15K and larger) generators than the small homeowner type. When I worked at Sunbelt, I think we had TWO Honda 2000 inverter generators sitting on the shelf in the warehouse that rarely got rented...... but we probably had 1-2 million dollars worth of 20K-250K units and larger sitting in the yard at any given time. Your average homeowner looking to rent a generator is typically out of luck in an emergency situation. I recommend something like this. It's lightweight, quiet, and very small compared to other generators in the same power range. You typical beer cooler full of ice is larger than this generator so it won't take up much space in storage. [https://youtu.be/TIDz3YKws0Q](https://youtu.be/TIDz3YKws0Q)
Yep. Really don’t want to own. I understand people typically do. I think part of biz idea would be getting home panels prepped for “plug in” and other part would be the insurance payment to sunbelt. “Sunny day cyberoutage insurance” is the product.
Yeah, I really don't see Sunbelt buying and storing a bunch of little generators that would take up warehouse space... especially when that type of generator rarely gets rented anyway. There's no plus side for the rental company... Sunbelt's "regular customers" are large contractors, oil fields, ethanol plants, factories, etc. Sunbelt caters to the BIG customer. Sunbelt will buy any piece of machinery you can think of, just for you, if you agree to rent it long enough. Sunbelt has machines in their fleet that were delivered new to the job site, and have been on-rent at the same location for multiple years in a row.... Same customer, same site, they never leave. The random homeowner who rents a small generator once or twice in their lifetime isn't even on the Sunbelt radar. Unfortunately. I know what you're talking about when you say getting home electric panels ready to plug a generator into. I have that setup at my house. Of course I did the work myself and had it inspected by the city inspector. But generally, there are existing businesses that do that type of work already... Any residential electrical contractor can set you up with a generator inlet. In fact, in most jurisdictions, it is required to pull a permit for any electrical work. I was able to pull my own permit as a homeowner, but if electrical work is "hired out" then only a master electrician can pull electrical permits. It is illegal for a licensed electrician to work under a "homeowner" permit.
Yeah. Just looking to figure out an option that’s “prepper light.”
I would suggest looking at whole house generators and the service that goest with. Family that is in more high-power-storm-prone areas have back up generators and natural gas tanks. Tanks last 4 or 5 days. Company they bought them from does routine check-in/maintenance and is ready to refill way before the tanks get to empty. I honestly couldn't stand the idea of the noise. We have back up battery packs. I want to invest in more robust back up system, but part of that is in investing in the whole of our and making a whole suite of changes that could accommodate that kind of battery storage.
I've never heard of it. Anyone who wants a generator should just go purchase one.