DuroMax XP10000E 10,000 Watt 16 HP OHV 4-Cycle Gas Powered Portable Generator With Wheel Kit And Electric Start (CARB Compliant) Review

We bought this last summer, after being run out of our brand new home with the New England Ice Storms December 2008.
The shipping was AMAZING- the freight shipper hauled this thing all the way down to our house (we live on a lake), when I expected to meet him up on the main road with my trailer. This beast is HEAVY, make no bones about it, but worth all the hassle of moving it around to assemble it. The packaging is outstanding, with absolutely NO dings or mars on any part of the unit. It even comes with it’s own “toolkit” of metric wrenches and multi-screwdriver. It’s a cheapie kit, but I’ve owned motorcycles with junkier kits, so no issue.
I broke in the unit running some different power tools, and tried it out on it’s 30-amp connection to power up the AC in our pop-up camper. Absolutely NO issues at all. After an oil change and some “Stabil” in the gas, it was time to wait for the next big “need”. We got hit this week with a huge wind storm, which did more damage in my area than the “ice storm of 2008″. In total, we’ve been 5 days without power.
I had the transfer switch set up in early December 0f 2009, so I was cutting it a little close, but when I flipped the whole house transfer switch over, my Wife didn’t even notice we had changed power sources. It has it’s limitations, but this is what we have:
What it WON’T do:
Electric Stove, Dishwasher, Clothes Dryer. I guess it MIGHT run these, if other loads were minimized, but I wanted more of the “creature” comforts all at once. I was willing to forgo the major power hogs, until the utility power came back on.
What it WILL do:
EVERYTHING else!
Other than having to eat microwave foods, it ran our well pump, fridge, 60 gallon hot water heater, forced air heater, and a humidifier, sometimes at the same time! There will be some small dimming of lights as each of the big loads switch in and out, and the Generator gets a little louder with each heavier load put on, but it ran them all in style! My Wife even snuck in a load of laundry in the washer, and I didn’t notice.
At night, where minimal power is used, it quiets down more than any of my neighbor’s units, which are all contractor-quality units, with racous “industrial” motors. Having it just outside my bedroom area, I could barely hear it over the air of the forced-air heater when it ran. It ran quieter than my neighbor’s unit, 4 houses away- and that had a 16 HP Briggs & Stratton motor. Same size motor, but at least 1/2 (or less) the noise. The ONLY quirk we found is that it seems to be incompatible with digital clocks- I know it’s SUPPOSED to be a 60-hz unit, but when I scoped the output, it’s only putting out about 56 hz. For most any component, it’s no big deal. My laptop didn’t care a bit about the difference, nor did my TV’s or Stereo. It’s just the clocks that ran slow. I’m looking into what can be done, if anything, to adjust this, but I don’t think it really matters.
I read a comment where someone wasn’t happy with fuel consumption, but my experience over these last 5 days have averaged only 5-6 gallons of gas in a 12 hour period, and that was with high nighttime usage, with several baths, and temperatures in the 20’s (using the house heater pretty often). I’d fill it up to the top around 8 p.m., and when I re-filled it in the morning around 9 a.m., it would take exactly 5 gallons to top off. Daytime consumption, when it was just me at home sleeping, was like 3 gallons in a 9 hour period.
Maybe different units consume gas at different rates, but I seriously beat the snot out of this thing (in my opinion), and it didn’t even quiver. Once I had the house wired up, I just rolled it outside, and after showing once, my Wife and Daughter could start it themselves with NO issues. I may add some swivel-wheels in the front, instead of the “feet” that came with it, as it’s a little tough to horse around- especially in the mud. On dry land, my wife wouldn’t be able to lift the footed end by herself, so I need to do something to make it more “portable” than it already is. Not an issue with the machine, just needing to modify it’s ergonomics for our use.
This unit is now 0 more than when I bought it in 2009, but I’d buy it again, for today’s price- in a HEARTBEAT. It’s STILL the best value out there. I’m going home tonight (power is back on) and rolling it into the garage for a well-deserved bath, oil change and some wax for the shiny finish. This week, it became a member of the family. It just ran for over 120 hours straight, minus fill-ups, and I’m a happy camper.
By the way, this unit comes with every possible electrical connection you could want, as well as the plugs for each. It also has connections (and a nice little wire bundle connector with alligator clips) to charge 12 volt batteries WHILE you’re running the rest of the house. This comes in handy, if you are in an all-out “outage”, and car batteries become a problem for your household. In brutal winter months, car batteries take a beating too! Last summer I bought a sheet of blue matching neoprene on E-Bay (wet suit material) to make a “rain flap” for the electrical connections, and I’m glad I did. There’s a LOT of different electrical connectors hanging out there on the panel, and we got BEAT with sideways, blowing rain. It looks nice, it’s cheap, and it keeps things from getting shorted out.
While it’s weak in some details (faint, hard-to-read manual, and the fact that its a chinese model) it comes with more features and options than you could ask for, at a very reasonable price.
DuroMax XP10000E 10,000 Watt 16 HP OHV 4-Cycle Gas Powered Portable Generator With Wheel Kit And Electric Start (CARB Compliant) Feature
- 10000 Watt Surge/8000 Watt Continuous
- 8.3 Gallon Gas Tank
- Electric Key Start/Includes Battery
- EPA And CARB Approved
- Automatic Low Oil Shut Off
Customer Rating : 
Price on Jun 19, 2010 08:26:03 : $1,099.99
Offer Price : $1,099.99
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Customer Reviews
Could someone comment of this please ? – J. JOHNSON –
Can anyone who either owns one of these generators or a similar type comment on something please? If you wanted to leave the generator in a certain location most of the time could you place it in something such as a small ‘dog house like ‘ building and leave it there while running ? I was wondering if it would be OK to run it while enclosed ,to not only protect it, but to lessen the noise it made. You could build the enclosure so you could wheel it out when ever you needed to and lock it when not in use. Also can this particular generator be wired so it will automatically start when there is a power failure ? If not this is still a good price for a 8000/10000 watt emergency power suppply. If it produces a reliable 60HZ sine wave to run things like computers which need a steady ‘near perfect’ output, it is really a good buy.
Any comment or information will be appreciated . Thanks
Pleasantly surprised – Menno Aartsen – Fredericksburg, VA
This generator, cheap at the price, is a cut or two above the usual Chinese no-brand product (I own two of those, so I can compare, this unit I set up for a neighbour’s new house). The unit provides plenty of power for an entire home, provided you’re not running any whole house heat pumps. Assembly, fit and finish are better than usual, screws have washers, all of the screws, connectors, plugs are supplied in the box, and the packaging is perfect, especially considering this unit is (expectedly) heavy – it needed two of us to get it onto a pickup truck, and from there into my garage.
Surprisingly, the control panel doesn’t just have the usual controls, it has a master breaker, handy if you need to refill, and there is a very useful (and gas saving) idle control. This takes the unit down to idle speed when there is no load, useful if usage is intermittent, as when the unit is used to power tools, rather than near continuous, as it the case when it is used to power a home during a power cut. Noise level is a bit below average, the unit is well tuned, but then it is CARB compliant and California approved.
As your average 10KW portable generator costs at least 0 more than this unit does, I can only recommend it. Please note I have only run this generator for a couple of hours, next is the conversion to propane, using a DIY kit from US Carburetion in West Virginia.
Kinda loud – A. Kowalchik – usa
The generator came with everything as advertised. Gas gauge seems to be stuck like it was banged around in shipping. It’s a little loud for a residential area if your using for an emergency backup. Besides that everything else works fine.
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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jun 19, 2010 08:26:03

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