WARNING: Excessive high voltage/potential voltage regulator failure!

[hipps2000]

Hi all, after reading some problems users had regarding the original voltage regulators and my personal experience with this issue this past week, my 2006 model 52440 16kw released 333volts into my home for several hours and had to be manually disengaged. Appliances blew and a small fire was almost caused at the furnace, luckily I was home to shut it down. My local dealer and service provider, certified by generic, and master electrician contacted them regarding this issue and inquired about the negligence to notify potential registered users of this problem. Generac response was for me to contact my insurance agent. This answer is not good enough for me. I filed a detailed compliant with the Connecticut attorney generals office as well as CT consumer protection, I am going to have this issue investigated throughly. I am also hoping for a class action lawsuit regarding there negligence. They have quietly made changes to their new products to avoid potential hazard, while leaving past customers with these regulators that could potentially fail in the dark to fiend for themselves. Below is my formal complaint, I hope all who have suffered from this problem, or who have knowledge of this come forward to address before someone gets hurt, this is not what we paid for, a false since of security. What assurances do we have that this will not happen again? I hope for many to support this cause and to leave detailed experiences like the several posted on this forum, so that we can truly prevent this from occurring again.

Attorney General George Jepsen, CT Department of Consumer Protection

Attached please find my sworn statement regarding a Generac Guardian 16kw Automatic Standby Generator, that on 08/29/2011 produced over voltage into my home due to a malfunctioning part (voltage regulator) that Genrac Power Systems of Whitewater, WI is very much aware of.
I have just personally learned of this malfunction recently and have researched it further to find many others with the same failures: "Excessive voltage greater than 321 volts entering home and causing electrical damage". I have also spoken to Generac customer support about the liability and negligence to notify its potential customers and dealers of this malfunction, they stated "they were not going to do that", they simply told my dealer, Riley Electric, Dan Riley, CT license number 121935, as well as myself to "notify my homeowners insurance" as this is their standard practice for this occurrence. Generac also has also quietly redesigned the malfunctioning part and currently markets it under the same part #, as well as put in place protections to prevent this from happening to customers on it's newer models (generators able to read and recognize frequency as well as voltage and disconnect power), but has failed to notify any of its registered previous customers with these generators and/or voltage regulators of this potential hazard and design flaw, simply stating "its a serviceable part." Yes it's a serviceable part, but it's not designed to allow excessive voltage from entering a property with no other precautions, notifications, and/or protections to the end customer, this malfunction could happen at any time without warning, the voltage regulator is supposed to cease all voltage from entering a dwelling when generator is failing. Hundreds, if not thousands of customers like myself, who own and operate these models are susceptible to substantial property damage, fire, and possibly loss of life, due to electrical fire and the negligence of this company to inform its registered customers of this well documented problem from occurring without any warning or notifications. These generators are designed to run even when no one is home, there was nothing to shut mine down when this occurred, it had to be manually switched off or the utility power would have to come back on. On 08/29/2011 the power was out for 3 days, this generator, if I hadn't been awoken to smell of electrical fire would have kept running and running, potentially causing a fire and or fatality. Something needs to be done to prevent this from happening.

I feel that this is an urgent matter that at minimal the citizens of Connecticut should be made aware of, as well as all of the potential trusting customers of these generators produced by Generac Power Systems of Whitewater, WI. Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns regarding this product, I hope you can see the seriousness of this matter. I thank god that my family (wife and 16 month old son) were not harmed while we lay sleeping and were awakened to the smell of electrical fire in our home due to this voltage regulator! We did however suffer thousands of dollars in damages to electrical property within our home. I truly hope you and your offices can help before someone truly gets hurt when it may be preventable.

Sincerely,
hipps2000

[johnc]

WOW!!!! Thankfully the piece of crap screwed up when you were home. Most importantly you all are safe. Does anyone know if the new regulators, 0F97190SRV prevent the over and or under voltage from occuring?

[mastr]

Originally Posted by hipps2000

...this is not the security we paid top dollar for...

Please don't start that again. You paid considerable money for the generator, but not top dollar by any means. Compare the cost of a comparably sized NFPA 110/NEC 700 compliant system with that of yours. (NEC 702 covers an "optional standby system" which Generac residential units are).

http://www.inspectionbureau.com/guid...%20Systems.pdf

Originally Posted by hipps2000

...the voltage regulator is supposed to cease all voltage from entering a dwelling when generator is failing...

I agree that it would be preferable if the regulator were designed to fail everytime to a zero voltage output without making the cost unreasonable. However, when you state that something is supposed to do such-and-such, it is prudent to have a basis for that supposition. Just for my information, what is that basis? Did Generac tell you so? Are you citing "good engineering practice"? Or?

Do let us know how this turns out.

[DanB]

Originally Posted by mastr

Please don't start that again. You paid considerable money for the generator, but not top dollar by any means. Compare the cost of a comparably sized NFPA 110/NEC 700 compliant system with that of yours. (NEC 702 covers an "optional standby system" which Generac residential units are).

Any make/model examples of those "702" units, say 10-15KW natural gas?

[bucdup]

Certainly Generac generators are not "Top Dollar"... but in my opinion:

1) They should not have units in service with faulty voltage regulators that provide excessive, dangerous, and damaging voltage to the home (if this is the case)

2) They should not have units in service with faulty battery chargers that cause batteries to explode (if this is the case)

3) They should not have units in service where the enclosures rust to the point of being almost junk in 2 years (if this is the case)

There is an answer to these problems - PRODUCT RECALL - If an auto manufacturer had a part that was causing batteries to explode in even a handful of cars, they would issue a recall and replace that part in all of the affected product. Regardless of the price of a product, consumers should have the expectation of at least a decent level of product performance and safety, especially in the case of known product failures.

[genme]

Don't forget to report this to the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission.)

[mastr]

Originally Posted by DanB

Any make/model examples of those "702" units, say 10-15KW natural gas?

Commonly available Generac residential units are "suitable for use as optional standby systems (NEC702)" - I copied that from a handy transfer switch manual.

I do not know if Generac offers smaller systems listed and specified for NEC700/NFPA110 use, which is what you probably intended, but surely they do so. I'm certain that other makers do, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to post that here; I will say that mine is painted green and I have an ASCO 300 transfer switch.

Here are Generac documents that show the differences between the two NEC classifications, and illustrate some NFPA110 standards.


http://www.generac.com/PublicPDFs/0173220SBY.pdf

http://www.mygenerac.com/PublicPDFs/0172610SBY.pdf

[DanB]

dangit, Google images didnt show hardly any green gensets, except maybe Briggs & Stratton and one Onan portable.

I'm always looking for info for my next genset purchase as my Generac is going on 10 years old now.

Originally Posted by mastr

Commonly available Generac residential units are "suitable for use as optional standby systems (NEC702)" - I copied that from a handy transfer switch manual.

I do not know if Generac offers smaller systems listed and specified for NEC700/NFPA110 use, which is what you probably intended, but surely they do so. I'm certain that other makers do, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to post that here; I will say that mine is painted green and I have an ASCO 300 transfer switch.

Here are Generac documents that show the differences between the two NEC classifications, and illustrate some NFPA110 standards.


http://www.generac.com/PublicPDFs/0173220SBY.pdf

http://www.mygenerac.com/PublicPDFs/0172610SBY.pdf

[hipps2000]

What I meant regarding "This is not the security we paid top dollar for" is these gensets aren't cheap, mine failed the first time I really needed it, and has been serviced yearly and checked with a FLUKE meter. It has now cost me thousands of dollars in damages. I would have gladly paid more money to have the appropriate safety features, this is what was marketed to me. Fully Automatic! Also, isn't it odd the next model redesign has high voltage recognition and is touted by Generac in it's description. Generac learned from it's mistakes. I just feel it should have notified it's potential registered users of these potentially failing regulators or have come up with a safety device to manage this problem. Not take it's chances that it might not happen and when it does just tell customer to contact their homeowners insurance. There are still many with these original regulators that could potentially fail in this way, putting users in harms way. at minim they should recall them and install the redesign regulator to prevent this problem from happening.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by hipps2000

I wonder what happened to the thread "Voltage Regulator Problem-model 4390-3" seems to have been deleted suddenly, this is where I first posted. It's a good thing I printed it out verbatium and forwarded a copy to the right agencies. Why after all this time would it be suddenly gone? Deleted off the board? This is a real problem and needs to be addressed before someone gets HURT. Can't believe a corporation would ignore this safety issue. it will be interesting to explain why this important thread it's suddenly missing.

That thread still exists, though the last post before yours was more than a year old. Since you duplicated the posts there and here, I brought all the responses to your post from the old thread here and kept everything related to your post in one place. Since the post from the old thread is essentially identical to the first post in this thread, I deleted your post from the old thread. It is still available to me if you need something copied here from it.