At 68 years old it was just getting too much for the wife and me to pull-start that old 5k "Powerbase" predecessor anymore, particularly on a cold, snowy day. We moved into a new(er) house this Summer, and decided to upgrade the generator as well. After a ton of research, I settled on the Generac GP8000e, and I have not been disappointed. Last week the power was down Tue, Wed, Thur, and Friday due to a nasty storm. The GP8000e ran day & night for four days without missing a beat. On Saturday, with power retored, we agreed that that beauty had definitely paid for itself. ( We have 2 freezers, the fridge, and it ran our deep well pump as well, so we had water for showers & flushing, besides all our lights and TV. We were very comfortable throughout the storm, and my wife was able to refuel & restart the gen by herself in my absence, ( something she could have never done with the old 5,000. Then,just as we were patting ourselves on the back for the wisdom of our purchase, last night (Sunday) the power went out again, with "Estimate for Restoration: Unknown." To be perfectly honest, we don't care! We started the GP8000e and went to bed. ( It's just Not our Problem! ) I would like to add that: We checked the oil at every "Refuel" and it never used a drop. Actual "Runtime" unknown, we refueled every 12 hours. I definitely Recommend this unit for all of you. ( I made my son buy one for his house ) This is not a purchase, this is an "investment".

I already had a Generac Pressure Washer and it has worked great so I did some research on their portable generators and they looked like they also had good quality. I purchased one a few weeks ago and it is a very well built generator. It has performed better than expected.

Easy to install wheels, tow arm. Easy to move around. Started immediately. Did not seem significantly louder than any other generator. After showing my wife how to use it, she said "that's easy". Electrician had no issues hooking up my Generac manual transfer switch. Now I hope to never use this generator, but I'm ready.

I bought this generator a year ago after living thru other storms with no power. I never used it until the past two weeks with Hurricane Sandy here in NJ. Flawless performance. My friends and neighbors struggled with smaller generators ... the GP17500 ran without a hitch for hundreds of hours nonstop. Well worth it, not only for comfort and convenience of running everything in the home, but also for the for peace of mind that I wasn't under-powered or getting up in the middle of the night to refill the gas. Glad I got a portable ... when my power was restored I was able to let a friend borrow it.

I would like this generator more if the battery lasted longer and if it would not have problems starting. After 3 batteries I believe I fixed the battery issue. However, sometimes it does not want to start. This is very frustrating when our power goes out. I can eventually start the generator, but it is not easy. And it is almost impossible to start with the pull start. Unfortunately, this generator cannot run our heat pump. That is my bad for not doing enough research. But once it is running, the generator can run everything else in the house. This is important because our house is all electric.

Purchased for house backup. Needed portablity with power for my situation. Unit performs as advertised when tested at 12kw , no-load to full load and v-v <3% voltage or freq variation w/ <5%thd. Runs my 4ton ground source heat pump ( has soft start) and 2 refrigrators plus rest of house minus range and dryer easly using the 50 A. connector. Power is clean and well regulated for sensitive electronics in house. Portablity is good since i lift it with tractor loader to move from house use to other areas. Thanks.

I bought this unit last year to run my new 24 ft. concessions trailer G-Dub's Grub which I opened 2 weeks ago. I have worked 2 large events with 20 hrs on meter. It runs the 30 amp service easily-- lights, water heater, water pump, fridge etc. All filters, oil drain, spark plug easy to get to, which is a big reason why I bought it. Getting ready to change to Mobil 1 10W-30 synthetic w/ extra Generac filter sent with unit. I use 89 grade non-ethanol fuel. Multiple power options here folks. Heavy USA made unit. My problem with this unit is it's too heavy for me and staff (female) to handle 390 lbs. Overkill on my part. Just bought extended warranty plan last month. Weighing my options.

heavy and durable. runs forever i would like to see someone try to start this with the recoil rope, though. if someone can actually do it they should probably be in the olympics or barnum and bailey's circus i tried it on fresh fuel and a hot engine ( right after shutting it down ), and there was NO CHANCE of this thing ever starting with the pull cord. keep the battery charged

Just bought my RS8,000E unit. Easy to assemble. Love the easy start push button. Like the back up pull cord-(if needed). Very heavy unit. Huge fuel tank capacity. We lost power 2 days ago from a storm and looks like couple more days will be out. Not gonna waste $500+ meat in deep freezer, $200+ in refrigerated/freezer indoors to thawing. Bought this unit, ran home, set up, plugged all our stuff in. Saved the day Generac...**** P.S. I should have read the directions better on spacing. All hooked up, running, chained the unit to the fence, and was 2 ft away from my garage siding. After 1.5 hrs running smelled a strange smell in air. Couldn't find it till we we looked at Generator again...... My garage vinyal siding was melting. The exhaust was blowing hot, melting my siding. Arggg. Guess I missed the part of keep 10 ft clearance all around. (Too close for comfort). Still runs great.

strong runner, love that it runs diesel. fuel tank is large enough to keep it running for a VERY long time, especially at lighter loads. my only gripe is the pullstart. i would be willing to bet that Paul Bunyan himself would not be able to pull start this generator. Make sure the battery is charged.