Before we even bought our land and were planning our off grid homestead, we wanted a diesel generator as our backup power system for those endless cloudy days. Why? Because, the cost of dyed diesel is cheaper, and, most importantly, I don’t have to worry about the fuel going bad after a few months of it sitting in storage. With diesel, I don’t have to add extra expensive fuel additives to preserve the gas for a year. Yes, I am putting more wear and tear on my tractor, but I am also running it in the winter and not letting it sit for long periods of time doing nothing, so either case I am probably even on future tractor maintenance.
Our previous RIGID generator is still with us and still without a pull rope assembly and can be used if needed in a pinch. However, I had grown tired of the gas generator’s fussiness with the gasoline industry’s ever changing recipe and their self-destructive design to make people even more dependent on them each month to purchase fresh fuel or buy additives. It seems that diesel has been the one line of fuel that has not been messed with as much as the others. It is perhaps, the industry’s one nice gesture to the people who are so dependent upon them.
We have finally purchased our “expensive” diesel generator. But, it wasn’t that expensive in combination with the tractor. We already own the tractor, so adding the Winco 15kW PTO generator was half the cost of a Honda 5.5 – 7 kW gas generator. The great news, as well, is no more pull starting. Even if the RIGID was only 4 pulls to start. It’s brutal when the back is already thrown out from some other incident and I still had to go and pull start a generator. Did I mentioned the price difference in our area for dyed diesel compared to non-ethanol high octane fuel necessary for small engines. The price difference in our area is 90 cents a gallon. At this price, the difference for a 5 gallon fuel tank is about $4.50 savings per gas can we fill. That adds up when all the calculations are done between how many times on average the generator needs to run during the cloudy winter season.
If you own a tractor and have the horse power, a Winco tractor generator would be an excellent backup in case of a storm or power outage. The fuel would be the same you use for your tractor and can be stored indefinitely (20 years).
This post was not sponsored by Winco generators or Kioti tractors. It is, however, sponsored by our off grid homestead business Pauper’s Candle Company. Visit today for your next candle purchase at https://paupers-candles.ecwid.com/
Living a Sustainable Dream 
At my home, I had no electricity. I mean ‘none’. Even after I say that, people would still ask me where my electricity came from. I plug the computer and telephone into the lighter as I drive to work (when I worked), and used electricity and wifi in other places, but otherwise, my lifestyle had no need for electricity. Getting oil for light, even though I did not use much, was more of a challenge. I had no way of producing enough oil for that.
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Sounds like our first few months on the property until I wired our battery bank, invertor, and generator up to the electrical panel, and I haven’t looked back since. In fact, my wife and I no longer appreciate camping the way we used to, because we don’t have to get away from it all when we live that way.
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Interesting. The more I try to appreciate modern technology, the more I appreciate lacking it. I happen to like writing my articles on this computer and sending them by email rather than carrying around my old typewriter and dropping hard copies in the mail slot at my editor’s office. Correcting Miss Takes kan b sew bothersome on those old machines! I try to appreciate a modern car, but it bothers me that I do not know how it works, so I stick with my 1970 Dodge that I got as my first car.
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