Maybe four years back I finally put in the Kohler 14KW standby unit. When the house was built back in 2010, I had the electrician provide wiring for eventual installation of the generator, so setup was fairly easy. The transfer switch went in the basement next to the electrical panel. The service line from the pole and the lines to/from the generator go to the switch, and the output from whichever source is supplying goes out to the panel. I had to have a 500 gallon propane tank installed, as nothing else in the house used it. The size was determined by the surface area needed to absorb heat from ambient air at 0 F to vaporize propane at a rate needed to support full 14kw output.
The 14KW is quite enough to support the whole house with normal usage, without having to have a subset of "essential" services handled by a separate panel that powers only those while leaving other circuits in the house dark. I tallied up the "must haves" and added some of the "maybe will come ons" and got to 7-8 KW for most of the time. An electric hot water heater will take 4.5, a microwave or clothes dryer maybe 1.5, a hair dryer 1.2, electric range a few (depending on usage, something easily controlled during an outage). It isn't hard to imagine going hog wild with use of power-hogging appliances and causing the breaker out at the generator to trip. Some awareness of what things are in simultaneous use during an outage is required.
I picked the Kohler unit instead of Generac mainly because of what I read in their documentation. The Kohler has hydraulic valve lifters, needing no periodic adjustment, while the Generac manual calls for annual checking of the valve clearance with a feeler guage, requiring removal of the valve cover and likely replacing the gasket when done. I service my own unit each year, doing the oil and filter change and checking the air filter. Most usage is just the weekly 20 minute self-test, so the air filter has stayed pretty clean.
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