3Kw quiet site generator. Recommendations?

[flanagaj]

I've got a massive amount of wooden building demolition to do, and am planning on using a 240v (I don't want 110v and will use an RCD) reciprocating saw.  Only issue is that there currently is no electricity on site.  So I am after a generator that is quiet to power said too.

[Alan Ambrose]

I've not made my mind up yet, but I was looking at the little Hyundai 2kW 'suitcase' generators e.g. HY2000Si . The framed ones look a little too heavy at 50kg to move around a lot - in a wheelbarrow maybe. Max sabre saw is ~1.5kW, so that should be OK.

 

Having said that you could probably buy a cordless sabre saw kit cheaper than a generator.

 

 

[JohnMo]

4 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

cordless sabre saw kit cheaper than a generator.

A man in a digger way easier. A day or so all done, the digger would pull everything out the ground at the same time.

[flanagaj]

Cordless wouldn’t work as I wouldn’t have any means of charging the batteries whilst working on site.

 

The digger is an option, but then I’m left with loads of trashed timber that I need to then load into a skip.  I thought skip rules recently changed so that you cannot dispose of treated/painted timber in a general waste skip.

[joe90]

If you sort stuff before going into a skip they can do it cheaper (soil etc in one, timber in another, it saves them sorting it).

[G and J]

May I recommend this sort of thing (I don’t think the 18+ is a reference to higher voltages!).  Keep it sharp and it’s fantastically productive.  Even if 50% of the time you are waiting for your only battery to charge (obsessives like me have several, thus avoiding said problem) you’ll cut through more than with a reciprocating saw.
 

Charger will run off a cheap 300w inverter off of your car.  I’m sure all the 18v tool companies have a version of it.  
 

https://www.toolstation.com/makita-18v-25cm-top-handle-brushless-cordless-chainsaw/p94170?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=_dc&pcrid=null&pkw=null&pmt=null&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq8emmPPfhgMVUJpQBh3KNgO9EAQYAiABEgKLcfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

(But don’t buy if from toolstation as there’s always cheaper online even with next day delivery).

[Kelvin]

I agree with @JohnMo If you have loads to do why make work for yourself. 

[flanagaj]

19 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

I agree with @JohnMo If you have loads to do why make work for yourself. 

It was more to do with the sorting of the material post demolition.  The digger will as you say rip it all down in no time, but then I'll have a huge pile of wood, metal, insulation, polycarbonate roof sheets which will need sorting?  Or will a grab lorry company happily just load it as is into the truck?

 

[Kelvin]

Call a few and ask them. 
 

I cut hundreds of square meters of gorse out with a chainsaw. Took days and was cream crackered by the end of it. It was a good job well done but a digger would have done it in a day at most. 
 

I’d probably just buy a second hand petrol chainsaw if you’re determined to do it by hand and no power on site but it’s a hard way to take a build down. 

Edited June 16, 2024 by Kelvin

[saveasteading]

I've just had a professional demo gang on site. A big job with 7 workers, lots of fancy kit. Not much wood involved but some (a skip?).

They showed me that they only use a battery chain saw because it is light to handle and easy to get into tight corners.  When up on a scissor lift or scaffold this is much easier and safer to use.

Much the same size as the pic above. They do need to feed it with charged batteries, so a few spare and an hour of charging at a generator or neighbour would sort it.

 

For steel cutting they were also using small machines, with 100mm ish discs, in preference to big ones, although they had all of them too.

 

re the skips. talk to the skip company as it will depend where it goes. If it is all going to an incinerator then there is probably no need to separate.

They will know but  they may not tell you where it goes....I was told that Kent stuff goes to Germany sometimes.

Edited June 16, 2024 by saveasteading

[G and J]

37 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Call a few and ask them. 
 

I cut hundreds of square meters of gorse out with a chainsaw. Took days and was cream crackered by the end of it. It was a good job well done but a digger would have done it in a day at most. 
 

I’d probably just buy a second hand petrol chainsaw if you’re determined to do it by hand and no power on site but it’s a hard way to take a build down. 

I used to use a pair of petrol huskies, but having gone battery I’ll never go back to petrol again.

 

The little one (see above) being one handed is like a light sabre, it’s brilliant.  But I do need the bigger, double battery one for much bigger things.

 

Re the skips etc. it upsets me that there’s every incentive not to bother to try and reuse.  Apparently it’ll work out cheaper to cart all the hardcore away from our demolition and then buy hard ore back in, than it will be do reuse on site.  Depressing.

[Kelvin]

On the advice of @saveasteading I didn’t have a skip on-site. I managed and sorted all the waste materials. Consequently it reduced the waste and we used more of the materials I’d paid for. 

[Gone West]

1 hour ago, G and J said:

Apparently it’ll work out cheaper to cart all the hardcore away from our demolition and then buy hard ore back in, than it will be do reuse on site.  Depressing.

We dismantled our old timber framed, timber clad bungalow ourselves. It had a breeze block extension on the back. We gave all the the timber away on Freecycle, hired a concrete crusher set to 100mm and used the 50mm and smaller stuff on site and gave the 100mm stuff to the farmer. What was left, went in the back of the car to the tip. Total cost of the demolition, around zero, after the asbestos had been removed.

[G and J]

2 minutes ago, Gone West said:

Total cost of the demolition, around zero

We’ve budgeted rather more than that.

 

Did peeps have the timber for firewood?  I’d worry about the chemicals they used 100 years ago.

[G and J]

5 minutes ago, Gone West said:

hired a concrete crusher

How noisy, dusty, and unpleasant fir the neighbours was the crusher?

[Gone West]

Just now, G and J said:

Did peeps have the timber for firewood?

No, it was mostly in good nick. The house was built in the 1920s from 4" x 2", virtually no worm, same for the flooring.

[Gone West]

It wasn't particularly noisy and fortunately we didn't have any neighbours.