I am looking to invest in a larger portable generator (currently have a Briggs & Stratton 3500). I am thinking 10,000 watt or greater, either gasoline only or dual fuel with propane.

I figured this was a good time to ask for some real world reviews, since many of us across South Texas ran generators during the freeze.

What brands do you recommend? Is the dual fuel really useful and worth it?

I know about the Generac systems that are like $10,000 and up, and I am not interested in that big of an investment. Just a good portable generator with more watts.

I have a 8500 unit purchased at Costco - Firman brand.
It is tri-fuel - gas, lpg, and natgas.

I have it wired into a spare 40A breaker, with manual lockout / interlock plate, in my power panel. It outputs 31A. It can power practically my whole house, but only 1 A/C at a time - probably both heating units since they're gas. We lost power for 3 days during the fall and we're doing everything we needed - laundry, coffee, baking, and has the tankless (gas powered) water heater, etc.

The lpg option is nice, but not so reliable for running the generator with all the fluctuating loads - especially as the tank goes below 40%. I guess the fuel doesn't leave the tank constant pressure or enough of it at higher loads. The beauty of the log option is to be able to easily run and test the generator for maintenance purposes without needing to pour gas in it. I try to store it without gas in the tank so I won't have bad gas.

Best path forward is to have an electrician evaluate your hvac loads and panel to see how easy adding an interlock would be.

My generator was about 800 and the electrician charged about 650 for the interlock install, receptacle, and the cable to connect the generator to the panel.

So glad we did it and needed to use it.