Thinking of getting a Generac home standby propane generator.

So if I get one big enough, I thought I could also run a big enough air compressor to do media blasting.

Does anyone know how large an air source the shops use, that do media blasting ? As in, the whole car body ?

This will depend on HP of your compressor. 1HP = 746 watts You will want to look at starting power of your compressor motor. Not running HP.

At a minimum, you'll need about 15 CFM for a small single pot continuous duty blaster. That's a 5HP compressor which is around 20 nameplate amps (figuring single phase). With inrush, it could take close to 60 amps to start the motor.

I have a customer who just put together a rig where they are using it to blast commercial truck bodies and heavy equipment.
They mounted a tow behind diesel compressor behind the cab of a 10 wheel truck.

How often do you lose power? I wouldn't size my automatic genset to a large cfm compressor if you rarely lose power.

Air compressors are one of those things that can take a whole lot of amps to initially start, and if you're doing whole body media blasting like a shop, and not knowing your house running watts, depends on if you have a well, electric stove or propane, sump pump, freezers etc.,

My gut instinct if you're going to run the house and shop fairly comfortably, and a large compressor for media blasting, you'd be looking at 30kW at a minimum.

Keep in mind that the typical Generac you see on an average size home is now normally 15kW.

i blast car stuff with a185cfm compressor but its a diesel. if your buying a gen set to run a compressor, just buy a diesel compressor. 185 will do anything up to a #4-ish tip which is overkill for car stuff. your going to spend a small fortune to buy a electric compressor that big. plus the two? or three? phase you need on top of that. (not an electrician so you would have to research that stuff)

At work we have a 3-phase 55cfm screw type compressor. It is not big enough for our big sandblaster we use on semi trailers. We have to rent a diesel tow-behind compressor when we use it. I have a pressure-pot type sandblaster at home. In order to run it I have to fire up my gas powered 25cfm air compressor. My 240v compressor only does around 11cfm and is fine for air tools, painting cars, etc but not the sand blaster. If you want to use a generator to run an electric compressor big enough to do that you are going to burn a TON of propane to run that thing! Most people who have a whole-home generator don't have it setup to run every single thing in their home. Usually you cover the big stuff like heat, water, sump pump, fridge/freezer and a little extra for a few small appliances. To run all that plus have any kind of a surplus you would be looking at a 25 or 30kw generator, minimum. $$$$$$$

Anyone I've ever come across who's doing serious blasting for money is using an industrial mobile compressor. You dish the $$ out once and never look back. And pressure or volume will never be an issue.

Thanks everyone.
I was able to google around today and learned a few things.
I guess what several places use is 185 CFM @100psi, this requires about 60 horsepower, to put some numbers on it !!!
This is a diesel Sullair trailermount, about $20-K brand new.
OK well alrighty then.
Plan B.