dcmdon
NES Member
So a couple of years ago, during Hurricane Irene I found myself living on generator power for 6 days.
We did fine with a combination of a 900 watt old Yamaha generator and a larger 5000 watt chinese generator.
It was ok, but I found myself becoming a slave to the large generator and its huge fuel consumption. So we ended up running the Yamaha most of the time to just cover the fridge.
So I've been thinking things over and have tested items in my home for current draw and recently settled on a new generator. My requirements were:
1) quiet
2) good fuel efficiency
3) 2000 watts minimum - This will run the furnace and the fridge provided both don't start up at the same time as well as charge some batteries, laptop, phone, etc.
I basically decided that the luxury of a large gas powered generator is more than negated by the hassle of trying to feed the beast.
So in the end, I just purchased a Honda EU2000i inverter generator. It will run for 3 days straight on 6 gallons of fuel in an extended run setup I made with marine tank I already had. I've tested it and it runs the fridge and the heat.
If I decide I want more power, I can purchase another and siamese them with a cable. This will allow me to run 1 generator with accompanying low fuel use and bring in the second when needed.
Its not perfect, but its easy, portable and will work on extended outages. Once its broken in, I'll set it up to run on natural gas and propane. Our MA place has a city gas and our CT place has 400 gal of propane storage.
The funny thing is. since I've gotten this thing, I've found new uses for it. Rather than running 200 ft of extension cord to trim hedges, I just took the generator out back with a 30 ft cord and trimmed hedges.
Its scheduled to run a bouncie house at a friends birthday party next month. Ha.
We did fine with a combination of a 900 watt old Yamaha generator and a larger 5000 watt chinese generator.
It was ok, but I found myself becoming a slave to the large generator and its huge fuel consumption. So we ended up running the Yamaha most of the time to just cover the fridge.
So I've been thinking things over and have tested items in my home for current draw and recently settled on a new generator. My requirements were:
1) quiet
2) good fuel efficiency
3) 2000 watts minimum - This will run the furnace and the fridge provided both don't start up at the same time as well as charge some batteries, laptop, phone, etc.
I basically decided that the luxury of a large gas powered generator is more than negated by the hassle of trying to feed the beast.
So in the end, I just purchased a Honda EU2000i inverter generator. It will run for 3 days straight on 6 gallons of fuel in an extended run setup I made with marine tank I already had. I've tested it and it runs the fridge and the heat.
If I decide I want more power, I can purchase another and siamese them with a cable. This will allow me to run 1 generator with accompanying low fuel use and bring in the second when needed.
Its not perfect, but its easy, portable and will work on extended outages. Once its broken in, I'll set it up to run on natural gas and propane. Our MA place has a city gas and our CT place has 400 gal of propane storage.
The funny thing is. since I've gotten this thing, I've found new uses for it. Rather than running 200 ft of extension cord to trim hedges, I just took the generator out back with a 30 ft cord and trimmed hedges.
Its scheduled to run a bouncie house at a friends birthday party next month. Ha.