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Posted on 12/02/2011 10:27:02 AM PST by martin_fierro
So electrical power has been out @ my house in smugly Nuclear-Power-Free Santa Cruz county, CA for close to 2 days now.
An electrical generator is in order for the next blackout.
But what brand to buy, and what features? Is it relatively easy to wire into a standard home electrical system?
We'd use it for only the most important stuff: Keeping the fridge running + a modem, router and laptop to FReep by!
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Honda makes nice ones.expensive, but nice.
quiet ,too.
Currently I use a sine wave inverter (large enough to run the furnace and refridgerator) and a bank of old car batteries with a couple of (Diesel) cars available to idle/recharge the bank.
If you have natural gas get a generac. If you don’t have gas and can put in a propane tank consider that.
Santa Cruz County without electricity is probably a lot like Pyongyang (with nicer weather).
Two things, forget gasoline and get a propane fired generator if you have propane available. Gasoline stores poorly unless expensive additives are used. The second thing is that it takes 4KW to start a refrigerator, 1KW will not do.
Check with your electric company. They should have info on it. You'll need to calculate how much start up power/running power is needed to run what you want to run---e.g., hot water, fridge, appliances, lights, etc.
Ours in a Honeywell and cost under 2K.
If you intend to power electronics, you’ll need one that puts out a decent 60 hertz sine wave. Honda’s line is good in that regard. If you’re going for a semi-permanet install, you’ll want an isolation switch to take your house off the grid and on your generator. If you want to go big... Generac & Kohler are a couple brands to look at.
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One thing most people don’t think about, if you want to utilize the full capacity out of it at 120V you will need an adaptor cord for the 240V outlet. Otherwise, you will only get about half of the generators capacity.
I think the frequency/duration of your outages need to be considered.
bflr I need one too.
5 Kw should be about right for you.
I got one the last time power was knocked out for a couple of days and have it out in the shed. Take it out in the Fall and Sping and run a half cup of gas through it and then put it back.
It will run the Frig, intertainment center, my work station and either a window A/C or oil floor heater depending on season. Required drop cords are stored with the generator.
Our worry is hurricanes or ice storms. I have a few 5 gal gas cans I fill up plus the 27 gal truck tank when things look bad. If nothing happens the extra gas just gets put in the cars. Things get really bad and I can siphon gas out of the truck.
Honda makes some nice ones that are very quiet.
Noise might not be an issue for you, but if it is.. check out some of the nicer Hondas.
Craigslist in your area has numerous generators for sale. One is the one I have. It is water cooled and the things are indestructible. After IKE here in Texas we ran on one for over a week without a hitch. The new Kolers are good too. You can even do SMS with some of them and get notified when the thing starts. They also have a web interface for monitoring.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/tls/2720219280.html
We've got a couple of these Kohler puppies @ the office.
Daddy like.
Required ouput is the most important, then fuel type and efficiency.
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