Thank you very much for the compliment on the thread. The person that I was responding to went off topic about a subject that I have had a lot of experience with. It irritates me when people start parroting nonsense with almost no validity.
California's Assembly Bill 1346, was signed into law in October 2021, which mandates that newly manufactured small off-road engines (SORES) including those in portable generators, lawnmowers, and leaf blowers, be zero-emission by 2028.
This is the source of the vast majority of the negative nonsense being spread about portable generators. People hear misinformation being spread for political purposes and do not have any idea where it actually originated from.
All of our “backup generators” have been what are considered to be “portable generators”. This is because with the exception of inverter style generators, a generator which is closely matched to the expected load is much more efficient than a generator that is larger than what is actually needed. Many of our neighbors have generators that are two to four times than what actually would be the most energy efficient size for their needs.
My wife and I purchased an electric start 7500 watt generator which is rated at 5500 watts when used with natural gas from Costco about a year ago for $699. For the previous 35 years we had been using a 5000 watt Briggs and Stratton generator which I modified myself to use natural gas. The natural gas adapter that I designed and printed on our 3D Printer gave us a little more power under full load conditions than the commercial adapter that we started out with.
The old smaller generator is more fuel efficient than the new one, but the new one can handle an uneven load better than the older generator. We are happy to spend a little more on natural gas so that we can run both the microwave and toaster at the same time on the same side of a 240/120v circuit. Before we had to put the toaster in the dining room to keep the generator from bogging down. And there are a few other advantages as well.
Mr. mm is gifted in those areas as well and he has done HVAC and stuff.
We have generators, too. One larger one that rolls for the house during power outages that works off either gasoline or propane and the other is actually more portable and is technically an inverter.
So I actually get what you’re talking about.
This weekend’s forecast indicates a nasty wintry mix with possible icing. We lose power on good days regularly enough. I’d be surprised if we don’t for this one. I plan on having the wood rack indoors full and the wood stove set up to start on a moment’s notice.