Not only what you want to run watt wise but what about voltage?
-are you running a well pump, reverse cycle A/C, or an electric stove?
More than likely they will be 240v which requires a 5000 watt unit to start.
-do you want to just run basic necessities like fridge and electronics?
You can get away with something alot smaller without a transfer switch.
I have a Honda EU2000i inverter generator which I used to run an oil furnace (including circulators), fridge, tv, all the lights in the house, etc. without issue on a 5 circuit transfer panel. It was super quiet and ran forever on very little fuel. Plus you have options for bigger tanks that extend your run time. I also had a bigger 5000 watt Honda which I had on a full panel transfer switch. I could run everything except my electric hot water heater. So that meant endless showers (as long as you didn't mind cold water), electric stove usage, and pretty much everything else in the house turned on. Very noisy and drank fuel. That is why I only kicked it on for cooking and showering.
The inverter is portable like a suitcase. The 5000 watt was on wheels and pretty much had to stay put or wheeled around in the yard. Two people required to lift.
I am thinking I would like to run the fridge, tv, some lights, and maybe the stove or microwave. I have an oil furnace too, and that would be very nice to be able to run in an ice storm. I am not rying to run the whole house like nothing is different, just want to make the wife and kids a little more comfortable when the power goes out.
I do have natural gas in my house.
@Skinny, is that Honda EU2000i the same one I se eon the interwebs for like $1k? If so that seems like a great option for me, because like most people, cost is my main limiting factor.
That is the one. Lots of other smaller gennies out there for about half the price but I would go with the Honda if you can afford it. I think for what you are looking to do, it is the perfect size. Most people just run extension cords into the house which works but it tends to get pretty bad having them laying all over the place. You can even power the furnace with an extension cord if you wire a DPST switch and male plug into the circuit.
You can do something really bad like backfeed the panel with a double ended cord...if you don't mind getting killed. I've done this and have one as an emergency backup but have also pulled the cord from one of my outlets when I was half asleep. I said to myself this cord with male prongs is live as I held it in my hand. Whoops!
The preferred way would be to get a transfer panel which are pretty cheap. Maybe set you back $150 tops. You will more than likely need to rewire the plug on it to be a 15a 110v setup as most come with 240v arrangement. Again, super cheap if you can do it yourself. Then you can pick 5 or 6 circuits you want to power up with the genny. I personally use furnace, fridge, bathroom, kitchen, and living room circuits. I'd probably consider necessity to have outside lights for security as well. I prefer to run the furnace with the genny as oppose to using something like a kerosene or propane heater. I never sleep well knowing that something is burning inside the house without a fireplace
The above or just get a military generator truck like mine. 12,000 watts of power at 100 decibels with 20 gallons of diesel which works well for about 4 hours. Neighbors love it
You can pick up a 5500 or 6500w that sounds like a lawnmower for $500 off Craigslist, or you can buy a 20kw nat gas unit with an ATS.... or anything in between.
Worth mentioning that there are a couple of folks on here that can get you decent genny prices, so long as you're looking for something bigger than the Eu2000i (although the guy that designs those hangs out here, too).
For the price you would spend on buying the Honda new....you can get real close to a dedicated whole house unit with ATS.
Of course that depends on the size of the house.
Extension cords into houses means open windows or doors. Power typically goes out in bad weather.
FWIW I have a 6500W gas unit that will run both A/C units, and my electric water heater. YMMV.
Agreed, just depends on what you want to accomplish. Downside to whole house power is drastically higher fuel consumption and noise. Upside to the inverter generator is you can throw it in the truck and take it to the track/trail/neighbors etc. if you ever need to run a saw/compressor/fridge somewhere besides your house.
5 gallons of fuel can't run a full size gen all day if you had to leave it unattended. An inverter with a storage tank will. Just the suck part of a 3600rpm genset.
Agreed, just depends on what you want to accomplish. Downside to whole house power is drastically higher fuel consumption and noise. Upside to the inverter generator is you can throw it in the truck and take it to the track/trail/neighbors etc. if you ever need to run a saw/compressor/fridge somewhere besides your house.
5 gallons of fuel can't run a full size gen all day if you had to leave it unattended. An inverter with a storage tank will. Just the suck part of a 3600rpm genset.
I'm not sure what you are arguing as far as "whole house power" there are a few ideas flowing here.
Regarding the 6500W portable route, you can absolutely still throw it in the back of the truck and take it to a jobsite. And watt for watt it will be more fuel efficient than an inverter. Last outage I could get just past 8 hours on my 6500 onan. load will of course vary fuel consumption.
If you go to a true whole house solution, fuel efficiency will vary greatly by model/size and whether you are using NG or LP.
I think all have their place.
Inverters are great for tailgating, no way would I ever power my A/C with one compressors are too expensive.
Gas jobsite units are cheap and powerful but fucking loud.
Permanent LP/NG ones are the ultimate in convenience.
Wasn't really arguing it, just presenting both sides to the OP depending on what his needs are. I personally found that I used my inverter generator 10x more often for home back up than my 5000 watt setup. I understand what you are saying and not arguing the facts. What you stated above is accurate. But realistically unless you absolutely need to run huge loads like air conditioning, I'm not sure I see the value in it. Its fixed, requires pretty decent amount on installation to do it right, and most of the time will not run at capacity to make it worth while unless running large loads. I think it boils down to what the OP is looking to accomplish.
So, one could conceivably power a house without Duke Power. I guess that is not economically as cost effective or more people would do it? Or would it just be more hassle? On your own grid instead of theirs?
Just get a Miller/Lincoln diesel welder. Put some casters on it and when the power goes out, roll it up to your transfer switch and plug it in. When the power isnt out, weld something.
When the power goes out at my inlaws house, my FIL, just backs his welding truck to the house and uses the big 50 to power whatever he wants.
An inverter generator such as the Honda EU2000i go up to about 2500 watts in the suitcase style (Yamaha) or you can get a roll around 3000 watt Honda. I believe there are many more but those are mainstream. They only spin up to what power demand is needed...hence the inverter. The inverter portion of the generator creates 120v 60Hz and simply commands the engine to spin faster if more demand is needed.
On the flip side, most convetional gensets are either 1800rpm (typicall lugger marine or large mobile units) or 3600rpm (pretty much every gas job out there). Both of these must remain a constant speed in order to feed the correct Hertz frequency into the outlets regardless of load. This is why they waste tons of fuel powering small loads like lights and fridges. They are really only cost effective when at 3/4 to full load. They are also mostly pretty noisy because of this high rpm speed all the time.
That is a high level view of the difference.
You really would not want to power a house off grid with a generator because there is a lot of waste. With the cost of fuel and having to run it round the clock, lots of waste in that scenario. You would really want to use it to supplement an off grid house during high demand times or to charge battery banks which loads the genny up to full load and uses fuel appropriately. This is how most people run them on boats (relatively speaking of course). The only setup I've seen in an off grid house that makes sense is a lugger diesel engine spinning a generator. The engine heat is also used to create hot water for showers and house heat. So all that extra energy that would have just gone into a radiator is now heating the home. Very effective setup if you are into that kind of thing.
So, one could conceivably power a house without Duke Power. I guess that is not economically as cost effective or more people would do it? Or would it just be more hassle? On your own grid instead of theirs?
You can, but it's expensive. Even my little 5500W uses a half gallon an hour with no load. A battery bank, an inverter, maybe some PV panels, and a generator on-demand might get you close, but I'm thinking the infrastructure costs would still be pretty substantial. The grid has the benefit of being able to average loads over the entire system and ramp production up and down as demand requires. That's tough to manage when it's just one house.
There are people living "off the grid", and they seem to do fine, but when you get down into the nitty gritty, they've given up a lot of convenience in order to live that way.
So, one could conceivably power a house without Duke Power. I guess that is not economically as cost effective or more people would do it? Or would it just be more hassle? On your own grid instead of theirs?
Absolutely. I haven't run the numbers ($/kW), but I would assume that it is considerably more expensive to run your own grid. I used to design cooling systems for 500hp CAT generators that were used to run oil drilling rigs. They would daisy chain 4 of these together to run a rig.
