Happy fun thunderstorm power outage thread

[LittleLebowski]

A generator saved me (blog) but I know our beloved founder is holed up in a hotel room since his power isn't expected to be restored for days. Anyone else get hit by the storm?

[JV_]

My roof needs a bit of work. I'm used to doing a shingle repair above the garage, but over the main house, it's too steep.

[ToddG]

PEPCO just advised us that our neighborhood is expected to have power restored on... Friday 6-Jul at 11pm.

Luckily, we've got a decent hotel room (that takes pets!) about five miles from home, so we're in pretty good shape.

[Vinh]

Still no power for me.

[Failure2Stop]

PEPCO just advised us that our neighborhood is expected to have power restored on... Friday 6-Jul at 11pm.

Luckily, we've got a decent hotel room (that takes pets!) about five miles from home, so we're in pretty good shape.

Ouch!
Glad you guys are ok.

[TGS]

Southern NJ was hit pretty hard by tornados along with the storms. My uncles neighborhood was pretty much destroyed, his house was saved although he did stay with us overnight while a crew was taking down a tree hanging halfway broken over top his house. Luckily they got power back today, but most people are being quoted 6 days.

[Dropkick]

The power was out 20 hours for me. Non-event as far as I was concerned, but I saw a few people go full retard.

Hope everyone stays safe, and gets their power back soon if they haven't already.

[TCinVA]

A generator saved me (blog) but I know our beloved founder is holed up in a hotel room sinc enis power isnt expected to be restored for days. Anyone else get hit by the storm?

Spent all day yesterday working to try and get the neighborhood back into passable shape. Trees down all over the place...had to show up with a chainsaw at the houses of folks from church to cut them out of their driveways and such. Ours hit Friday night at about 9 PM. The power blinked on and off for about an hour and a half, but after that it stayed on.

West of me it's a disaster. No power and crews working tirelessly to find all the places where the network has been damaged. Helped fetch water from the crick for several folks who needed water to make toilets work and to bathe in. It's been like revisiting the 19th century. Glad I didn't live there, frankly.

So it seems you folks got your dose last night, correct?

[LittleLebowski]

I lost power Friday night around 10 and didn't get power back until this morning. Very happy with my generator.

[ford.304]

Somehow it hopped us. We never lost power for more than a blip. All of my friends in Columbus are expected to be down for a week or more.

[David Armstrong]

Generators are wonderful things. After Rita we had to use our big gasoline generator for 30 days. Quite a hassle having to find gasoline and fill that tank twice a day. Now I'm equipped with a whole-house natural gas/propane powered monster that I love. Electricity goes out? Just count to 10, then there is a big "vroooom" from the side of the house, and everything is back on. So far the longest outage with it has been 6 days and it just purred along. Did I mention generators are wonderful things?:D

[Spr1]

My work was without power for 36 hours. I never lost power here, but there were scattered outages all over our county. I really need to buy a generator.......

[gtmtnbiker98]

I have two trees down, spent all day yesterday chopping, sawing, and stacking brush. This kind of work is a bit much. Now today, we just had baseball size hail roll through. Can't catch a break for anything here in Southern Ohio.

[MechEng]

I got lucky. All around Arlington there were trees down but I never lost power. Only the phone and internet were out for a few hours.

[Odin Bravo One]

Only lost power for about 2 hours.

Direct neighbors to my right still had it on...........along with a handful of other houses in the neighborhood, but guess we just got to be the lucky ones.

[TommyG]

You can not go wrong with a cut off and means to back feed your house. We have a gas Yamaha unit that we rotate between houses amongst the family if it is a short outage to keep the houses cool and the fridges and freezers cool. If it is going to be an extended affair, we all hole up together and run a 20 KV unit off a tractor PTO to keep the juice flowing.

[Jason F]

.....power restored on... Friday 6-Jul at 11pm.

WHOA!

Glad you guys found a refuge to hold out for a while until the lights come back on. The rest of ya, keep us in the loop- especially if you're just now getting back on the grid.

[fuse]

Guys guys guys

WHAT ABOUT THE NRA RANGE?

[MikeyC]

Been out since Friday night. No damage to my house, but I did dig my "older" neighbors out from under the tree limbs in their place. As my neighborhood loses power every time a cat sneezes I've had a generator for some time now. Next one will be big enough to run the A/C.:(

[Slavex]

be safe guys, gotta say I like having a cold wet summer vs the shit I see going on south of the border, especially back east.

[Tamara]

Somehow it hopped us. We never lost power for more than a blip. All of my friends in Columbus are expected to be down for a week or more.
Yeah, it smacked the outer 'burbs pretty hard Friday evening, but Indy only caught the southern fringe of it, just enough to knock out the power at the neighborhood gourmet beer emporium (http://www.kahnsfinewines.com/beer), making a sad Tamara.

They had all but a thousand customers in the state back on the juice by Sunday afternoon.

[Jason F]

Generators are wonderful things. After Rita we had to use our big gasoline generator for 30 days. Quite a hassle having to find gasoline and fill that tank twice a day. Now I'm equipped with a whole-house natural gas/propane powered monster that I love. Electricity goes out? Just count to 10, then there is a big "vroooom" from the side of the house, and everything is back on. So far the longest outage with it has been 6 days and it just purred along. Did I mention generators are wonderful things?:D

David-

Out of curiousity, what was the ballpark for that bad mamba jamba genny & install/hookup?

Thankfully I don't really have any power issues where I live (from storms, etc), so I'll probably end up getting a man size genny at some point. But the idea of those big whole house jobs have always fascinated me.

[ford.304]

Not Dave, but we had one quoted at around $4-5k a year ago. Too rich for my blood, but my in-laws have one and I have to say I just feel guilty sitting in their air conditioned house watching movies when everyone else in the block is out of power. Guilty in a *good* way.

[NEPAKevin]

Not Dave, but we had one quoted at around $4-5k a year ago. Too rich for my blood, ...

I seriously thought about getting one after a long outage caused by an ice storm but wound up going with a large gasoline generator and hard wired a transfer box that keeps almost all of our major circuits powered up during an outage. IIRC, the project ended up a little under $1400. I did wait about six months to get the generator as when I first priced one, just after the ice storm, they were close to 2K for an off brand and there were supposedly no transfer boxes to be found in the north-east.

[LittleLebowski]

How much did the cut out switch cost with labor?

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[NEPAKevin]

How much did the cut out switch cost with labor?

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It was a while ago, but if memory serves, the switch itself, which has four single and one 220 circuit was around $200. Labor was the nice price.

Did a quick search and found this kit, which looks like the set up I have, less some wiring:

http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-31406CRK-6-Circuit-Generator-Generators/dp/B000BQN4T2/ref=sr_1_3?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1341247489&sr=1-3

Just noticed that the kit pictured has only a ten foot cord. I was advised to keep the generator as far from the house as is possible to avoid carbon-monoxide issues and to use a large gauge wire. i.e. its better to have a long, thick cable.

[EMC]

While you guys on the East side are suffering from stormaggeddon 12' power outages, we are suffering through some bad wildfires. The Media is having a field day with the ones started by target shooters, even though in only one instance was an actual projectile spark to blame. Doesn't matter, it's all the target shooters fault in every new fire as far as they are concerned.

[LittleLebowski]

While you guys on the East side are suffering from stormaggeddon 12' power outages, we are suffering through some bad wildfires. The Media is having a field day with the ones started by target shooters, even though in only one instance was an actual projectile spark to blame. Doesn't matter, it's all the target shooters fault in every new fire as far as they are concerned.

Links?

[David Armstrong]

David-

Out of curiousity, what was the ballpark for that bad mamba jamba genny & install/hookup?

Thankfully I don't really have any power issues where I live (from storms, etc), so I'll probably end up getting a man size genny at some point. But the idea of those big whole house jobs have always fascinated me.
The generator itself (Generac) was around $3200 including a 100 amp 16 circuit automatic transer switch, all wiring, etc. I laid my own slab (recommended by me instead of using a gravel base pad) and the installation was a bit over $1000. I saved about $700 on the generator itself by waiting for a clearance sale and then buying a model that was being replaced by a different version. And if you have a friend who is an electrician and doesn't mind spending some time with you it can be self-installed. Had a friend who did that. Took a couple of days but saved a lot of money, and it works fine.

As a FWIW, I shopped extensively on and off line, and ended up going with Norwall Power out of Arizona. I even called my local dealers and asked them if they would meet the price and they said they couldn't.

[EMC]

Links?

Letter from the Utah Shooting Sports Council and information from the Governor:

http://www.utahconcealedcarry.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14901&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[EMC]

The generator itself (Generac) was around $3200 including a 100 amp 16 circuit automatic transer switch, all wiring, etc. I laid my own slab (recommended by me instead of using a gravel base pad) and the installation was a bit over $1000. I saved about $700 on the generator itself by waiting for a clearance sale and then buying a model that was being replaced by a different version. And if you have a friend who is an electrician and doesn't mind spending some time with you it can be self-installed. Had a friend who did that. Took a couple of days but saved a lot of money, and it works fine.

As a FWIW, I shopped extensively on and off line, and ended up going with Norwall Power out of Arizona. I even called my local dealers and asked them if they would meet the price and they said they couldn't.

Is your transfer switch mounted indoors or outdoors?

[cclaxton]

Both my house in vienna and girlfriends house in Annadale had no power after the storm and no idea how long it would be. Me being in a townhouse with the bedrooms on the top floor, it was a furnace up there. Girlfriend had daughter home for a visit who took the basement (coolest part), so she was sleeping on the foldout couch in the living room (Yuck). My daughter found a friend in Vienna to stay with who had power, and my son was gonna sleep through it on the couch.

I was planning on driving to Lewisberry, PA for their IDPA match on Sunday morning, but then after looking at the sleeping alternatives (my girlfriend will be miserable from the heat and I won't be able to sleep). So, I decided to drive to Lewisberry and would pick up a hotel when I got there. So, I get up to the Harrisburg, PA area, and I can't find a hotel room....and the prices are kinda high.

I ask the clerk why the full hotels. He said, "It's a Muslim convention." I wondered why I was seeing so many headscarfs.....

Finally found a motel room at about 1AM, but at least I had air conditioning and internet.

I had a decent match in spite of shooting the guy with the coke bottle in the shoothouse and missing one bad guy target.

On my way home I called and son said power was back on.

My power outage story.
CC

[NEPAKevin]

I ask the clerk why the full hotels. He said, "It's a Muslim convention." I wondered why I was seeing so many headscarfs.....

CC

Forth of July Holiday in the middle of the week probably doesn't help either and I believe that whole area around Gettysburg is in kind of a peak season for tourism.

[LittleLebowski]

I now have this urge to stockpile water and fuel.....

[Dropkick]

I now have this urge to stockpile water and fuel.....

Come on, that should have been, "stockpile -more- water, food, fuel, etc..."

[LittleLebowski]

Come on, that should have been, "stockpile -more- water, food, fuel, etc..."

Truf. I am now aiming for 14 days of running the generator non stop and 2 gallons per day per person.

[JMS]

I had the douchebag neighbor one door down from me "sneak" into my back yard to tap into my generator without asking at 0100 Sunday morning with an extension cord...while I was on my back deck (the generator was directly underneath me)....skylined by the full moon....smoking...and holding an iPhone with a screen that glowed and underlit my face as I recorded what he was doing. Un-freakin-believable....

We talk about folks having no SA....who the hell knew that their guild-master lives in my neighborhood...? Clearly, I had NO choice but to mess with this idiot's world, starting with pulling that cord out after I was reasonably sure he'd racked out for the night.

Predictably, he came a-pounding upon my door in the AM....equally clearly, the power-outage AND the loss of chilled beer in his fridge was all MY fault...and lapsed into stunned silence when I showed him the video I took of his of his exploits. At that point, the conversation became something like what you'll see below, starting at the 1:00 mark. In this vignette, the part of Fat, Douchebag, Painfully Oblivious Neighbor is played by Jonah Hill.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ac2e860a70/the-art-of-mind-f-ing

F,D,PON: Why didn't you SAY anything?
ME: ...and lose a piece of leverage that might compell you to act like a decent human being against your will...? You, my man, lack vision!

[LittleLebowski]

Oh man, they always say people get bad after a day without electricity. JMS, what did he initially say when he pounded on your door the next day?

[Tamara]

Predictably, he came a-pounding upon my door in the AM....equally clearly, the power-outage AND the loss of chilled beer in his fridge was all MY fault...

You're kidding me. This cat actually had the stones to browbeat you over unplugging the extension cord he'd surreptitiously plugged into your generator?

Man, I... just... wow. That is pretty frickin' brazen, right there. :eek:

[LittleLebowski]

Man, I... just... wow. That is pretty frickin' brazen, right there. :eek:

Especially if you know JMS personally..... He's one of those humble, soft spoken Marine infantry Sgt types ;)

[NEPAKevin]

He should be grateful you just unplugged the cord. A spiteful person might have gone a little out of his way and run non-fused 220 into the cord until it started to melt.

[JMS]

LL, he never got the chance to begin. I opened the door with my phone in hand and the vid playing as he was pulling breath. His fat sewer snapped shut hard enough for his lips to pop, and we had a short, quiet little come-to-Jesus meeting regarding how I and his other neighbors expected him to behave in the future.

Tam, yeah, that was his intent. Most idiots/bad guys can find a way to rationalize themselves into being the aggrieved party, or take a page from the "admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations" playbook. Given what I'd just witnessed and recorded, it wasn't a difficult Enemy MPCoA for which to prep.

There was even a 2min period where I mentally wargamed unplugging MY cords, trundling the generator over to HIS back yard, and calling the cops on him, in a "F**k me? Au contraire mon frere, f**k YOU!" scenario. Amusing to think of, but lies are like kids; you have to be willing to commit to them if you want them to stay alive, and that'd be too much effort....even if I was seriously considering it, instead of amusing myself.

I am a New Age, sensitive, caring former Marine. I'd still LOVE to give him 30 lashes with a nettle bush or beat him to death with a flip-flop, just on GP, but shall forbear in the interests of maintaining the wa of my household. :cool:

EDIT: Boils down to this; I have a security clearance to think of, and can't really indulge in scorched-earth responses as I'd like. Or, I'm taking a longer view of things as I slowly slip into my dotage....

[Dropkick]

Yup, sometimes you just have to be satisfied with knowing that you could.
:cool:

[Buzz Fledderjohn]

We lost power at 5:30ish friday night while I was enjoying local craft beer at our haunt and nursing fresh ink on my arm. It just came back on a few hours ago. I have a 5kw genny and about 40 gallons of fuel stored for it so it was no big deal setting it up and getting cords ran into the house.
Here was what I learned: I need a much quieter unit. Even in the detached garage the noise was very noticeable. Granted there were probably a dozen other noisy units going in the area but I just felt like I had a huge target on me, especially when we got to the 72 hour mark and AEP was estimating another 3-4 days. My neighborhood is mixed middle class and retired folks but we border section 8 apartments and are only a few miles from the dregs.
A Honda EU2000i Tri Fuel is in my near future. I'm not after powering the whole house as that would also make me a lit up target. Just fridge, freezer and maybe some fans or portable AC if it was nasty hot like it was this week. With candles going at night to make us look like everyone else w/o power. Plus the inverter units are much safer for computer and HAM equipment. My friend has the exact model and you can stand on the other side of his garage door and not hear it and it sips the fuel, he was powering quite a few things in his house, fridge/freezer/sump/well/fans etc. And to top off the pluses of the unit, it's light and will fit into the tool box on my truck.
All in all my wife and I found the event to be good practice.....
~Matt

[njmedic1485]

It was not fun, I was working Friday night/ Saturday morning when all that mess hit, all in all we were lucky in that we didn't sustain any damage and the power was only out for 3 days. Thank God for friends, our next door neighbor took his family on vacation to Disney World he took the time to call and make sure we were okay and even had his brother stop over to check. Another good friend offered her portable generator which came with all the heavy gauge extension cords we would need and was full of stabilized gas so all we had to do was fire it up and run lines.

[ToddG]

We got our power back Tuesday afternoon, a full three days ahead of schedule. So it was 88hr without power all told.

I think we're decided on getting a generator. Now it's just a matter of figuring how big/powerful it needs to be and how best to get it installed. We'll likely get one that runs off our natural gas line and there's no way I'm going to try doing that myself.

edited to add: JMS, he's lucky you didn't call the cops. All else aside, that's trespassing and theft. My sense of mercy would have been cut short as soon as the idiot actually complained about cutting his stolen electricity supply.

[David Armstrong]

Is your transfer switch mounted indoors or outdoors?
Indoors, close to the regular circuit breaker box.

[David Armstrong]

It was not fun, I was working Friday night/ Saturday morning when all that mess hit, all in all we were lucky in that we didn't sustain any damage and the power was only out for 3 days. Thank God for friends, our next door neighbor took his family on vacation to Disney World he took the time to call and make sure we were okay and even had his brother stop over to check. Another good friend offered her portable generator which came with all the heavy gauge extension cords we would need and was full of stabilized gas so all we had to do was fire it up and run lines.
That is something really important, and the downfall to so many good intentions. Make sure if you are running portables that you get at least one good, heavy-duty extension cord that will reach whereever you need it and if using gasoline keep the fuel fresh and/or stabilized. Also you need to work the gnerator regularly. That means working the generator, not the engine! You need to fire up the engine, let it run for a bit, then put a load on the generator....plug something in that takes a lot of juice so those bushings will spin up to load.

[Al T.]

Hindsight is 20-20, but I'd offer that surreptitiously rendering his extension cord incapable of transmitting electricity would be fun. :cool:

[David Armstrong]

A bit of judicious fraying at the plug could have been a shocking experience for him when he came to unplug the cord.

[NEPAKevin]

I picked up a Champion Dual Fuel Inverter generator (https://www.amazon.com/Champion-Power-Equipment-100263-Generator/dp/B01FAWMMEY/ref=pd_sbs_86_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01FAWMMEY&pd_rd_r=9EJFHQFB6CVDFRGC43AZ&pd_rd_w=2y1nS&pd_rd_wg=sfk4T&psc=1&refRID=9EJFHQFB6CVDFRGC43AZ) when Home Depot had them as one of their deals of the day. Have not had the need to run it hard, but the propane option and push button start work pretty slick.

18645

[Grey]

Anyone have some resources or links to some generator reviews? Been thinking about picking one up.

[Drang]

Anyone have some resources or links to some generator reviews? Been thinking about picking one up.

IHere's a couple links I bookmarked from years ago, there may be better:
Home Generators Guide: Generators for Home Use (http://www.smps.us/home-generators.html)
Whole House Generator Buyer's Guide - How to Pick the Perfect Whole House Generator (https://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/stories/38-How-to-Pick-the-Perfect-Whole-House-Generator.html)

I bookmarked these long enough ago that half the URLS went to 403 or GoDaddy sites.:o

[rjohnson4405]

We've had good luck with Honda if you want something somewhat quiet.

If you don't care about noise there are cheaper options.

[Robinson]

Back in rural Ohio we had a Honda generator. It always worked and was not too loud. Nice electric start.

[StraitR]

We've had good luck with Honda if you want something somewhat quiet.

If you don't care about noise there are cheaper options.

We've got two Honda EU2000i inverter generators and they've been great. Not enough to power a home, but that's not what we're trying to do during extended outages anyway. The smaller Honda's are not only great around the home, but very useful car camping and tailgating (Trunk or Treat) due to being so quiet. I keep meaning to pick up a parallel cable, but have never gotten around to it. One EU2000i will run our refrigerator, but one is not enough to kick it on.

[Grey]

We've got two Honda EU2000i inverter generators and they've been great. Not enough to power a home, but that's not what we're trying to do during extended outages anyway. The smaller Honda's are not only great around the home, but very useful car camping and tailgating (Trunk or Treat) due to being so quiet. I keep meaning to pick up a parallel cable, but have never gotten around to it. One EU2000i will run our refrigerator, but one is not enough to kick it on.

By not enough to kick it on do you mean that it wont start up the compressor?

Was looking at the 2000i but wondering if its enough power to keep my fridge running in the event of a power loss.

[Peally]

I wish we got power outages once in a while. As pathetic as it is sometimes they spruce up the day :D

[NEPAKevin]

Most of the manufacturers have some sort of use calculator. For example, Honda Wattage Calculator (http://powerequipment.honda.com/generators/wattage-calculator) Camper forums also have a lot of practical information. The problem I ran into is that as stuff got "smart" it doesn't like the power my big, old generator puts out but the inverter generators seem to solve this problem and are more fuel efficient.

[StraitR]

By not enough to kick it on do you mean that it wont start up the compressor?

Was looking at the 2000i but wondering if its enough power to keep my fridge running in the event of a power loss.

I'll preface me response with, I'm not an expert on these things. I'm only going on what my good friend, who is a city building inspector by trade and licensed electrician told me.

One EU2000i is enough to power our refrigerator, easily in fact, but motors and compressors can both require up to six times their rated current draw at start up. I forget what my fridge draws, but based on what he saw on the inside of our fridge door, he suggested I get the parallel cable and run them in parallel to be sure. Again, no expert, but through talking with him, it sounds like this has to do more with your particular fridge than anything else.

All that said, if I were buying one generator for the home, I would probably look for something bigger. Ours were gifts.

[Robinson]

We've got two Honda EU2000i inverter generators and they've been great. Not enough to power a home, but that's not what we're trying to do during extended outages anyway. The smaller Honda's are not only great around the home, but very useful car camping and tailgating (Trunk or Treat) due to being so quiet. I keep meaning to pick up a parallel cable, but have never gotten around to it. One EU2000i will run our refrigerator, but one is not enough to kick it on.

We had a neat setup with our Honda. Down in the basement we had a master generator switch installed that we could just throw in order to put the house on generator power (the generator would be started first). It was configured so that a certain number of essentials like the furnace, water pump, fridge, and a couple other things were powered but non-essentials were not. It worked well.

[NEPAKevin]

The set up I originally went with was to hook up a 9K generator via a six circuit transfer switch (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQN4T2/ref=asc_df_B000BQN4T25104642/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B000BQN4T2&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167151490548&hvpos=1o5&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1308393179668325025&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007095&hvtargid=pla-312809453427) which powers up the well pump, heat, air conditioner, fridge, and the outlets in the living room. I have been thinking about getting a standby whole house generator, but while the most convenient, they also have some issues that I want to first look into such as which generators and automatic transfer switches are most reliable and which ones have the cleanest power or need filtering, stuff like that. Some people seem to have no problems but I know of at least one person who had his auto-transfer unit corrode. I believe that spending that kind of money and still finding oneself sitting in the dark would tend to be upsetting.

[gringop]

By not enough to kick it on do you mean that it wont start up the compressor?

Was looking at the 2000i but wondering if its enough power to keep my fridge running in the event of a power loss.

I picked up a used eu2000i at the local pawn shop for a good price last Thurs. Here is what I have found with my testing with it.

It has an "Eco throttle" setting that allows it to drop down to idle at low load and speed up under a heavy load. Since it is an inverter gen, it does not need to keep a constant speed to maintain 60 hertz like my big dumb 5k watt non inverter generator. With a 13amp power tool, on "ET", my 13 amp Skillsaw spins up slowly, then reaches full RPM after 3 seconds once the gen gets up to speed. With a 13 amp worm gear saw, it takes around 5 seconds to get up to speed.

With the "ET" throttle off, the saws (one at a time) work as if on normal 120 volt main power.

With 2 Dell mid towers and a Dell laptop, a TW cable modem, GigB switches, a Cisco VOIP phone and a ASA 5505 FW drawing a total of 4.4 amps, it all works fine on "ET" .

On "ET", a 5k btu window unit AC at 8.7 amps max, will run the fan but when the compressor kicks in, the gen ramps up too slow and the AC drops back down to fan only.

It runs fine with the "ET" off.

My old Kenmore 18 ft refrigerator runs 4.5 max amps on "ET" with no problems. My 13 amp microwave really needs the eu2000i to be running with "ET"off to work normally.

Summary:

The eu2000i has an electric motor to modulate the throttle position to maintain the correct power. It takes time to speed up under load. If high loads are anticipated, do not run "ET" (Eco throttle".

Realistic summary:
In the summer, in Austin TX, the eu2000i can't provide enough power to run the local window unit AC needed and the refer/freezer/computer stuff, for my house, It will take my normal, non-inverter 5000 watt gen to supply that much power (while not straining much at all) .

In the winter, we will have to figure out how much juice the gas heater blower needs and recalibrate.

Gringop (All amp and wattage measurements from a Killiwatt power strip, yes I am an electronics nerd)


ETA, re. noise, with Eco throttle on, I can't hear the gen in my side yard with it running in the back yard. With Eco throttle off, I can't hear it at the street in front of my house. Mo Debly anti Zombie quiet.

[Mike C]

Tagged for interest.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NEPAKevin]

Home Depot has generic generators as their Special Buy of the Day (http://www.homedepot.com/SpecialBuy/SpecialBuyOfTheDay). FWIW, when they had this deal a year and a half ago, I got the 2200/1800 Ryobi inverter and ran it through a couple of short power outages where it worked fine to run the TV, fridge, coal stove and sump pump while using very little gas. There was one cold day, well below 20F, that it was hard to start but ran fine once it did. Main complaint is that the telescoping handle and wheel set up must have been designed for hobbits. Also, I never tried to run the A/C with it and as mentioned earlier in this thread picked up a bigger generator for that purpose.