We have been slammed with the worst ice storm in my memory and I thought I'd post up something I discovered.
I'm running two generators. A 5500 watt Coleman Powermate with a 10hp Yamaha engine only as needed and almost all the time a tiny Honda EU1000i inverter generator which is powering the iMac, cable modem and router which I'm using at the moment. The other thing it's powering is my central heat which is natural gas.
I splurged a few years back and had a whole new central heat and air system installed. We moved the ducts to the attic, poured concrete in all the old floor ducts, and also put the heating unit and air handler/condensing coil in the attic. It has a wireless remote thermostat in addition to the wall mounted thermostat along with a few circuit boards in the system. I really didn't want to risk blowing any of those in the middle of an ice storm running on my bigger generator with a noisy sine wave. So I got out the install specs and low and behold the little 1000 watt inverter generator was right on the max current draw for my unit. It's the ultra high 97% efficiency super duper unit (when it was new) with the soft start motors and all that wonderful hippy approved stuff. So I unplugged it from the wall socket and ran a cord to it and gave it a shot. To my amazement the little Honda barely even notices when the load hits upon startup. It just hums along with the eco throttle switch turned on which is a really high idle, it throttles up automatically if needed. It holds a whopping 2.1 liters of gas and will run over 8 hours. To say that I'm pleased is a drastic understatement. This has saved me at least 20 gallons of gas and I'm only on day 3.
I just run my bigger Coleman during the day for the fridge, deep freeze, microwave and coffee maker. I'll run the dishwasher and washer and dryer (also gas) switching out a few cords as needed. I love Honda generators and natural gas!
My next house will definitely have a whole house Generac backup system installed. I'll use these for the shop with an exterior connection plug and proper service panel and wiring.