Houstonians- generators? (Howe: apartment, condo, appliances)

[swopoe]

We are going to finally get a generator. Probably something that can power phone chargers, a refrigerator/freezer, fan. What kind of generator do you have? What do you suggest and where should we shop? We want to get something soon before hurricane season really gets underway. Budget up to a few thousand (maybe $2k or a little more).

[dd1153]

We got this one right after the freeze. It runs on fuel, natural gas or propane and will power the essentials. We also got a 14,000 BTU portable AC for around $400.. so around $1500 all in.

I am running this 100% off natural gas as I have supply from my house and never have to refuel. It runs cleaner and is less expensive. However you do get less of running watts on natural gas so figure that into your load capacity.

https://www.costco.com/firman-7500w-...100648883.html

[WRM20]

Natural gas is the way to go. Gasoline is dangerous, and if you do it right, you allow the generator to cool down before refueling. Natural Gas means never having to shut down unless you need to change the oil, filters, or the power comes back on. Natural gas also eliminates the smells that come from gasoline engines.

[swopoe]

Thank you. We do have a natural gas supply that we could run it from. Didn’t even know that was an option!

[gwarnecke]

That Firman tri-fuel model is a great house backup option for most people.

You may want to also consider an inverter generator, such as the Champion 100519 (5000w) or 100520 (7000w), which are significantly quieter than standard generators and put out cleaner power (better for sensitive electronics, although I've never had a problem running these off of my old-school non-inverter generator).

However, there are currently no tri-fuel inverter generators on the market, so if you want to run one on natural gas you will need to convert it using a ~$30-40 tri-fuel carburator.

Natural gas is the way to go if you have a hookup available. Anecdotally - stale gasoline is responsible for 90%+ of no-start situations with generators. Natural gas eliminates the stale gasoline issue and the need to store a bunch of fuel or hunt for an open gas station after a hurricane.

If your generator is electric start, leave the battery on a float charger so it won't be dead when you need it most.

I'd also recommend installing an interlocked generator inlet on your main panel. This allows you to plug your generator directly into your house to power your lights and hardwired appliances without running extension cords everywhere.

[kreeyax]

If you just want to power your fridge, phone chargers, and a lamp or two you don't need something huge. I use a Honda EU2200i to power that stuff. They run about $1100. You have to have a way to run an extension cord into the house, mine fits in the bottom corner of the back door and I can still close and lock the door. Plus it can come in handy if you ever go camping since it's so portable. I keep a 5 gallon gas can in the garage and change the fuel out every 6 months or so. With the winter freeze the 5 gallon can lasted the entire time the power was out (about 35 hours if I remember right).

If you want to power your whole house (except maybe the A/C unit) then get a bigger tri-fuel generator and have a switch installed at your circuit breaker. Then you can hook it up to natural gas (or run gasoline), and just plug it into the breaker and switch it over when the power goes out. Some of my neighbors did this and it probably didn't cost them much more than $1500 including the electrician to do the work. If you get a big enough generator you can probably power your home A/C as well.

[right]

Don't get a propane generator. If you look at the specs, they never mention the runtime for running on propane. A whole 5 gallon tank runs like 4 hours. That is like $10-$15 to run 4 hours. You can run most of what you need on a small 2500 watt unit (link below at home depot $479)that will sip the gas. I ran a 1600 watt space heater, large tv, phone chargers, light, fan for 4 hours on less than a gallon of gas with the champion inverter during the freeze event. You can link up two of the 2500 units or just upgrade to the bigger inverter units but I like having the smaller units because they are more efficient. Make sure you have enough gas cans, especially if you have a bigger generator as you could be without gas pumps for up to a week. I have 6 VP racing cans (see link below) which hold almost 6 gallons each and 3 cheap 5 gallon cans. I had enough fuel to last two weeks using the small 2500 watt unit. The VP gas cans have good tube spouts so you can dump the fuel in your car (without spilling a drop) after the threat is gone.





https://www.homedepot.com/p/Champion...0889/313554748


https://www.amazon.com/VP-Racing-Fue.../dp/B003TTV972

[resonator]

Does a 7-10kw nat'l gas unit require larger pipes/meter ?

[mojo101]

what about those portable generators like bluetti stations ac200p,YOU CAN charge the battery either using solar panel or wall outlet.
it has a battery inside.and cost only a few hundred dollars and no carbon monoxide

[gwarnecke]

Originally Posted by mojo101

what about those portable generators like bluetti stations ac200p,YOU CAN charge the battery either using solar panel or wall outlet.
it has a battery inside.and cost only a few hundred dollars and no carbon monoxide

Those should work if you're just trying to charge computers, phones, run a few LED lights, etc. If you're in a high-rise condo or apartment, they're better than nothing. But the only ones that can put out the juice to run a fridge or window AC are $$$ and won't power those devices for long anyways.

Also, the battery in these devices will wear out, just like all lithium ion batteries, even if you just leave the device sitting on the shelf waiting for an outage. Once the battery won't hold a charge, you've got an expensive paperweight.

By constrast, a lightly-used gasoline generator can last decades with proper maintenance. Even if you forget to drain the fuel and the carburetor gets gummed up, you can disassemble and clean it and get the generator up and running in 30 mins (I had to do this for neighbor during the winter storm, his generator had ~2017 gas in it and wouldn't start).