After going without heat, running water, or lights for a few days during the Christmas ice storm, I finally put a stop to going without. I can deal with the water situation for a few days, but the no heat is just impossible. So I bought a generator that has enough power to run the pellet stove and a few LED lights. I also bought two power pack inverters that will run my electronics some. Each one can run 60 watt bulb two hours. The wifi uses very little, the LEDs about 5 watts, the computer is apple ipad with up to 11 hrs on one charge. The generator runs on 4 gallons of gas for 10 hrs at half load. No fancy electrical hook up. Just keep the generator away from the house and run a cord into the house. I am not anxious to try it out, just consider it like insurance. There if I need it, and skunked if I don't have it.
We haven't had to use ours that much but it sure was nice to be warm when the neighborhood is dark and cold.
Building my home last one in on a dead end road in a wooded area over a steep hill was a decision I made 38 years ago. Only twice have we been without power for any time longer than a day. But both those times were during the winter and during ice storms. I always said about my problems, "deal with it" Problem is now that I am older and it takes me a week to do what I used to do in a day. I just don't deal with it as I would have in the past when there was a little more spring in my steps.
$319 on sale, normally $349 plus $ for shipping from Northern Tool. It is also available from Amazon for that same price but they want $100 for shipping. Northern Tool calculates their shipping cost by distance. The Battery Inverters were $90 each. Got those from shop HQ. I waited too long to do this.
Save. You're a military guy. You've already had enough of doing things the hard way just for the sake of doing them that way and saying that you did. No need to do that anymore. You're right, the generator is a good insurance policy.
For a few bucks more, I could have gone with a larger unit. But I think it is best to look at a minimum, what would make living conditions tolerable during a power outage. Larger unit, more conveniences, more gas. Consider what you are going to run. Electronics can't run long with dirty power. They require pure sine or you will have a lot of damage to your equipment.
Yep I never had to use my generator for power Outage, But I have it, I Bought a roof rake about 3 years ago never used it it's still in the box, Going to try it out here in the next couple of days
Exactly, we all buy insurance policies for one thing or another, except these policies are physical, they are in front of us and work when you need them, proactive stuff!
I bought a cheap generator 4 years ago and it has gotten me through weeks worth of power outages. Best $300 I ever spent at Aldi's as I am sure it has saved me thousands of dollars worth of food that would have spoiled otherwise.
Running dirty power caused the pellet stove control unit to start to screw up and eventually blow. Problem is almost everything is electronically controlled now.
Gas is very very expensive in an outage IF you can get gas. We bought a little tiny 800 watt genny that gets about 6 hrs on a 1 gallon tank running at 50% load. We use lanterns a camping stove and the wood stove in an outage. Our fridges get cycled off the generator one at a time. That's just the reason to stay comfy but on the cheap!
The few times we were without power The generator was great to have. Hope you never "need " it, but good insurance if you do.
