Generator options

jholovacs wrote:
I'm a fulltimer in an RV park, so I generally don't have to worry about power, but I also live in southern Florida and I'm told we will lose power quite often in the wake of a bad storm or hurricane.

I just picked up a new Open Range 5th wheel, with 2 A/C units (one 15KBTU and 1 13.5KBTU) plus a washer/ dryer unit. I'd like to have some assurance that I could keep power going when I need to.

To this end, I'm looking for something small (space is at a premium), fairly low-maintenance, and powerful enough to power my RV like I was plugged in, but not cost a boatload.

I originally looked at the LP generator option available for the Open Range, but the dealer was quoting me $7500-$8500. I suppose that would make sense if I wanted the cadillac of bivouacking, where noise and vibration and convenience were a big deal, but that's not what I'm looking for.

Any recommendations?

50a with 2 A/C's and washer/dryer and you want to function "normally" in a power outage? Won't be small, cheap or real quiet. Something like my dad's old MultiQuip Whisperwatt 25kw with an Isuzu diesel 4-banger would work great! :-) Seriously, you're looking at +/- 7-10kw, gas or diesel (personally, I'd go diesel if I could afford it) to run everything. Now, if you want to be more conservative, then 4-5kw would be a bit easier to deal with and you'll just have to deal with power management, shutting down things to run others. Either way, you're going to be dealing with something that's heavy enough that you'll need help schlepping it around and you'll have to feed it, so you'll need to have fuel on hand, and a fair bit of it. With a major outage, you're likely to have problems finding fuel since stations local to you will likely be out, too. So, you either store it on site or you drive out of the outage area for it.

Lyle