Generator for travel trailer
I’m trying to decide on a generator to use with my travel trailer and hoping to make a better decision based on your experience. What suggestions do you have?
Forum Discussion
No doubt Honda and to some extent Yamaha, although not nearly as popular, are higher quality units with pricing that reinforces that conviction. All my Honda equipment has stood the test of time, have no experience using their gennies.
First thing to really consider is the highest wattage item you plan to run, obviously the AC unit and microwave are the power hungry items in RVs across the board. Most 2K watt gennies can run microwaves along with everything else except your AC unit.
Our RV has an onboard Onan that powers our rig as if connected to shore power, convenient one button starting/stopping, most of the time it is way more power than we need. Great unit but it doesn't have smart technology like an inverter genny, certainly not as quiet or fuel efficient.
Since we do lots of RVing off the power grid, under harsh weather conditions, we do put hundreds of hours on our genny yearly. With our solar panels, on fair weather days our genny gets to relax. With cloudy days we run our genny an hour or two to let our Iota quickly replenish battery bank.
After 8 years our Onan had over 1500 hours, was looking to give it a break and hoping to get something with smart technology. Needed at least 3K watts to occasionally run our AC unit, and the convenience of one button starting. That was 5 years ago, our Champion 3100 inverter genny with 600 hours has proven very reliable.
First thing to really consider is the highest wattage item you plan to run, obviously the AC unit and microwave are the power hungry items in RVs across the board. Most 2K watt gennies can run microwaves along with everything else except your AC unit.
Our RV has an onboard Onan that powers our rig as if connected to shore power, convenient one button starting/stopping, most of the time it is way more power than we need. Great unit but it doesn't have smart technology like an inverter genny, certainly not as quiet or fuel efficient.
Since we do lots of RVing off the power grid, under harsh weather conditions, we do put hundreds of hours on our genny yearly. With our solar panels, on fair weather days our genny gets to relax. With cloudy days we run our genny an hour or two to let our Iota quickly replenish battery bank.
After 8 years our Onan had over 1500 hours, was looking to give it a break and hoping to get something with smart technology. Needed at least 3K watts to occasionally run our AC unit, and the convenience of one button starting. That was 5 years ago, our Champion 3100 inverter genny with 600 hours has proven very reliable.
