generator

[v2k1966]

What would be the best deal for a generator for our RV and also be able to use at the house if the power would go off?

[Veebyes]

Oh my, look what may be coming my way this weekend. A tropical storm. Might just get a reason to put the house genny to work. Hope not. Next RV trip is supposed to start next week. The only genny I want to need to use is the trailer genny.

[PAThwacker]

I have a 6500w and a 2000 watt Yamaha
Neither of them run ac and stricltly used for off the grid needs. The 6500w powers my well pump/sump pump seperately. the water heater also needs independent use of the 6500w ideally homes with well and septic, electric range, electric water heater need 10kw or larger

[Rolling_Condo]

Check out the Champion website. It has information to help decide on the size generafor you need.

[kmbelt]

I have an old 1986 Dometic portable generator my parents gave me. It is only 2250 watts, but does all i need for my house in a power outage. I don't use it camping as i always have electric to keep the wife happy.

I have powered the following at one time during our last power outage a couple of winters ago. I don't want to power my whole house, just the items that were necessity in my mind. Never had a problem with it.

Furnace (gas, so only had to run the blower)
Refrigerator
small chest freezer
two lamps
television
satellite box
internet modem

So what I am saying is simply to follow what everyone here is telling you, figure out what you need to power at home and size accordingly. As you can see i can get by with a small one since i have no need to power my whole house.

[Hemi_Power]

Yep, you will have to buy 2. I have one Champion 2000W Inverter Gen for camping, looks like a little cube, nice and quiet and a Champion 7500W with 220v 30Amp for the house, both for $1,200. The big one runs just about everything at the house, the little one is nice and light, but won't run my A/C while camping. You need at least 2400W for that, but I could buy another 2000W Champion and parallel them together for around 3600W. Its hard to get one gen for both purposes.

[Veebyes]

If you are hoping to buy only 1 genny how much weight are you prepared to lift? Most of us get by with a Honda 2000 for the trailer however that is not going very far powering the house without some very serious power management on you part.

Living where I do hurricanes are an annual threat. The last direct hit we had the power was off for OVER a MONTH. I did not have my own genny then. I do now & it is a 5kw gasser which powers the house, no AC, very easily. Yeah, it is noisy but it was cheap & I am set up to plug it in just on the house side of the meter, remembering of course to turn the meter off. You can't get much more basic than that.

[mudmaker]

FWIW. I have used my Yamaha EU2400i to run the fridge, a computer, sat dish receiver, lights, and a Lennox Pulse furnace big enough for a 4000 square foot house. And yes, all at the same time. We lost power due to an ice storm for a week.
I was using two different generators til another ice storm late in the week rendered the noisey Coleman useless. So I hook it all up to one just to see if it would take it. No problems!

[ford_truck_guy]

I also have 2 ( actually 3) .. I have a 6500 Honda for the house and twin Honda EU 2000's with the companion cables for the camper....It is amazing how quieter the twins are over the 6500...Joe

[laknox]

v2k1966 wrote:
What would be the best deal for a generator for our RV and also be able to use at the house if the power would go off?

Personally, I would have 2 generators. One dedicated to be the standby for the house and one for camping. Again personally, I would favor an inverter-style for camping for 2 reasons. 1) it's a whole lot more efficient on fuel do the fact that it only runs as fast as necessary to support the load on it. The rest of the time it's at idle. 2) they're much more quiet, so you'll have happier neighbors when camping. As was said by others, you can get some big generators for not a lot of money at Costco, Sam's Club, Northern Tool, Harbor Freight, etc. I have a dedicated, switched, breaker on my panel at home, with transfer instructions pasted to the inside of the panel door, for my generator.

Lyle

[CYNCWBY]

If you want something that will run your house and RV look at the Champion Power line of gen. Costco has the big one 9350/7500 (I think) for $695 which is a hell of a good deal, it also has remote start as do a couple of smaller ones. The draw back is they are HEAVY and make more noise than the Honda/Yamaha. I have an engine hoist so I can get it in and out of my truck easily or on the carrier I made that can go on the back of the 5th wheel. Do LOTS of research for the applicaation you will need it for

[Peg_Leg]

If you need 220v for the Geo pump then you want to make sure the gen you pick has 220v. Using the same gen for camping will only give you 1/2 of 220v gen's rating. A 5,000 watt 220v gen will only give you 2,500 watts on the 110v side. These gen's are normally very noisy for camping. You would need 220v at home for an elec range, clothes dryer, elec water heater and maybe a water pump.

You can't run everything without a large gen. Camping with a gen is good lesson in power management. I have to watch what's running even with a 3,000 watt gen. I can run the AC and microwave at the same time but I have to make sure the fridge and the water heater are on gas. Most of the time without AC and using propane for the fridge and water heater I never run into any problems.

I had 3 trailer plugged into the gen once. We each had coffee makers going and all was well, until my niece turned on a hair dryer. Any thing with a heating element is going to eat up capacity quickly.

Try to keep a camping gen in the 60 db range. You'll be happier and so will the neighbors.

[naturist]

I, too, have two generators, a small, light, quiet 1800 watt inverter generator primarily for camping, and a big, heavy, noisy 5500 watt standard generator for the house and the annual outage caused by storms, and paid for by the frozen food we didn't have to throw away after the last such event.

The little one will power everything in my camper except the AC, which the big one would handle with ease. But the big one isn't going camping with us because frankly, I have no way to get it to camp. It is too heavy to put in the back of my TV, and other campers would riot at the racket.

If you want to have just one, and use it for both, it is going to cost you big bucks, because it will have to be both light and quiet as well as powerful, and now you are looking at the sort of contradiction that always costs lots of money, and generally leaves you with delicate and temperamental machines, that cost much more to run and maintain. My two cost me less than $900 together. The closest I could get for a single unit was over $2,000. The $1100 savings will pay for a lot of camping trips.

[2edgesword]

Since running the house is probably going to require the most power you have to decide what thinks in the house are the must have items for you. Then consider what it's going to require to take that size generator with you on the road (easy lifting, noise, etc.).

Using some power management I can run everything in my trailer with my Yamaha 2400ishc. The 3500 watt generator I have at home to run heating or A/C, frig, lights, microwave, television, computers, etc. is just to heavy to bring camping and a bit more noisy so I opted for a second generator (the Yamaha) to take with us when we travel.

[RoyB]

I treat my house just like camping off the power grid when the 120VAC power goes off...

I have two of those 1800WATTS Small COMPUTER UPS Systems... These has internal batteries that usually keeps everything going after the power goes for a good 30minutes to an hour so that you can safely shut down things.
ADDED NOTE: Just checked the my two UPS units. They are POWERWARE 2700W 120VAC model 5125. I have more emergency power than I realized...



These small UPS unit also has external 12VDC battery terminals on them. I am planning to move my somewhat depleted GP24 12VDC batteries from my trailer when I replace my trailer batteries soon to the outside of my house near my radio room/computer room and feed the UPS unit along with several other 12VDC radio items inside the radio room. I will have around 255AHs 12VDC battery capacity feeding my radio room.

From my 1800 UPS Unit I can run a couple of temp 120VAC extension cords to our home entertainment area and a couple of other useful places to mount some CFL fluorescent bulbs. I can also run my fridge from the source as well for a couple of hours each day to keep everything frozen in the fridge.

I have been doing this method for some some time already but never had more deep cycle batteries installed on the house side. It is no big hassle for us to have a couple of long extension cords running thru the house.

Doing this method of living off the batteries I will only need to run my 2KW Honda generator only three hours a day to keep my battery bank recharged. On my trailer hookup the 255AHs capacity will run us rather fine all day long with the normal 1-2AMPS "parasitic drains" and a heavy usage of 20AMPS or so between 8PM and 11PM running the home entertainment items and other 120VAC thing want to have running. The 255AHs batteries then will last just fine until 8AM the next morning when we we usually run the 2KW Honda generator to re-charge the battery bank when camping off the power grid. Doing this for the house when the power goes off is no different for us.

A great PLAN B to have available. We survived the two previous hurricane seasons just fine with one outage over a week long. The only problem we encountered was to locate some gasoline for the generator as the whole area around us was without power. Finally found a gas station running on emergency power.

Roy Ken