generator

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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