Cheap vs expensive, generator edition

[drbrivers]

In my town the electrical grid is pretty old and if the wind blows the wrong way in my neighborhood we get a power outage. We have been here for 7 years and we get about 3-4 outages each year. They typically last about 3 hours but we have had one that lasted over2 days. Besides aquarium needs I do a lot of web based work from home so power outage for us is a very big deal. While not cheap, (over 10 K total) given the frequency in our neighborhood and the fact that I expect the electrical grid to only age more we saved up and pulled the trigger on a whole home back up generator (a Generac model). We have gas line to house for heat and the gas stays on during power outages so the generator comes on within 9 seconds of the power to the house going out. Has been a lifesaver so far for us. As the system is automatic we also don't have to worry if we are not at home if an outage occurs.

 

[exnisstech]

In my town the electrical grid is pretty old and if the wind blows the wrong way in my neighborhood we get a power outage. We have been here for 7 years and we get about 3-4 outages each year. They typically last about 3 hours but we have had one that lasted over2 days. Besides aquarium needs I do a lot of web based work from home so power outage for us is a very big deal. While not cheap, (over 10 K total) given the frequency in our neighborhood and the fact that I expect the electrical grid to only age more we saved up and pulled the trigger on a whole home back up generator (a Generac model). We have gas line to house for heat and the gas stays on during power outages so the generator comes on within 9 seconds of the power to the house going out. Has been a lifesaver so far for us. As the system is automatic we also don't have to worry if we are not at home if an outage occurs.

This is exactly what I'm doing. No natural gas here but I have a 500g propane tank. I'm going with an 18kw whole house unit so we won't have to worry about what we can or can't run when the main power is out and we won't have to be home to fire it up.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

High winds are a coming so I am buying a generator for my aquarium. I want the Honda 2200 watt inverter but it is $1100 and I could go to harbor freight and get their predator 2000 watt inverter for $600. This will only be for emergencies so should I just get the predator?

I have been buying Honda generators since 2010, I have a 1000k since 2014 with to many hours to count and it just will not die. We run our generators 8-16 hours a day sometimes 7 days a week in our construction company.

The worst thing for a generator is not to run it. keep the generator covered and run it with a saw/drill once a month along with a good gas stabilizer.