Power outage again

[jesshimom]

So we woke up in the night without power again. Sounds like alot of the county is without. We bought a generator and got home and it was back on! We were out about 9 hours I think. We are ready for next time.

For those interested in a generator; Costco rules on price. We paid $499 for a 5500 Coleman generator. The Aurora Village Costco had quite few but I watched several being purchased while we were there.

Home Depot's 5500 generator was $699

 

[Llarian]

I saw the Coleman 5500 at Costco yesterday and was tempted to buy one.

When you get a chance to use it, can you post here about your impressions of the quality and the like?

-Dylan

 

[class clown]

We lost for about 3 hrs last night only.. glad you got a generator Colleen. They are totally worth it for piece of mind if nothing else.

 

[jesshimom]

Well Dylan, I told Scott because we bought one, it will probably stay in the box for five years untouched.... But, am glad we have one when we need it.

 

[Pikachu]

Oh man, I didn't lose power, but there was so much hail yesterday at my house that I couldn't drive up my hill due to skidding.

 

[Katchupoy]

There is 4500 watt generator at Schucks for 299 or something. It has 12 volts also at the same time so you can charge a 12 volt car battery for inverter use....so while the generator is out then inverter can be used...

 

[Reef Monkey]

How big of a generator would one need to run basics for a small 1,000 square foot home, i.e. refrigerator, lights, and a small tank? I don't know a whole lot about generators and I'm considering buying one for future outages, so I'm trying to figure out how big is big enough.

 

[class clown]

You'll really have to add your wattage up to answer the true answer to this question.

i.e (just guessing on these numbers - You'll have to add up what you want to run for your own house during an outage)


Return pump for fish tank = ~100 watts
2 250 Watt heaters for fish tank = ~ 500 watts
6 * 60 watt bulbs = ~360 watts
refrigerator = ~700 watts
Stove = ~ 1500 watts
Hot water heater = 1500 watts
TV = ~ 200 watts
-------------------------------
= 4860 watts needed

Home Depot has a little worksheet with estimations of wattage draws in the generator section that may be useful for you. you can swing by and pick it up. I bet if you look hard enough online you can find a similar worksheet.

If you don't want to have everythign on at the same time, I've found a 5000 or 8000 watt generator to be great. My place is ~ 2k square feet and I get away with a 5000 w generator, but I don't turn everything on at the same time. Of course, my fishtank is priority number one

 

[Slickdonkey]

You probably also want to get a generator that's bigger than what you think you need. If you run it close to the maximum load you will get a lower voltage out of it. I was loading mine pretty heavy and was getting around 100-105V at the outlets. Not good for your motors (pumps, fridge) and my heaters were struggling to perform.

5000-8000W is fine.

 

[Reef Monkey]

Thank you for everybody's feedback.

 

[RockyHeap]

The cheaper gen sets tend to be noisy and dirty power, to run a tank and a few lights, you can get a really nice Honda 2000i, which will 2000 watts of juice.

I personally have a 6500 watt 8000 surge that runs my whole house. It also goes through 10 gallons of gas for 24 hours run time...........My 135 gallon reef took a hit during the Dec 16-20th 4 days without constant power, but still ran the generator 15 hours a day.

All hondas are great generators, also Propane fueled auto transfer gen sets are nice to have too.

The auto transfer switch over is nice, as you don't even have to be home to have to start it up and switch over circuit breakers and such.

http://zillerelectric.com/store/index.php