"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
...


Unfortunately, "life as we know it" ceases with a power outage, since
we're on a well. We have bottled water for drinking, but without water
to wash up, flush toilets, et cetera, you might as well mosey on over
to
a motel if you are facing an outage that might run more than two days.

Several of our neighbors got a "deal" on 10,000 watt generators on
wheels and jury-rigged hookups to their circuit breaker boxes, and
these
work ok but the hookups look scary to me. Also, apparently they cannot
run their heat pumps off these units because of the start-up power
requirements. This is way over my non-electrician pay grade.

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During Hurricane Wilma (while we still had a house in Florida) I had
purchased a 12,500 watt "portable" contractor type generator and
installed a transfer switch to the power panel. We also had well
water there with a 220 volt pump and electric hot water heater. Since
the little Honda doesn't generate 220 volts, I figured we'd be all
set. When the power was lost, I fired up the big generator and
quickly learned how much fuel it went through during the first day and
how noisy the damn thing was. Not knowing how long the power would
be out (turned out to be over a week), I hooked up the little Honda,
just for a refrig, couple of lights, a TV and the Direct TV box.

In the mornings, I'd fire up the big generator for about an hour or so
to take a hot shower. We had an accumulator on the well water
system, so it was good for several toilet flushes without power. I'd
run it again for a half hour in the evening to recharge the
accumulator. Running the big generator this way was sufficient for
the water issue. I also fired up one of two A/C units, just to see
how the big generator handled it. It was fine, but really not worth
the fuel burn since it was November and not all that hot or humid.

The Honda ran 24 hours a day for the 7 or 8 days until commercial
power was restored. The next summer is when we had a pool installed
at the house in MA. The contractors used the Honda every day that
summer and part of the next to power the stone saw they were using
for cutting the bluestone. By that time, I figured the dusty Honda
was probably pretty much worn out and I put it away and forgot about
it. It sat unused, with stale gas in it for the next 6 years until we
had a storm and lost power for several hours. I dug it out and much
to my surprise, it fired up after a few pulls and ran fine. As
mentioned before, I used it again two weeks ago and it ran non-stop
(other than refueling twice a day) for the three day outage. I am
really impressed with these little generators. When this one finally
dies, I'll probably replace it with the EU3000i model and get the
adaptor for an external gas tank.
I've calculated all the current draw we'd require to heat the house,
run a couple of refrigerators and some lights. The EU3000i will
handle it fine.