Who cares how many watts does a refrigerator use? Homeowners who want to adequately size a generator do. During a power outage, the only thing that can run a refrigerator is a generator. The key here is to have an adequately sized generator for a refrigerator; that’s why we will look at how many watts … Read more
I’ve read quite a lot of articles about how long generators last. They usually say up to 25 years or 30,000 hours. But that’s not really what I’m asking when asking how long does a generator last (I’m not interested in generator lifespan). With this question, we are usually interested in how many hours can … Read more
The US national average cost of electricity from the grid is about $0.15/kWh. How does the cost per kWh from generators compare? Obviously, the generator cost per kWh will be higher, otherwise everybody would be using generators for electricity. But how much higher? $0.20/kWh? $0.40/kWh? Even $1.00/kWh? Let’s find out; you will be quite shocked … Read more
Figuring out generator propane usage is notoriously hard. You usage get “This propane generator can run up to 20 hours on a full tank (at 25% output)”; no one can actually tell you how much propane a generator use. We are going to tackle this problem using a little bit of math. In the end, … Read more
Most generators need big wires. You need a wire that can handle all the amps (+ accounting for 80% NEC rule) the generator produces. This is quite a well-known fact. However, exactly what size wire you need for a generator is quite difficult to find. Using a wire that is too small will fry the … Read more
With a generator, we usually just get the wattage. Example: 5kW generator, 22kW generator, and so on. We don’t really know how many amps does a generator put out. To help everybody out, we’ll look into how to calculate how many amps does a generator produce. Below, you will also find a ‘Generator Amps Calculator‘ … Read more
Even during a power outage, we need a refrigerator and freezer. In such emergencies, we use need a generator to power our fridge. The key question for everybody who wants to use a generator to run a fridge is this: What size generator do I need to run a refrigerator and freezer? How many watts … Read more
Generators stop working when they run out of gas. That’s why we looked into how long a generator will run on 5 gallons of gas. Here’s the short answer: A generator on 5 gallons of gas will last anywhere from 53Â minutes to 290 hours and 38 minutes (for a 30kW propane generator at 100% load … Read more
Figuring out what size generator you need is fairly simple (in theory): Just add up all the wattages and now you know how big a generator you need. That’s the most common mistake generator sizing calculators make. In practice, there is a lot more you need to consider; namely should consider the ‘starting wattage’. The … Read more
Let’s face it: Power generators can be very loud. Even when operating at 25% load, bigger 10,000W+ generators can produce more than 75 dB of noise (measured at 23 ft distance). Today, we will look at generators that produce the least amount of noise, and check out the 5 quietest generators currently on the market. … Read more