How about buy an ammeter from Harbor Freight, and see what the actual
current draw is?

Don't cut the wires off the ricker switch, unscrew them. Wire nut the
appliance cord on, and plug into inverter. Worked for me, and I don't
even need a new ricker switch when I'm done.

Marine trolling battery will give you MUCH better service than an auto
battery. Car batteries are designed for shallow discharge, a deep
discharge like a day's furnace would not be good. Marine trolling are
MUCH better suited.

You may also be able to wire in the marine battery to your present
UPS, if it uses a 12 volt battery. Don't even need a new ricker
switch.

--

Christopher A. Young
You can't shout down a troll.
You have to starve them.
..

"miker" wrote in message
...
I live in a small town in Canada where the power sometimes goes off in
winter for a few hours. Last year when when it went off for a day and
it
was -20C I was concerned about frozen ho****er pipes. Does anyone know
roughly how much power a ho****er furnace takes? My system is small
having
one circulation pump, a blower and one thermostat.

Instead of a generator I was thinking of a 1000W inverter and a car
battery
just to keep the pipes from freezing. I see a small electrical box
with a
ricker switch that is close to the furnace. I could turn it off, cut
the
three wires and add a male & female prong and socket plug. When the
power
goes out I could turn off the power to the furnace with the electrical
box,
unplug it and plug it onto the inverter. I have a 700VA UPS that I
could
also use if possible.

miker