"Ed Pawlowski" wrote:


wrote in message

But would a 1000 watt Honda unit suffice? Its abt all I
could afford right now..... and also have good
portability
-snip-
1000 watts (8.3 amps) will run any refrigerator, freezer, but probably not a
furnace or boiler.

I'm not so sure. My refrigerator draws 4-500watts but the starting
surge is over 1100. My furnace is similar, but the initial surge
for the pump is about 1200--- when the fan kicks in it jumps to 1300
for a second. I have an energy star freezer that doesn't cool
food fast-- but it only draws 2-300 watts. [I couldn't catch it
starting- wish there was a high/low memory on the kil-o-watt meter]

All these were measured with a Kil-o-wat meter last week. [the
dishwasher comes in at 1200watts.g]

There's a wild-ass guess chart here-- your appliances are sure to be
different;
http://www.geocities.com/abcreliefli...ctric_load.htm

And no matter how well you plan it- you'll be outside congratulating
yourself on how you switched off the furnace to run a load of dishes-
and come back inside to see your wife drying her hair with a hairdryer
while a pot of coffee runs through the electric drip machine. The
5500 watt generator was ok with it. [but not when I forgot and
tried to pop some popcorn in the microwave]

Plenty of room for lighting, TV, cable box, computer,
and the like. If all you need is a reading light, batteries are OK. I have
a couple of kerosene lamps, but they can be a danger with pets or kids. In
my life, I've only ever had one power failure of any length, about 30 hours
after a hurricane. Given that record I've not justified a generator.

I wouldn't trade you my ice storms for your hurricanes-- but I've
managed to lose power for a week several times in my life. 2 days
used to be routine- but this past outage this week is the first time
we've lost power in some time.

But I'm old, and I could- so I bought a generator this time around.
It's 5500 watts- 8250 surge- so aside from the hum in the background
power outages don't change our routine much.

Jim