On Sat, 2 Oct 2010 09:24:31 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I have an ETQ generator, which has served me well. Mine is a two
stroke gas mixer. Amazing, how quiet it is. The one time I needed it,
it ran a furnace for a friend of mine, when his power was off, in
bitter cold winter. Mine was about $150, delivered to my door. You can
buy a lot of gasoline for the $300 price difference.

Most cheap generators like mine, and like the one you linked. Are
designed for about 200 hours of runtime. Then, they are too worn out
to do much good. In my case, mine has about five hours runtime, since
2005, was it.... ?? when I bought it. Can't remember.

Propane appliances are supposed to run a lot more clean than gasoline.
As Mr. Ransley mentioned, natural gas generator is worth considering.
If you have NG, and if the NG is dependable, in your part of the
world.

How often is the power out? Do your neighbors have generators?
Generators are a high theft item. And they can be noisy. And your
neighbors may be jealous, and take it out by damaging or stealing your
generator.

Many important points. These are small attached houses so the
neighbors are close. Not one of them would steal it and getting it out
of the backyard would be non-trivial anyway. No one else has a
generator. Still, I wouldn't want a very noisy one. But if it's
summer, I don't really need it as much. Winter the windows will all be
closed, which is when I would need it more.

We've had a blackout three times this year, only one lasted even two
days but that got annoying enough for me to think about this.

I do have natural gas but wouldn't want to think about running a line
outside. Propane seems much easier to deal with given the lack of real
need. Two spare tanks should cover any short term need.