Island of Disaster

From 2018…

We live in the hills.  Which is usually great, but carries some additional risks.  Such as the risk of having PG&E shut off your power because they don’t want to be sued for burning down your town.  Or storms that down trees…  and of course, living in high-risk fire country during a pandemic means that all the food supplies you have refrigerated are at risk of going bad in the event of power loss.  During last season’s PG&E PSPS shutoffs, we were without power for about 70 hours at one point.

After looking at solar/batteries (which I still want to do, but it’s a long story why that isn’t the right choice for right now), and whole-house generators (too expensive), we’ve decided on a portable generator strategy for right now.   Eventually, when the situation becomes more suitable for solar and battery storage, we’ll migrate to that.  

But for now, we have a fire season underway here in California just as the pandemic appears to be accelerating in the state.  The urgent situation means we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

After doing a lot of reading and modeling of our essential needs (two refrigerators, a microwave, some tech and lights and the all important coffeemaker), we’ve decided on the Champion Power 100574 dual-fuel 4000-watt inverter-generator. It produces 4000 surge-watts, and 3500-running watts.  

Why?

First: Inverter-generators produce a ‘cleaner’ more stable power for sensitive electronic equipment, compared to a traditional generator which might be good for running powertools at a job site.  (Inverter-generators are more expensive, though.)  The unit has two 20 amp receptacles which can provide 2400 watts of power.  To get the rest of the 3500 watts of power, you’ll need to use the 30A RV-style connector as well. 

Secondly:  Because inverter generators can operate only at the required speed (economy mode) based on the load, they can stretch your fuel longer.  A traditional generator has to run at a specific speed regardless of load, and so your fuel-burn is the same regardless of need.  Champion claims that this unit can run for 14.5 hours on its gasoline tank, or 18.6 hours on a 20 lbs tank of propane at a reduced load.  

Thirdly:  We got a dual-fuel generator because we don’t have to worry about storing gasoline here.  We can get a couple of propane tanks which can be stored safely until we need it, and then we have almost two days worth of power before we have to worry about refueling or sourcing gasoline.  

What are the downsides?  

So far, there are a few things that we need to be mindful of.  

First, it’s a pull-start.  Some people may not like that, and prefer a simpler on-off switch.  But the versions that have the on-off switch are more expensive.  

Secondly, you have to manage the fuel and oil. The oil has to be changed periodically and there’s no meter to tell you how many hours are on the unit to help you know when you need to do that.  Additionally, you need to make sure that there’e enough fuel (there doesn’t seem to be fuel gauge on this system?) We will have to track the hours and monitor the usage when the system is running.  

Lastly, of course, it won’t run everything in the house.  We won’t be able to run our air conditioner, for example (which might be unfortunate on the hottest days, but we’ll deal…).

So with those things in mind, we’ll be putting this thing into service in early August.  

If you’re thinking of buying a generator like this, order soon.  I noticed that many popular brands and models are sold out online.  I don’t know why this might be the case (supply chain problems from the pandemic? A rush on generators as hurricane season starts?  I don’t know)  

And of course, you should always test the thing and know how to use it before you have to deploy it in the middle of the rain at 2 am when you’re cold, wet and tired.  

Helper guides:

Understanding Dual-Fuel generators

What’s the difference between inverter-generators and the conventional kind?

Here’s the link for the generator on Amazon (no affiliate, we get nothing for this link)