Ya
@Diggs, nothing like a 180c engine humming 6 inches above the ground with a tank full of gas. No fire risk there.
I used to live in California, and to be honest if I still lived there I would take a power outage over fires any day, but it is all from infrastructure neglect. The ratepayers pay more than those in most other states, and the taxpayers pay much more, too. This is really something that should be remedied to make the infrastructure both safe and reliable.
At the moment, California is turning into a third-world country (State). I mean this is bad enough to where it only happens in most states during hurricanes, and they seek mutual aid to fix it with thousands of work crews to restore services. PG&E and the State should work to get utility crews working 24/7 trimming trees starting with major feeds.
Here is the current status (in EST from PowerOutage.US):
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Generators are pretty safe if made by a reputable manufacturer. The danger is lower-quality knock-off clonda's from China. They do things like use low quality fuel line and petcocks, so they can spring a fuel leak, which is a danger. The other issue is folks refueling the units while they are running... that is only okay on a Diesel or one with a remote fuel tank. It is also dangerous to run them unless they are safely away from the house.
The other big issue with generators is they make pretty dirty power (except inverter generators) and cannot run a lot of things like central AC, stoves, or electric water heaters any one of which needs at least 5000 watts (probably more to start).
Then there is the issue of sizing generators. Everyone seems to jump at the mantra to buy the biggest one humanly possible to run everything, and they have these 150 lb units with 380cc engines that sound like a construction crew is pressure washing! I just looked up the specifications and one 6500 unit is said to run 10 hours at half load on 7.2 gallons of gasoline. That's terrible at or about 17 gallons per day! California right now is looking at $4 per gallon gasoline, too!
Who wants to spend $70 a day to run a generator?
The inverter units are MUCH better at smaller loads (and quieter). I have a Honda EU2200 and it runs all day on 3 gallons of fuel at 1/4 load! It can run 15 amps or 1800 watts constantly at 100% and is rated to put out 2200 watts starting. In my own testing, I was able to push that number to more like 2350 to 2400 for over 2 minutes before the overload light came on and it dropped the load! Oh and the power is as clean as what comes out of a SmartUPS on battery.
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That said, an Engery-star fridge generally takes at most 1000 watts to start and generally less than that after they have been plugged in a while. Mine for example takes 1000 for a fraction of a second when I first plug in the unit. Then it takes around 500 watts to start each subsequent attempt. Actual running power is 150 to 250 watts... I barely even hear the noise change momentarily when it takes the load.
My flat panel TV takes about 200 maybe 250 watts, and I don't know what my Internet and Routing/Wifi gear take, but it's likely under 50 watts being both have a DC power brick. If I run that desktop computer and monitor probably about 300 watts it may be closer to 200 watts now that it is down to only one video card and an SSD. My laptop takes about 100 watts, and a couple phones take up to 50 watts when charging.
Two things I am looking into are getting my central heat (natural gas) wired in a way I can run it on a generator, which should be possible being it is an ECM motor it should ramp up slowly and NOT have a huge spike like a PCM (Capacitor) motors 625 watts is my guess based on research. Other than that it is a few computer boards and a hot-surface igniter, which per the Internet those are 40 to 90 ohms. That means at most 3 amps or just under an extra 400 watts for five seconds to start the unit and ignite the gas.
I also have a tankless water heater, which is also natural gas fired. Again, I want to get it wired to be able to run it on the generator. I am not sure what it takes, but it is computer boards and an igniter. Probably <200 watts running and <600 watts for a brief moment to start it.
Where I am going with this is the vast majority of the time my energy usage is going to be < 500 watts.
Most of the time I would have the computer, laptop, OR TV on (but not all three) and the refrigerator, so probably a continuous load about 350 watts and a quick spike to under 900 watts to start the fridge then settling down to maybe 450 watts when that's running a cycle.
That's why I chose a small 2200 watt inverter generator. Honestly, once my door is closed I cannot even hear it running unless I am right next to the door! Given gasoline is just over $2 per gallon here, I would be looking at about $7 per day in fuel. For cooking I would just use the propane side-burner on my gas grill or the grill itself. Other than the 1 gallon in the generator, I keep up to 23 gallons on hand going into any major storm.
Otherwise, I have 10 gallons on hand.
