Generator's Are A Necessity
Not having electricity sucks and makes life a whole lot more challenging. You’re going to want a way to have electricity when the system shuts down. Besides having solar panels in place, you should also have a generator. Regardless of the type of crisis, local or Worldwide a generator is a worthy piece of equipment to invest in and will likely pay you back on your first power outage with saved groceries alone.
Picking the Right Generator
The size of the
generator you purchase is going to depend on a few different factors. When you
need power, you have to figure out what you need the power for – because different
appliances use different amounts of wattage.
You can find
these listed in the appliance owner’s manual or through an online search, but
you need to know because it determines the type of generator that you need.
You don’t want
to figure in useless appliances that will waste your fuel. It’s better to hand
wash the dishes than to burn up fuel by using the dishwasher. You figure out
the size that you need by listing the items that you’re going to have to use
electricity for.
For example,
most people want a generator that can power a refrigerator and a freezer that’s
stocked full of food for the months ahead so that they don’t lose that storage.
You figure what
you need by looking up how much wattage it takes to run each of the items you
want to run. You add those to give you the total wattage amount. You want to
buy a generator with the wattage power that can handle all of this.
So you would
look for one with the wattage capacity that was more than you need to run your
biggest wattage appliance. It takes about 700 watts to run a refrigerator.
That doesn’t
seem like a lot, but when you add a furnace and electronics, the wattage use
creeps up. These items also draw wattage upon starting, so you have to figure
that in, too. It takes more wattage to start most items than to keep them
running.
You want to
choose a generator that’s closely matched to the wattage use that you need. If
you only need 3,000 watts, don’t choose a generator that can power more than
twice that because you’re just burning up the gas that it takes to run the
generator.
Most homes can
be run on 5,000 watts. But those are running watts, so you have to take into
consideration what it takes to start up. A generator of about 7,500 watts could
easily run a home.
Because the generator
will need gas, you’ll need to store that safely to prevent any problems with
it. Keep your supply locked away and hidden. Store gasoline in gas approved
containers – but since you want to have this in bulk, you can find the larger
containers that will hold more.
Managing Generator Fuel Storage and Rotation
You can read the full article to include our fuel rotation method Here
