good unit, can't run everything in the new house.

“good unit, can't run everything in the new house.”

Written on: 12/04/2012

I got this unit in 1998. I got it for y2K. It was not needed but I wired it into my first house and it could power all of the essentials of that small ranch house. It will not power everything in the current house, but it is only a small generator. It easily picks up lights, the fridge and forced hot air furnace. Everything that you would need for a winter power outage. For the second house, the power requirements are a bit different. Unfortunately I have, and sometimes need, a .5 HP sump pump. This starts and stops a lot when the ground is saturated after a really bad storm(exactly the time when you need a generator.) The sump pump unfortunately needs 2100 watts to start and that sucks up a lot of power from one leg of the generator(2750 total watts capability) That means that when we fire up the generator, we need to start the sump pump first, then fire up the fridge on the opposite circut then add the other items in the house. Once the big items are running, this unit performs well carrying the base load. It just cant take the entire load at start up at once. Execute the planned start up and everything goes well.

As a side note, if you had a deep well pump, or an electric water heater, you would have to manage the load just like I do with my sump pump.

I would recommend this unit again to anybody. It has take care of us during every winter storm so far.