Has anyone had any personal experience with small portable generators?

The portable Honda 1KW generators are some of the best ever made. They’re just enough to run a small coffee pot or other essentials. Just be sure you know the continuous power rating of the one you choose and do not exceed that rating. There is a 2KW flavor for not much more money, I’d go that route.

The Honda 3KW inverter of $2400 to $2600 will run a frig and a couple of other items, no problem. And if you unplug the frig you could probably run a small microwave, you should NOT run both at same time.

I have a a very small and light and a full sized one. The small unit is 23 pounds, a cube 15 inches on each side. 1100 watts. It is very convenient, easy to store. But it is loud. LOUD. And it is a 2 stroke engine so you have to mix a little oil in the gasoline.
The bigger one is 4400 watts , weighs 110 pounds and takes up a lot of space in the garage. But it is quiet and has battery electric start. I can run my whole house with it if I am careful.

My neighbor just bought a Honda EU2200I (the letter i) . ~$1400. It is wonderful! If I were starting from scratch that is what I would get. It is so easy to pull start, It is still manageable weight, about 47 pounds, and the output is a nice clean sine wave so you can run electrical devices without fear of damaging them. It is powerful enough to power your gas heating system so you will have heat.
I see @Tropical_Willie recommended the 3.2 KW model. That is also wonderful but costs $2900 and weighs 59 pounds.

We have Honda generators, very small, and we actually bought two, and you can use just one or both, they connect to each other. They are very quiet, and so they are kind of expensive, I think we paid about $1,000 each, but I bought them 3 years ago. I would have to check when I get home what model we have. I haven’t needed them to run appliances in my house, but we hoped it would be good for running the fridge and be able to charge electronics?

I don’t remember with the two if we could use the stove or microwave. For heat maybe you could at least run a space heater in your bedroom or another small room that you can close off and keep the heat in. In Florida we think more in terms of air conditioning.

The generators cannot be run indoors, that’s how people die from carbon monoxide poisoning, you have to be able to let it run outside. My house in Tennessee had a special place to connect outside of the house and then a switch on the fuse box that only turned on me key appliances when using a generator, so that was kind of fancy and nice, but not necessary.

I’m just thinking that having hot water is a luxury when your electricity goes out in the winter, I wonder if that can still work on a small generator if it is a gas water heater.

@JLeslie My hot water heater is gas and I had hot water all through Sandy, if not much else.

The 2kw Honda is only $1200, they’re very quiet too. Generac makes one for about $400 less. Just resist the Harbor freight variety that are even cheaper. I believe they’re honda clones under the name “predator”

@janbb That’s great. My tankless gas heater used electricity. Maybe there are some that don’t need electricity to run. That’s why when I built my large house I put a tankless on one side of the house, and a tank on the other. Plus, the tank holds warm water for a couple of days even if it is not making hot water.

@Blackwater_Park My friend got hers for $200 but another $200 for the solar power part.

@janbb $200 for a portable generator? That’s either a great deal on used one or a buyer beware Chinese made throw away item.

Does it run on gasoline? How does it vent?

Oh wait, a solar powered generator? That sounds good. Does it have a battery backup? $200 sounds too inexpensive. I love the idea though.

@all I don’t know much about it and the friend is one vacation but I’m going to check into hers more when she is back. My understanding is that it is battery run @JLeslie and the solar option is the backup.

If it’s a battery based system it’s not a generator, it’s a source. You can buy a deep cycle battery and an inverter for like $200. If you want to add a solar charger it’s another $200 typically. You won’t get the power and runtime that you would with a gas generator though.

^^ As I said in my details, it’s a very small capacity power source. I understood that and want to see if anyone knows anything about them. Maybe I was using the wrong term though.

That being the case there are any number of devices. The most cost effective would be to get a deep cycle marine battery, battery case, inverter and charger. Keeping the devices separate and modular like this allow you to replace just those items as they wear out. Going any smaller than say a 100 amp hour battery is not going to get you much more than a backup cell phone charger though. I had several running a beefy 2500W inverter being charged by a couple 100W solar panels on my shed when I still used it as a workshop. I keep a marine battery charged and an inverter like this handy for smaller power outages or if I want to take it camping. If you want to charge it with solar then a couple panels and regulator can be used. I’d resist the urge to get something all in one like this because when one component dies, you’re just out of luck. Most of those give you a “modified sine wave” which works ok for most things but it really needs to be a “pure sine wave” inverter for all your stuff to work. I’m not saying to buy those specific things linked, but just to give you an idea of what you would need and what it costs.

How do you pick a generator size? I’d only need one for my fridge, which uses about 270 W.

Start up @RocketGuy is a lot higher. Maybe 2 or 4 times that !

The answer is, it depends. If you live in a place where the neighbors would be bothered by noise, you will need a generator with an inverter. Those are much more expensive than just the regular generator such as you can use at a job site.

Assuming the generator will be used when everyone in the area has no power (due to storms), noise won’t be an issue, as most of the neighbors will have a generator going, as well, @snowberry.

I have a deep cycle battery connected to an1100 watt inverter that I use as backup for my sump pump. That gives me time to start the “real” generators.