Best portable generator recommendations for home use—brands, wattage, and features?

Hey Guys,

This is my post to this forum. I am seaching for a generator which can be port from here to there easily. Please help me out if there are any suggestion for any portable generator........u r welcome wid ur suggestions

If you need a few hundred watts of AC power, Honda and others make very nice gasoline generators that are lightweight and quiet. For portability and power/weight ratio, they are hard to beat. I think Consumer Reports magazine did some reviews a few years ago. If you need only a few tens of watts, battery packs (and perhaps solar cells for charging away from AC power), with an inverter for AC output, are an increasingly-popular option. If your power needs are higher (1000s of watts), portability becomes more difficult, though transportable generators (gasoline, diesel or LP gas) are very available.

I used to sell several varieties of portable gasoline & diesel fuelled AC generators.
For emergency home use (emergency basis I understand you to mean) you will probably be better served with a gasoline unit (cheaper), & depending upon what you decide you might need in terms of electric power, you can then choose between 2 stroke & 4 stroke.
The 2 stroke units are often available at very low prices but I'd recommend a 4 stroke.
I think most of the units we sold were pull start but battery start will be available,
Do you want to be bothered with battery maintenance, if not you need to ensure the pull start is simple & reliable.
Then consider how long you may wish the unit to run, most built in tanks will barely do 4 hours & topping up with gasoline is not a recommended safe procedure when the unit is running or hot.
Now where will you place it, & remember you will need extra gasoline. They better units are fairly quiet but if it might need to run for several days ........?
Finally many better designs will deliver noise free AC suitable to power a PC, the cheaper construction site types may not so check this.

To make a good recommendation you FIRST need to take a look at what you are trying to run, refrigerators, freezers, range, oven, are all hi draw items that small generators will not run. If only small draw items are to be run then you may want to try to go a very small generator for portability and cost. The newer inverter type generators are preferable as long as they have some type of overcurrent protection. If you demand to much from it will protect itself with a circuit breaker. I have seen a few without this feature and simply plugging in to many items leaves you with a unit that cannot be economically repaired. If you can give the common loads you expect to run with it you will get a better answer.

Think also along the lines of a battery powered generator(invertors) but you need to know what your load is going to be first and how many kw hours you need All of this depends on your needs an your power demands

The last place I visited some years back was up in Scotland they used both petrol driven alternator to charge batteries (Limited sun in that area, out in the remote islands, lovely place , now have their independence, cant say I blame them either ) , but they worked the petrol generator for a few hours during the day to charge batteries and then at night used a dc to ac inverter to power the house, lights fridge etc Cooking and heat was all solid wood fuels Worked quite well

If they had have thought a little more they could also have implemented a steam turbine to run off the fire which was of course normal style open hearth which is the norm in that area

The summers are beautiful but of course very short you could however still use solar power in these areas but it wouldnt be that effective Windpower although would be an advantage

Oke you have seen all above good info.

Gasoline / benzine is a cheaper generator BUD do not leave it inside the unit for more than a week the chemicals will start corroding or gelling your carburetor and then it first needs service.
Diesel is more heavy and expensive and incase required by pre heating and filtering any type of oil can be used for fuel even old engine oil or vegt. oil.
i tried on mine and keep a pre filtered stock.

i also have a small (suitcase) type gen a china build 2KW inverter type that try to keep 50 hz 230V and it is silent.
I use it for camping or work in the garden. After that i learned my lesson i drain all fuel after use.