Emergency generator for home

[Briggs 2.0]

I was a little concerned about damaging certain electrical items so I spent a bit more on a pure sine wave generator. There's a bit of a debate on whether pure sine wave is necessary or not so I opted on the side of caution.

My first option, as with some others on the thread, is to use 12v leisure batteries and a pure sine wave inverter. I plug the inverter into my electrical fuseboard and this supplies 240v to the essential circuits. Yorkshire Andy would be the guy for battery boxes and inverters, he's posted several good threads.

[TheOldHObbit]

I have both a generator (2kw) honda portable and a 60w solar panel which keeps my x2 110 leisure batteries topped up. If I lost power for any length of time then the power I would use would be restricted to vital systems only. My trusty old cool box runs of gas, 12v or mains so the fridge would be shut down. My radio comms are wired into the leisure batteries and that will last for quite some time. I don't expect there to be much telly to watch but I do have a digital 12v caravan telly if needed and my radio is solar and wind up. lighting is taken care off with wind up torches and a fairly healthy supply of 8hr candles. Heating is restricted to one room and that is by way of a bio-ethanol heater. My little honda generator is a great bit of kit.

[bunkai]

I have an ex forces generator it's only 1Kw but it is ruggedized and is housed in a soundproof box with a baffled exhaust vent. I have power outlets in my garage and a hole in the wall for the exhaust you can just plug the output straight into a wall socket and supply all the sockets in the house (disconnect from the grid). 70 hours on 20 litres of fuel. It cannot be heard externally so I won't be getting visits. I wouldn't use house lights maybe a small lamp in one of the back rooms. I would have liked it to handle a few more watts but in my case it only needs to charge a laptop/phone and supply some light. I moved away from the fridge/freezer dependency and use a canner for my meats.