Just need to vent...

Our Honda portable generators (1000w & 2000W) weigh a ton and we have to carry them from a small tool shed down a steep dirt slope about 30 yards to the house. They are well taken care of, but the first start of the season (pulling on the starter cords) is worse than starting my old Stihl chainsaw. We only drag them out if it is approaching a day without power. Around here, we often lose power for a week or more, once or twice each winter.

 

we have a 12kw kohler automatic, about 8 years old now. replaced a 12 year old onan that the mother board died on.
that had replaced a umongous diesel that came with the house

 

I cetainly don't miss that PNW ritual -- buying a generator big enough to heat and power your home, because you can't cut down trees until they're already causing problems -- which take days to fix. And windstorms every winter make it near-guaranteed that if you don't, you'll be sleeping w/ an indoor temp of 42F (like I did in 2008). No such issues now

 

We keep our Honda inverter generator 6500 in the garage with a long stainless Flex tube wrapped in insulation that we can either run outside the garage window or below garage door even in the freezing weather. Plus generator power in the RV if push came to shove & we had to do nights out there. Plus an indoor propane heater w/ a at least 200Lbs of spare propane fuel. If the zombie apocalypse goes any longer than a few days - we got a whole bunch of ammo &/or food & /or diesel we could trade for heating fuel. Most importantly, friends that are like-minded.

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