Household appliances from generators - any dos/don'ts ?

[Beanwood]

With the the cold dark days and nights on the way, I want to be prepared this year (I know - it's never happened before...)
So I have bought two generators - little suitcase 800w and a 3.2Kva one.
I will drain the fuel down soon and load them with some Aspen (It looks expensive but I don't want to be faffing around with a generator that won't start when I need it...).
I'm completely new to generators though - so do I need to take any precautions when running household stuff ?
I'm thinking central heating boiler, broadband router, TV, some LED lighting, maybe laptop power supply and a tiny label printer so I can keep the bsuiness going, plugged directly into the genny, or from a 4 way extension from outside.
Is it that simple?

 

[Pete.]

I ran my whole house from a 5kva diesel generator back in 2001 when the power cable under the pavement shorted out and they shut the whole neighbourhood down. Mainly I wanted lights, fridge and central heating (it was February) and all of that worked just fine.

I just turned the power off at the incoming switch and plugged the genny into the downstairs ring main. Gotta be sure that the neutral is switched off as well as the live though.

 

[8ob]

Always getting outages around here, a changeover switch and decent housed genny is on my to do list. This place cant function without a supply, cant even get in or out unless I unlatch/release the gate rams, if I am not about everyone has to wait.

Bob

 

[Beanwood]

Always getting outages around here, a changeover switch and decent housed genny is on my to do list. This place cant function without a supply, cant even get in or out unless I unlatch/release the gate rams, if I am not about everyone has to wait.

Bob

Oh - gates - I had forgotten about those..

 

[George A2Y]

I often use a small 2kw petrol Genny during power cuts to run all the type of equipment you list, my central heating is an oil boiler and circulation pump. I have a proper change over switch. Never had any issues.

 

[badabec]

I have a 2.2kva genny and a change over switch. It will happily run two fridges, two freezers, all lights, oil central heating and TV.
One thing I would recommend is a neon indicator on the mains side of the change over switch.
We don't have one and with no near neighbours we can only tell if power is back on by using the switch.

 

[Robotstar5]

I have a 2.2kva genny and a change over switch. It will happily run two fridges, two freezers, all lights, oil central heating and TV.
One thing I would recommend is a neon indicator on the mains side of the change over switch.
We don't have one and with no near neighbours we can only tell if power is back on by using the switch.

We have too many neighbours with flat/scrap batteries in their house alarms so the slightest outage sets all the alarms off

 

[addjunkie]

Always getting outages around here, a changeover switch and decent housed genny is on my to do list. This place cant function without a supply, cant even get in or out unless I unlatch/release the gate rams, if I am not about everyone has to wait.

Bob

Tis the way forward if you are rural….we use an 8kva genny runs everything in the house except the arga. So we cook with an air fryer if needs be.

 

[Bobtail4x4]

we installed a battery backup system charged from the solar in march,
every evening the house runs off the batteries,
daily mains electric used is about a quid,
when we get a power cut, an isolating switch puts the power back on, should last a few days,
I wired the kitchen so a genny in the outside socket feeds the central heating pump tv and some lights, must sell the genny now,

 

[angellonewolf]

would not have thought that your that far out there for outages where you are ?


ive run a genny for a short while while we had a power outage for 4 or 5 hours run the fridge and tv for a few hours while it was off extension cable through a window to fridge frezer ad then extension to tv

was not planed just there was somthing went down cheaked the website said they know about it and working on it was supposed to be off quite a bit longer so hence i thought save the frozen food (prob would last for quite a few hours if you dont ope the fridge) and i had a 3000 china gen that id repaired and wanted testing so had the time was not realy worth it in the end as came on way sooner than expected

only thing i would say is take in to acount the start up inrush current im assuming this would need looking at or it might blow an avr

and if wired in to your to house electrics make sure theres a change over switch


ps i still have the genny at work gets left for months only thing i do is take it out side and run it for 10 mins and turn off the fuel tap untill it dies then put away in about a year and a half only once did it start and die and not run turned off fuel undone the fuel bowl (1 nut) a bit of nasty fuel i there and some dryed cleaned back together pulled and was running again


its only been used as a guess 5 times i used it 2 times it was borrowed a few times where a few people needed power where there was none

that reminds me i need to do run it again

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

With a 3.2kVA generator it might be wise to avoid using a washing machine (big motor stopping and starting several times in each cycle), or more than one heating appliance (kettle, toaster, oven, hob ring) at a time.