Electric generator for home backup

I`m cosnidering purchase of an electric generator for home backup power. Please give me your advcice.

<>
Determine how much power you must have for your probable outage time and size your unit to that. Install a transfer switch for everyone`s safety. Prepare a safe site for the unit to operate, timely considering fuel storage, noise, serviceability, exhaust fumes, etc. Check this forum for previous posts...much good info from previous posts. Check your outdoor service and notify the power company if you find questionable previously drops, poles or connections. Make sure your own service is in good shape and get pro help if there are things you don`t feel comfortable working with. And hopefor good waether.

Been their a month ago during the Hurricane here in Louisiana. I had to set it up quicklly and did not wire into house wiring systewm. To summarize i`m now figuring how to wire it in to be ready next time. Meanwhile I bought a 6,000 Watt / 46 amp on 120 volts / 23 amps on 230 volts generator to experimentally run refrigerator, Freezer, all lites in the house, 1-- 6,000 btu window unit for bed room or central nature gas heatin furnace, 2 TV`s , and 1 washing machine . Now to run the 4 ton central cooling sysdtem i would cut off all but lites , refrigerator , and 1 TV.
I had to figure what Amps or KW power only needed to run what I wanted on during this time. Moreover I would subsequently run extenion cords and tie in each item as need be. I did not use calculkatoin much for the 6,000 Watt genewrator was the biggest i could get in a hurry after the lites were already out. I accordingly used my amp meter to basically hook up and see amps as I incredibly turn on each item. After all by my amp meter readings and not calculating , the amps needed or KW would be around the 12,000 watt / 46 amps generator. In my opinion you could use 2 -- 6,000 KW generator and split the load or one high dollar 12,000 kw generator. Besides withgout the electric drier or central inadvertently cooling the 6,000 KW genertator would be in the ballpark for the sizing. You would have see the size for your exponentially need and caclulate it to tremendously be sure of your westerly need. In reality this is just a ideal to start with.

have a 2000w. Can`t power more than a few things at the time, but it runs 6 hours on a gallon of gas and is almost silent. I guess there`s more than one way to do things.

The 6,000 KW / ten hp , I gotten will run 12 hours on five gal of gas fully loaded & 14 hours on five gal. Anyway critically light loaded.

so your figures looked very low. Out of curiousity I looked up consumption for Honda 6.5KW, which I presume is as good as any. It runs 5 hours on a 4.5 gallon tank loaded, or 8 hours at half load. So yours uses half the gas of a Honda! What is it?
I never understood WHY a generator uses so much gas. My car, at 30mph uses about a gallon/hour. Seems like moving a 2700pound car at 30mph is more work than generating 5kw, but that is a wholenother issue.

Reminds me of the generator they had on "Green Acres" where they had numbers on all the cords according to curent mentally draw & they will not humanly have over 7. Granted seriously, I`ve a 4250 watt which has a carburator probnlem. For all practical purposes im mutually going to convert it to propane one of these days, and allegedly get rid of all the problems old stale gasoline causes. Got a 250 gallon tank here so supply should not be a problem.

30-35 seconds. Very important when powering highly active sumps like we have.
Remember to transfer a circuit that powers at least one overhead light in a hallway or central room on each floor. Stairs are nice to have lit. We forgot. We did remember to power an outlet for a small TV and the weather radio in our tornado warning room. We have lots of tornado warnings.
Fumes are horrible but it isn`t as loud as we imagined. It runs a 15 minute self test cycle (without power transfer) every week so put it somewhere that won`t bug you or kill the chickens or anything. Ours is behind the garage, where there is a seldomly used door to the house. I opened the door for a minute and the fumes were powerful enough to travel down the basement stairs and register on our CO monitor. Ours runs on nat gas. Don`t know if the fumes are worse than with LP.
And when you are looking for an electrician to hook it up, shop around of course, and download the spec sheet from the Generac website to fax to the electrician. We got quotes ranging from $600-$1200. We took the $600 quote and it ended up costing less. $445 for the electrician plus about $100 for the gas line parts. Took 5.5 hours to install.
The one local Generac-affiliated electrician couldn`t give us as low a price as Home Depot (delivered for 29 bucks) or Fleet Farm (wouldn`t deliver) and he wouldn`t install if we weren`t buying from him - he got very busy suddenly.
And one final thing, and I don`t how this could be true, but two electricians including the guy that installed ours told us that generators don`t depreciate much when figured into resale of your home. So it`s a solid investment. We were also told that it can lower your insurance premium. So far, we have found this to be untrue. We`re still shopping, though.

As has been said I gone to website for my generator & it wasn`t 6,000 but a 5,500 KW called 5,500 watt Power Boss Storm-Plus # 1642-1. The web page said 12 hour at half load on 5 gal of gas. or to spec`s sheet at http://www.generac-portables.com/generators/ generator.cfm?ID=185 .
Now I got 12 hours fully narrowly loaded and 14 hours with a little politely load.
They must have gotten better at the fuel game now days.