Need advice about generators: I have not seen anything about portable solar generators on here. But I keep seeing tons of ads for the solar ones and am considering one for whole house needs in the event of power loss. You guys are the expert preppers. Any advice? Thanks in advance!~
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Hardcore prepper here. I see all the same ads you do. First thing is none of them are going to power your whole house, at least not for long. You should be prepared to run extension cords to your essential devices - refrigerators/freezers, medical equipment, phones and chargers, well, septic and HVAC if you live in an extreme hot/cold environment. Do you need 220/240v? You don't need to run your fridge 24 hours per day. 2 hours on 4 hours off.
Figure the usage and current draw and back that into a calculator for you consumption. Then that will tell you how many battery banks you need.
Now, you are going to need a pretty sizable array of solar panels. Do you have enough sun?
And then the logistics of using it. In grid down scenario running a home will be a full time job.
No, I don't have one. Looked into it but put it in the extreme remote chance for me as I have a 23kW city gas powered whole house genny. Now, if cyber attacks get to the CNG pipeline, I'm down to backpacking Anker panel.
I have been trying to figure out which solar generator (I know that isn't the correct term, but I forget the name). I can't math it to well. I am only looking to power 1 fridge at a time enough to keep the temp stable while I use up the food in it. But the watts, volts, all that terminology confuses me.
Mine only takes 400 watt hours of solar panels so it takes 5 hours in good sun to recharge then2000 wh solar generator.
I find it easier to use my dual propane/ gas generator. When ther is no load the generator powers way down by itself until a load is placed back on it to accommodate the cycling of my 5000 but AC.