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Comment by zrail | Hacker News Reader

Gasoline generators are significantly cheaper. There are some tri-fuel generators that can run on gasoline, propane, or natural gas, but again they're more expensive.

A natural gas powered permanent standby generator is amazing for peace of mind but they're a significant investment.

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Propane has substantially less energy per unit mass than gasolene. In our RV, we have a gas generator and propane for the heater/fridge...Propane is MUCH better than batteries to run the Fridge as well.

4 LiFEPO4 batteries run our fridge for about 8 hours. two 30lb propane tanks would run it for about a week, and the 30 gallon gas tank just recharging the batteries to just power the fridge could probably go 2.5 weeks.

Solar is the answer. Propane fridges are incredibly slow to cool. Best thing I did for my RV quality of life was install a bunch of LFP and a few solar panels, along with a compressor fridge. I don't miss the old absorption fridges at all.

I probably will when the budget frees back up, the ROI isn't there for the number of times a year we boondock completely off-grid.

I have more faith in my 2200 watt inverter generator than a typical residential standby unit.

If something goes wrong with a generac, you likely need a service tech to come out. If my portable unit acts up I have a 2nd new one in a box just in case. They're so cheap you can basically afford to keep one fresh for each disaster.

Love my little 2K watt inverter generators, but I don't think it's a good substitute for a residential standby unit. I can't get a 240V split phase generator that can be carried, that's the big thing. I could get past the time it takes to turn on the generator, but there's a good chunk of my house that won't run without 240V (unless I want to run extension cords everywhere, which I do not...).

Obviously the little inverter generators can't carry the normal load, but you can adapt to it. The biggest thing for most people is running their AC condenser.

A portable inverter AC unit (ideally a dual-hose unit) will pull ~1700w on the high setting. You can cool a solid 1000 sqft even in the Texas heat with something like this while also running your lamps/wifi/starlink/fridge/etc.

Combine with something like an EcoFlow battery, and you can actually shut it off completely while you sleep (and lock it up inside safely). Setting the AC to the low setting will reduce its consumption to ~400w intermittently which will easily run on a 2.5kWh battery all night. The other advantage of the EcoFlow is that you can temporarily run much larger loads than the generator is directly capable of. Really good for induction cooktops and getting your washing machine spin cycle up to speed.

Inverter units are nice, those Honda engines run forever.

I've had my 26kW generac for almost two years and it's done several multi-day outages without issue. I just have my mechanical contractor come out and do the annual maintenance on schedule, keep track of the weekly self-tests, and otherwise don't worry about it.

I want one, but can't justify it. Probably be into it around 10K installed, maybe more. We've only had one multi-day outage in the 12 years we've lived here, because our wiring is all underground and it took a century level storm to wipe it out. We get occasional outages of a few minutes to a couple hours in the winter if a tree hits a power line somewhere in the nearby above-ground grid, but that's about it. I'd still love to be the only guy in the neighborhood all lit up when everyone else goes dark :). To be fair, I'd actually be #2 now, guy a few houses up the street is that beacon of light now. But still.

When we were shopping for houses out in the sticks, I had that generator budgeted right into the price of the house. If I got a multi-day outage very year, it's a no brainer.

Yep, exactly. At our previous place we never had an outage last more than a couple hours, in 7 years, so it didn't make sense. Current place has had four in the span of four years, plus we have geothermal heat so we can't just hook the furnace to a portable genset.

It'll never pencil out in terms of dollars saved on lost food and hotels, but just knowing that the power will be out for a max of 15-20 seconds makes it worth it for us.

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