I like to think our power is fairly resilient where I live but a windstorm or large snow storm undoubtedly takes the power out where I live. At times it can take local power utilities several days to get power back to some. We are primarily Hydro as well in WA state and bleed off our extra power to the states to the south. There are some large wind farms now though.
I'd love to have a diesel type generator at my cabin like you mention below. That is some serious power.
I'm hoping I get some good years out of the Hondas.... I've seen a few people on other forums mention having 10-12K hours on their units. I guess they are living in some kind of "off-the-grid" arrangement.
For their intended purpose (camping etc.) the inverter type generators are hard to beat. Honda, Yamaha, Kipor and Boily are top sellers with Honda and Yamaha being very pricey by comparison to the other two. In Canada, the EU2000 is $1600.00 and equivalent Yamaha is similarly priced. An equivalent Kipor or Boily is usually half of that. A friend of mine bought a 2300 watt Boily. Had it delivered to his door for $800.00 all in. I've seen and heard it run. With variable rpm/load it's very quiet and seems fairly well built. Certainly not on the same level as an equivalent Honda or Yamaha but, for half the price, it looks like a bargain. If it holds up only half as long as Honda, you're breaking even. If it lasts longer, that's bonus time. <BR><BR>The Champion is not an inverter type generator. It runs 3600 rpm no matter what the load. So it will be making more noise all the time it's running. For my needs, noise is irrelevant. It's for emergency use in case of an extended power outage. Extended is 24 hours or more which has never happened and likely will not being that we have huge hydro plants in and close to the city. So there's a good chance that I'll never need the generator at all. For the $400.00 that I paid for it, it's very inexpensive peace of mind. I also have a 6kw diesel gen set out at my camp that's been faithfully running for 26 years and has close to 6000 hours on it. That's relatively low hours considering the engine is designed to run at least 25,000 to 30,000 hours as a generator power supply. That liquid cooled 850cc, three cylinder Kubota has been a real gem. All I've done to it in 26 years is change oil every 150 hours, and coolant twice. It's kept in a clean environment and still looks virtually new. The valve lash hasn't even gone out of spec! <BR><BR>I've been toying with the idea of building a gen set myself. Not that I need another one. It's just that I've seen brand new 850cc liquid cooled three cylinder Yanmar diesels for $2400.00 and new 7kw generator ends for $1600.00. That's a lot of generator for the money!
