Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

We had a power outage here a few days ago. It was out for several hours which is unusual. During the outage, it was raining pretty hard and that had me concerned about the sump in our basement. I'm certain that it would take a couple of days of heavy rain for the sump to flood but not having an operative pump caused me concern. Accordingly, I bought an inexpensive Chinese Champion CSA40032 generator. It has 3000W continuous and 4000W surge power. I tested it out today with a 1500 watt continuous load then plugged in and actuated the sump pump. The generator worked just fine. Overall, I'm impressed with the machine. The engine is a Honda GX200 clone. From what I've read, this 196cc engine is produced for Honda in China and, Champion Power Equipment supposedly have a license to manufacture the same engines under their name. According to their advertising, they claim that their engines are built to the same quality and specifications as the Honda GX200, cast iron cylinder, ball bearings and all. After adding fuel and oil, it started on the first pull. A bit of white smoke originally puffed from the exhaust then absolutely clear exhaust after two or three seconds. The engine is very quiet and smooth. I ran it under 50 percent load for an hour and a half on a liter of fuel. I hate to say it but this little generator has impressed me. I think I'll have to take back some of the bad mouthing I've done in the past about Chinese engines. In addition to my initial impressions, my research has revealed that owners of these generators have put many hours on them with very few mechanical issues. One person reported that he has been using one for up to seven hours a day for almost a year with no problems at all. That's encouraging.

Oh, and did I mention the price? I paid $450.00 taxes included, out the door at Chinadian Tire. I checked out a comparable Honda EG3500XK1A (not exactly the same specs but close enough) and it's priced at $1789.95 plus taxes, which comes to 2022.64. Now, I'm not so gullible as to believe that these machines are on the same level. However, I'm also realistic enough to know that the machine I bought will only be used in emergency situations for brief periods of time. Considering that I could buy 4.5 of these machines for the price of one Honda, it truly does make one wonder why a person would shell out that kind of bucks for an iconic brand name and a bit more quality.

Does anyone out there have any comments on these machines?

hirschallan wrote:
Never heard about it.  Only two models invlovled.  The units involved are quite large.  Mine is only 3000 watts.  Neither of the two recalls is mine. 

The fuel consumption with the 5000+ watts non-inverter type generators would be excessive. 

Rather than spend money on one big generator, I'd buy a couple inverter units.  Probably a three kw. and a two kw. (running watts).  That would give more flexibility and a bit of redundancy as well.  I'd probably not buy Honda or Yamaha.  What I've seen from the Champion and Hyundai units I have, I'd trust them to pull us through pretty much any emergency situation.  Not claiming them to be on the same quality level as the other two.  However, they're plenty good enough and at 1/4 the price, kind of easy to do.        

When we built our house over twenty years ago, I ensured that we'd have an alternative reliable heat supply for winter emergencies.  Hence, two large, high efficiency Opel 2000 fireplaces.  One on the main floor, the other in the basement.  I keep a two to three month supply of dry wood on hand and have access to plenty more just out back of the house.  Can't go wrong with wood burners if you have access to properly dried fuel.  Pretty simple stuff.  Dry wood, a good stove/chimney and a match.  Accordingly, my only need for electricity is for relatively low power consumption devices.

 We have "on demand" gas heated hot water that requires only enough electricity to ignite the burner and supply the control panel.  We have gas cook top, gas clothes dryer and gas heat as well.  So, if used properly, the two small units we have would be more than sufficient to keep us relatively comfortable.  The inverter would be used to provide power for lights, TV, satellite receiver and computers and one light draw fridge.  Light load, quiet operation and economic fuel consumption.  The 3000 watt Champion would be used to run one refrigerator and a freezer as required.  That would be more for convenience than necessity.  Being winter, up here we have plenty of freezer opportunities.  I keep enough fuel on hand to run the generators as required for probably a month or more.  So, overall, I think we have the bases covered.  

Another fortunate aspect is that our water supply likely wouldn't be interrupted for quite some time.  About five years ago, a massively huge underground reservoir was built up on the other side of  a 70 foot high hill about a third mile as the crow flies, behind our house.  It was built to accommodate future expansion of the area for decades into the future.  It's the size of a very large two storey department store underground.  About the only thing that would effect us in a big way would be a lengthy gas supply interruption.  However, we have the wood burners to fall back on to cook and heat water.  Kind of like being at camp!  

We're pretty luck living up here on the shield.  No earthquakes, no hurricanes, very few tornadoes.  Ice storms and the rare, long drawn heavy snow storms are the biggest threat during winter and heavy rain/flooding is the most damaging warm weather events if you live in low lying areas.