I've had about 6 generators over the years:
- A cheapie 600w(?) 2 stroker that was more toy than anything else, but it kept a few lights on when there was no power. Wasn't any good for much else.
- Yardworks 1000w. Bought it for $100 or something like that strictly for charging the house batteries on our 5th wheel. Electronics fried one day for no apparent reason. Was subsequently recalled I found about a year later - returned the basket of parts to Canadian Tire for a ~$600 cash refund.
- Champion 3500w open frame. The thing was a Timex and lived in the back of my 1-Ton for about 5 years under the tonneau. Always started no matter what weather/season. Powered our entire 5th wheel. Wasn't even that super noisy, but too noisy for campgrounds. Sold it for more than I paid for it 5 years later.
- Honeywell 2000 inverter. Quieter than the Champ open frame was, but it was an overall disappointing experience. Wouldn't fire off our 13.5K roof AC unit, but powered everything else just fine. Wasn't as quiet as I wanted however for campground use. Sold it only a month or so after buying it.
- Champion 2000 watt "square" unit. Ended up with 2 of these eventually along with the parallel kit. Still struggled to start our roof AC unit even in parallel and with eco mode disengaged - would start it 90% of the time, but that 10% of the time always ended up being in the middle of the night - going out and shutting down and restarting generators in your underwear at 3AM on a hot sweltering day wasn't endearing. But they were quiet and super reliable. But the AC thing was a show stopper, so I sold them both about a year, then....
- Honda eu2000i. Yep, should have just bought this one from the onset. It was also a Timex. It started our 5th wheels roof air consistently even in eco mode, I was constantly amazed. Served us well for years. Expensive, but yeah, you get what you pay for.
When we sold the 5th wheel I kept the Honda in my garage for a year or two and then realized I hadn't ever used it again so I sold it.
I also kept my Tripp-Lite 2500w inverter I had on the 5th wheel which was a pure-sine unit. I hooked up a short run of cable with some booster clamps on them for rapid hookup to a battery, and now I use our EV's for backup - when I need power for whatever reason, I just access the 12V battery on either of our EV's, hookup the inverter, and when the car is on it takes power from the main traction battery to keep the 12V topped up, effectively powering the inverter. When we had the Volt and the Ioniq we effectively had over 40 kilowatt hours sitting in our driveway without needing to burn a drop of gas. Now with 2 Volts again it's down to about 25kwh, but that's still more than enough to power our entire house for days, and once the traction batteries get low the engine just starts and cycles on/off to maintain things, so we can then go days longer until we run out of gas.
Anyhow, last summer when we bought our little camper again I found one of the older Champion square-units on Kijiji for $150 and snapped it up. It's serving us well again, although our wattage requirements are much lower on the tiny trailer. AC is only a few hundred watts. Battery charging, also only a few hundred watts. Biggest load is the induction cooktop, but you're not running that for long periods, but it does run it perfectly fine.
Anyhow, if I were buying something for home essentials (and noise wasn't a super big concern) I'd buy a Champion ~3000w open frame and then just run extension cords where you need them through a door. Hardwired units with transfer switches and auto start and all that good stuff makes sense if you live somewhere where the power goes off every time a mouse farts in the woods, but if you're only talking once or twice a year thing, a portable will get the job done, is way cheaper, and can be used for other stuff if needed.
Most people drastically over estimate what they need for power. Unless you want to run your central air or your electric range or something, 3000w is plenty, and 2000w will work.
Anyone looking and finding stock short right now, check out pawn shops. Cash Converters in Oshawa had no less than 5 or 6 generators last night when I was there, al the way from a 2000w Firman still in the box to a 5000w Champion, and a few in between.
