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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

$400 generators cannot run large home appliances as the initial wattage surge during startup will overload them and cause the breaker to fire.

For example, a fridge-freezer might need only 600 watts to run but will also need up to 2000~2500 watts to start. You'll struggle to find a $400 generator at 2K+ watts capacity, even if that load is only for ten seconds. Maybe "own-brand" generators from e.g. Harbor Freight, but would you trust it?

And that's just for a single appliance, large space heating/cooling systems are even more problematic/spikey. Buying generators for your home is actually more expensive and complicated than many people realize.

You'll quickly find yourself looking at $5K Honda inverter generators w/7K watt capacity even if that seemed overkill at the outset.

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A trick if you need it in a pinch to start a device with a motor from an undersized generator:

Wait 10 mins for any heat/pressure inside the fridge to even out. Hook the fridge up to the (stopped) generator. Hold your finger on the breaker to force it to engage, even though the generator isn't running yet. then start the generator with the pullcord. It'll be very hard to pull, so you need both hands...

As the generator splutters to life and accelerates, so will the fridge motor. Since both are accelerating slowly, the starting current is far far lower than would happen if the generator was already running when he fridge was connected.

Also works for escalators, vacuum cleaners, blenders, angle grinders, etc.

If the generator doesn't get up to operating speed within ~15 seconds, stop and give up or the generator coils will burn.

I ran my whole little house+farm in Indiana off a 5kW (7.5kW surge) generator for a week, and then on and off during other power outages. It was 12+ years ago, so I don't remember exactly how much I spent, but I'm pretty cheap and didn't have much cash back then so I suspect it was about $500.

It was a small household, no AC, but well pumps, fridges etc and it ran just fine.

For a semi-permanent installation that can plug into your electrical panel, yes you're looking at a lot of money.

But I have a Champion portable 3500 watt continuous (4000 watt starting) that was $397 that has no problem running my refrigerator, a few lights, fans, and a small window AC unit. I run extension cords to the specific appliances I need to power during an outage.

How big is your fridge / freezer. Just looked up the specs of my freezer and it claims to use 170kwh per year or about 19 watts an hour. Excluding my gaming pc , 600w continuous would power my whole house.

The fridge doesn't run continuously, so "needs 600w to run the motor" and "only uses 19w an hour" can both be true.

Could you use a battery or capacitor to bridge the gap?

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