Criteria for choosing a gas generator

There is nothing worse than being left without the benefits of civilization in winter! Especially electricity, on which water supply and heating often depend in a private house. In this article, Our site of advice will tell you what selection criteria you need to be guided by when buying a gas generator.

Let’s start with why it is worth staying on a gas generator? There are also diesel ones. But they are noisier and difficult to start in the cold. But it is in winter, during snowfalls, that power outages occur more often. In addition, gasoline generators are cheaper, weigh less, and are easier to maintain and repair. It’s up to you, of course, but the vast majority of homeowners opt for gas generators..

The first thing to decide on before buying a gas generator is why you need it:

• For outings into nature – picnics, hunting, fishing, just relaxing on the lake. In this case, a powerful model is definitely not needed;
• To ensure the operation of power tools on a construction site where electricity is not yet available;
• For backup power supply of a summer cottage or a private house, where electricity can be lost due to emergencies;
• For long-term operation, when you need to provide electricity to powerful devices.

Now we calculate how many devices need to be supplied with electricity:

• In case of a trip to nature – a laptop, a charger for gadgets, a couple of lamps, a small portable refrigerator;
• At the construction site – a concrete mixer, various power tools, a pump, floodlights;
• In a private house and in the country – a heating circulation pump, a borehole pump for water supply, a TV, a refrigerator, a laptop, a pair of lamps, if there is no gas supply – an electric stove and an electric kettle.

Add up the power of all devices that you need to provide electricity from a gas generator.

Important! Each generator has its rated and maximum power indicated. You should not focus on the maximum, the generator will not work on it for a long time. Normal, long-term operation of the device is provided at a power of about 80% of the nominal.

It is not difficult to add up all the power of the devices that will be powered by the generator. But we must not forget that at the time of launch, almost all types of electrical equipment consume much more electricity than during normal operation. Therefore, the starting current ratio should be used!

For example:

• For incandescent lamps, the starting current coefficient is 1, that is, it can be ignored. We just take the declared power of 100 W and that’s it;
• For hand-held power tools, the starting current ratio will no longer be less than 1.5. That is, we take the power of the drill at 800 W and multiply it by 1.5, getting already 1.2 kW;
• For a refrigerator, the current consumption coefficient at startup is 3.5, how much for a concrete mixer and a borehole pump.

In general, the more powerful the equipment itself, the higher the inrush current ratio..

Important! If you do not take this factor into account when calculating the power of all devices that will be connected to the gas generator, it simply will not pull them at the same time. Generator power must be calculated with a margin!

Here is a simple calculation example:

The lights went out in the house and you urgently need to connect a refrigerator (700 W * 3.5), a TV (just 300 W, no coefficient), a lamp (100 W) and a pumping station (800 W * 5) to the gas generator. As a result, we get a total power of 6850 W. Experts advise adding a 10% margin to this indicator. It turns out that for such household needs, a gas generator with a rated power of at least 7.5 kW is needed..

The more powerful a gas generator is, the more expensive it is. You can save money. Are you sure you need to turn on the borehole pump and the refrigerator at the same time, for example? After all, you can first turn on the pump, stock up on water for the first time, turn it off and only then connect the refrigerator to the generator, which will definitely not have time to defrost in an hour or two. You can also do without a TV for now, a smartphone is enough. On a construction site, you are also unlikely to turn on the circular saw and the drill at the same time..

More than 90% of homeowners decide on the choice of a single-phase or three-phase gas generator in favor of the first option. Indeed, why overpay for 380V, if almost all devices that are connected to the generator are designed for 220V.

We state: for trips to nature, a compact gas generator with a capacity of up to 3 kW is quite enough. To meet the needs of an ordinary private house, it is worth choosing a more powerful single-phase model – from 5 to 7 kW.

Recall that the portal has already written about how to connect the generator to the house and maintain its portal.