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jay613
jay613
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Don't - but alternatives

The "generators" you list are very small. 1.5kWh. It does not make a lot of sense to run those through your panel.

  • Any non-trivial load will run them down quickly. What's the BARE MINIMUM? A gas boiler, a few light bulbs, your modem and router, the fridge, a couple of phone chargers? You'll be lucky to run that for 90 minutes with one of those batteries.
  • If you run them into your panel you need an inlet and an interlock. There is enough written on this site about that so I won't get into details, just don't even think about doing this without an inlet and interlock.

Best alternative

Here's the nice thing about battery "generators". They can be indoors, they can be anywhere because they aren't burning gas. With such a small one you should just carry it into the kitchen, plug a power bar into it, plug in your fridge, a couple of phone chargers that you leave on the kitchen table, and that's about it. If you want to run a gas boiler to heat your house, install a dedicated one-circuit transfer switch at the boiler. Run the boiler for an hour and the fridge for an hour by carrying the generator back and forth. It won't last long enough to do this twice. Then repeat with the other one.

For lighting esp in the bathrooms, get Lithium lanterns that you leave in the rooms that need them. They will last far longer on their own batteries than this generator. Same with your phones actually, just buy a lot of power bricks for them.

Bad alternative

If for some reason you want more flexibility to power lots of low-power things all over your house so you really want it in the panel. 1) Install an interlock and an inlet, 2) Move all the breakers that you want backed up onto the same phase. There can't be THAT MANY. There just can't. 3) Run one generator til it dies, then the other. If you can buy a piggyback battery for the first generator instead of a whole second one, that would be better. Forget about powering both sides of your panel with these. Not practical.

Gratuitous advice

That's a lot of effing money for 1.5kWh. YOu need to think about what you'll achieve at a higher level. You won't make your house habitable through a multi-day outage or even through a single cold night. You won't really extend your fridge life much. They're good for 24 to 36 hours with no power if you leave the door closed. This will add another day. Your phones can run off their own batteries and use cellular instead of WiFi. You're not Working From Home with one of these, not even for one day.

I understand why these are called "generators" ... compared to what came before them, they are enormous. They are not portable and they are capable of powering high voltage equipment so it's not totally wrong to label them that way. But your particular ones are on the tiny side of the battery generator world and they are expensive .... I don't see the point.

EITHER use them for single appliances or buy a gas generator that can run ALL essentials in your house for days. You don't need a huge gas generator for that. If you don't have sump pumps and multiple fridges a 5kW one will be PLENTY, will cost FAR less than your TWO battery ones, and with a supply of fuel will run for days or weeks.

Don't - but alternatives

The "generators" you list are very small. 1.5kWh. It does not make a lot of sense to run those through your panel.

  • Any non-trivial load will run them down quickly. What's the BARE MINIMUM? A gas boiler, a few light bulbs, your modem and router, the fridge, a couple of phone chargers? You'll be lucky to run that for 90 minutes with one of those batteries.
  • If you run them into your panel you need an inlet and an interlock. There is enough written on this site about that so I won't get into details, just don't even think about doing this without an inlet and interlock.

Best alternative

Here's the nice thing about battery "generators". They can be indoors, they can be anywhere because they aren't burning gas. With such a small one you should just carry it into the kitchen, plug a power bar into it, plug in your fridge, a couple of phone chargers that you leave on the kitchen table, and that's about it. If you want to run a gas boiler to heat your house, install a dedicated one-circuit transfer switch at the boiler. Run the boiler for an hour and the fridge for an hour by carrying the generator back and forth. It won't last long enough to do this twice. Then repeat with the other one.

For lighting esp in the bathrooms, get Lithium lanterns that you leave in the rooms that need them. They will last far longer on their own batteries than this generator. Same with your phones actually, just buy a lot of power bricks for them.

Bad alternative

If for some reason you want more flexibility to power lots of low-power things all over your house so you really want it in the panel. 1) Install an interlock and an inlet, 2) Move all the breakers that you want backed up onto the same phase. There can't be THAT MANY. There just can't. 3) Run one generator til it dies, then the other. If you can buy a piggyback battery for the first generator instead of a whole second one, that would be better. Forget about powering both sides of your panel with these. Not practical.

Gratuitous advice

That's a lot of effing money for 1.5kWh. YOu need to think about what you'll achieve at a higher level. You won't make your house habitable through a multi-day outage or even through a single cold night. You won't really extend your fridge life much. They're good for 24 to 36 hours with no power if you leave the door closed. This will add another day. Your phones can run off their own batteries and use cellular instead of WiFi. You're not Working From Home with one of these, not even for one day.

I understand why these are called "generators" ... compared to what came before them, they are enormous. They are not portable and they are capable of powering high voltage equipment so it's not totally wrong to label them that way. But your particular ones are on the tiny side of the battery generator world and they are expensive .... I don't see the point.

Don't - but alternatives

The "generators" you list are very small. 1.5kWh. It does not make a lot of sense to run those through your panel.

  • Any non-trivial load will run them down quickly. What's the BARE MINIMUM? A gas boiler, a few light bulbs, your modem and router, the fridge, a couple of phone chargers? You'll be lucky to run that for 90 minutes with one of those batteries.
  • If you run them into your panel you need an inlet and an interlock. There is enough written on this site about that so I won't get into details, just don't even think about doing this without an inlet and interlock.

Best alternative

Here's the nice thing about battery "generators". They can be indoors, they can be anywhere because they aren't burning gas. With such a small one you should just carry it into the kitchen, plug a power bar into it, plug in your fridge, a couple of phone chargers that you leave on the kitchen table, and that's about it. If you want to run a gas boiler to heat your house, install a dedicated one-circuit transfer switch at the boiler. Run the boiler for an hour and the fridge for an hour by carrying the generator back and forth. It won't last long enough to do this twice. Then repeat with the other one.

For lighting esp in the bathrooms, get Lithium lanterns that you leave in the rooms that need them. They will last far longer on their own batteries than this generator. Same with your phones actually, just buy a lot of power bricks for them.

Bad alternative

If for some reason you want more flexibility to power lots of low-power things all over your house so you really want it in the panel. 1) Install an interlock and an inlet, 2) Move all the breakers that you want backed up onto the same phase. There can't be THAT MANY. There just can't. 3) Run one generator til it dies, then the other. If you can buy a piggyback battery for the first generator instead of a whole second one, that would be better. Forget about powering both sides of your panel with these. Not practical.

Gratuitous advice

That's a lot of effing money for 1.5kWh. YOu need to think about what you'll achieve at a higher level. You won't make your house habitable through a multi-day outage or even through a single cold night. You won't really extend your fridge life much. They're good for 24 to 36 hours with no power if you leave the door closed. This will add another day. Your phones can run off their own batteries and use cellular instead of WiFi. You're not Working From Home with one of these, not even for one day.

I understand why these are called "generators" ... compared to what came before them, they are enormous. They are not portable and they are capable of powering high voltage equipment so it's not totally wrong to label them that way. But your particular ones are on the tiny side of the battery generator world and they are expensive .... I don't see the point.

EITHER use them for single appliances or buy a gas generator that can run ALL essentials in your house for days. You don't need a huge gas generator for that. If you don't have sump pumps and multiple fridges a 5kW one will be PLENTY, will cost FAR less than your TWO battery ones, and with a supply of fuel will run for days or weeks.

Source Link
jay613
jay613
  • 41.9k
  • 3
  • 61
  • 163

Don't - but alternatives

The "generators" you list are very small. 1.5kWh. It does not make a lot of sense to run those through your panel.

  • Any non-trivial load will run them down quickly. What's the BARE MINIMUM? A gas boiler, a few light bulbs, your modem and router, the fridge, a couple of phone chargers? You'll be lucky to run that for 90 minutes with one of those batteries.
  • If you run them into your panel you need an inlet and an interlock. There is enough written on this site about that so I won't get into details, just don't even think about doing this without an inlet and interlock.

Best alternative

Here's the nice thing about battery "generators". They can be indoors, they can be anywhere because they aren't burning gas. With such a small one you should just carry it into the kitchen, plug a power bar into it, plug in your fridge, a couple of phone chargers that you leave on the kitchen table, and that's about it. If you want to run a gas boiler to heat your house, install a dedicated one-circuit transfer switch at the boiler. Run the boiler for an hour and the fridge for an hour by carrying the generator back and forth. It won't last long enough to do this twice. Then repeat with the other one.

For lighting esp in the bathrooms, get Lithium lanterns that you leave in the rooms that need them. They will last far longer on their own batteries than this generator. Same with your phones actually, just buy a lot of power bricks for them.

Bad alternative

If for some reason you want more flexibility to power lots of low-power things all over your house so you really want it in the panel. 1) Install an interlock and an inlet, 2) Move all the breakers that you want backed up onto the same phase. There can't be THAT MANY. There just can't. 3) Run one generator til it dies, then the other. If you can buy a piggyback battery for the first generator instead of a whole second one, that would be better. Forget about powering both sides of your panel with these. Not practical.

Gratuitous advice

That's a lot of effing money for 1.5kWh. YOu need to think about what you'll achieve at a higher level. You won't make your house habitable through a multi-day outage or even through a single cold night. You won't really extend your fridge life much. They're good for 24 to 36 hours with no power if you leave the door closed. This will add another day. Your phones can run off their own batteries and use cellular instead of WiFi. You're not Working From Home with one of these, not even for one day.

I understand why these are called "generators" ... compared to what came before them, they are enormous. They are not portable and they are capable of powering high voltage equipment so it's not totally wrong to label them that way. But your particular ones are on the tiny side of the battery generator world and they are expensive .... I don't see the point.