I know this is way out there but I need some advice on what to look for, or what's good in a portable generator.
My wife threw me a little curvball and said she wanted a generator by Thurs.,I guess she must be expecting the storm of the century on Fri.

I know nothing about generators, I have only one place to buy one (Home Depot) I have a budget of $1,000 give or take a couple hundred, the usage of the generator will be used to keep one room heated and lit in case of emergency.

I know some of you cold weather guys will know about this stuff, sorry for the short notice. Thanks

Depends on what you want to run. I used to sell gas powered generators and you have to remember that a hair dryer or toaster generally use 1500 watts each, while lightbulbs are only 60-100w.

Refrigerators and freezers take a lot to start up, but less once running as the compressors draw a lot of juice at startup.

Best way is to determine what load you will be putting on the generator and go from there. 1000w will be good for camping, where something like 2500 or 3500w will be great for running multiple devices. We used to put anything from 6000w to 25000w in remote fishing/tourist camps.

good luck.

You also get about 1600 watts out of a 15 amp circuit... so you can again figure out roughly from there.

A 3000 watt gennie will be about the same as two household circuits, etc.

Bren R.

What about renting one from the local equipment rental shop if you only need it Thursday! Then if it's the wrong size - no biggie!

We ran a 2400 W one here for 6 years; that was enough to let you shower and go somewhere with power, without worrying about food, but not enough to run heat. If we turned off everything else in the house we could power up the home theater. This year, we went much bigger - now you can even run the washer and dryer and heat without anything going. But we lose power a lot out here - sometimes for two or three days at a time.

We generally lose power about 5 times a year mostly in the summer, usually not for more than about 6 to 8 hours.
We figured it would be nice to own one in case of some major emergency, such as a large earthquake in the future.
Home Depot has a 5000w portable for $600.00 and I'm hoping that should be more than enough for general and emergency needs.
Thanks everyone for the help.

Also EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to have an Isolation switch. What that does is it separates you from the normal utility grid before you turn on the generator. If you don't do that, your generated electricity will also travel out of your house and into the electric companies system. You could find a dead utility worker under the pole in your drive way if you don't do this.

Yes, there are manual ways to isolate your house but they are probably not legal depending upon where you live.