Kitz Forum
Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: Weaver on June 20, 2018, 05:12:37 PM
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I can see generators that offer 2 or 3 kW and have a key start, as opposed to a horrible pull-cord mechanical start only. The one we have is the latter and Janet cannot start it: she does not have the strength and her hands are affected by arthritis so they hurt too much. So we need to get a sane user-friendly one instead. Various ones I have seen on eBay do not cost the earth. I paid c. £1000 for one in Jan 2005 in a shop in Inverness and I think the shop saw me coming and for all I know they had just quadrupled their prices because a hurricane had hit the day before. Athens one I have now is a Honda one.
Various German models look decent and have I can possibly find reviews.
It does not need to be enormous as it will not be powering any heating devices and so on, but if it can operate the central heating pump, water pumps, power the Rayburn, telly, networking equipment and some lights then that will be enough.
A quiet one would be very good, even though it will of course be outside.
A long runtime is important as I am concerned about knowing how and when to re-fill it. I need to upgrade UPSs in the house so that they run long enough to get me through the period when the generator runs out of petrol and gets refilled.
I wonder if there is any such thing as a generator that gives you some indication of how much fuel is left in it. Or even better some kind of alarm (how?) when it is down to x % full or t minutes runtime left or something. I have no idea if there is any way of refilling one while it is still running, or using two tanks or some such. Yes, I know it is vague. Does such a thing even exist? (The reason I am thinking of this is that we have a dual cylinder set-up for the gas cooker which has a switch that selects one cylinder or the other, but I do not think that the switch is intelligent. As far as I recall, it does not have a sensor or some kind that causes it to switch over from one cylinder to the other automatically when the gas runs out, but I may be wrong, I just do not remember.)
Does anyone have any thoughts?