Steven Harris alerted me to this and I have to say this little generator is both Spirko and Harris approved.  The price is stupid low and this little generator has a lot to like about it.  I am so impressed with the price on this generator I just bought one as a third level back up.  The price is again just stupid cheap for what you get.  In fact I so believe that this generator belongs in your preps I am preempting item of the day today to promote it.

As always I give full disclosure of any commission I earn on anything I recommend.  I am not an affiliate of Home Depot and I don’t even think they have such a program.  You can bet your ass if Amazon put this on sale for 149 bucks with free shipping, I would promote it, but Home Depot did so that is what I am telling you about today.

Oh did you get that, FREE SHIPPING, to your front door.

The good about this generator…..

It is quiet, it sips gas and runs 6 hours on one tank.  It is on sale stupid cheap and will last a long time with proper maintenance.  Oh and that tank that will give you 6 hours of run time, is only half a fricken gallon.  It is light weight as in 19 pounds, you Thanksgiving Turkey likely weighs more.  It is compact as in about 9x8x16 inches, so it is easy to take camping and what have you.  And on the quiet at 56db that is about the level of a clothes dryer or a normal conversation.

The not so good…

I can’t say anything is bad, I do want you to understand the limits of this generator.    Okay so 1000 watts is the surge, 800 is the running.  That means it will likely run most refrigerators or freezers but some may need higher wattage to start up.  It won’t run much more at the same time.  You will need to check your specs and test it.

Translation this isn’t a light saber, likely won’t run a microwave and even most coffee makers.  It will run lights, pond pumps, charge batteries, etc.  And at 150 bucks you can buy two without breaking the bank.  This little generator is a great back up, wonderful for car/truck camping and for recharging batteries, etc.  It is great for what it does well but don’t think you can run half your house on it.  You can damn sure top off a battery bank that is part of a solar power system though!

For my needs it is a great back up and a way to keep my aquaponics running in an extended outage.  For my house my first go to for an extended outage is a 7500 watt Troy Bilt but it is a lot louder, a lot heavier and a lot more expensive.

Anyway if you have wanted to add a generator to your preps at 149 plus free shipping I really can’t recommend this one enough.

P.S. – It has come to my attention that the 2000 surge watt, 1400 running watt generator from Sportsman is also on sale for 160.  Please note this is NOT basically an upgrade from the one this post is about.  This is a standard form generator, it is not an inverter generator.  It weights almost three times as much, it is not as gas efficient, it is not compact and it is about 12 db louder if you run it with no load and it gets louder from there.

Is it a good deal?  Yes.  Is it a smoking deal like the 1000 watt inverter at 150?  No.  Might I buy both at this price if I didn’t have other generators, honestly, likely not.  I would likely buy two of the inverter generators before doing that.

Why?  First if you are going to go non inverter you can go up to something like this for only say 350ish dollars.  You’d need 4 of those 2000 watt generators to do what the Troy Bilt will do with running watts.  Yes 4!  So the money advantage is not there.  The beauty of these small inverter generators is they are small, light, quiet, sip gas and frankly that they are inverter generators.  One big thing is inverter generators self adjust power based on your draw, that is why they are so fuel efficient.  Conventional generators pretty much run all out all the time, burning more fuel than is required for your power needs.

As soon as you step out of the inverter generator world you may as well step up to something that provides at least 5500 running watts.  They are all loud and heavy and you won’t save much in gas by going much smaller.  They are also far cheaper per watt as you move up in size.  Again my Troy Bilt (the older model of the one I linked to) is 8 years old and still starts with one pull.

For more on the difference between inverter generators and standard ones, see this link.