Living 100 miles from the Gulf coast has not kept us from power outages during hurricanes. Of course having an all electric home doesn’t help either when a windstorm comes through.
We have a portable generator and will soon have an induction cook top that requires it’s very own 15 amp 120v. outlet for some reason.
It would be nice to be able to warm up some water for a wash up or do a little light cooking.
Are cook tops sensitive to the source of power like some other appliances or electronic devices?
Do they work OK in motor homes on their generators? Experienced hands are most welcome to chime in.

It should work fine so long as you are not overloading that circuit. My generator has one 220V output and two 110 outlets on separate circuits.

Is this only one burner? Most induction cooktops in a residential home with multiple burners require quite a bit more juice...

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
It should work fine so long as you are not overloading that circuit. My generator has one 220V output and two 110 outlets on separate circuits.

>>>>>>>>THIS>>>>>>>>>>

Depends on the size of your generator. We tried running fridge, freezer, and induction cooktop on a 7500 watt portable after Hurricane Ivan and it could not run things to normal capacity. Ice melted, fridge got warm, stove struggled, and of course no AC in dead of summer. We rotated the power from fridge to freezer to cooktop. It was like a bad camping trip with running a chain saw and clearing windfalls all day. We ended up doing all the cooking on a gas grill. After 3.5 weeks of that nonsense I installed a diesel whole house generator on an automatic switch.

Whether you install a permanent stationary unit or rely on a portable that you plug in, I would have the switch and inlets wired by an electrician, and if the budget will bear it, I would recommend a big enough unit to run the whole house or at least selected essential circuits.

If installation and/or wiring is not an option, use enough portable and a seriously heavy generator extension cord to carry power all the way to your kitchen. Looking back on my Ivan experience I think we would have done a lot better with a 12,000 watt portable.

smlsig has the correct question. If we are talking about a normal house (4-5 burner) induction cooktop then it probably needs a 40amp 240v circuit and the 15a 120v circuit you mention which is probably strictly for the controls. You have to be in the 15K watt or better generator range to run this.

Must be a small induction. Mine has a 50amp circuit and 220v

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
Is this only one burner? Most induction cooktops in a residential home with multiple burners require quite a bit more juice...

Yes, a 1 burner should do the trick for us. Right now it’s just for emergencies and light duty.

quote:

Originally posted by Sportshooter:
Yes, a 1 burner should do the trick for us. Right now it’s just for emergencies and light duty.

Simple math says you need 2kw + if you want that burner plus a couple lamps (if incandescent) so you can see... Do you perhaps know the wattage of that cook top? If it's a 1500w burner, well, there ya go.

On a small scale, it's probably more efficient to turn fossil fuel into heat than it is to turn fossil fuel into electricity and then electricity into heat.

I was going to say. We have multiple power outages every year here. For cooking we have a propane camp stove, butane stoves, charcoal/wood barbecue, and a wood burning stove. When I was young my folks made a 3500 generator work by plugging in (and later flipping on) one fridge or freezer at a time, let them cycle, and then plugging in the next. You can get by with way less generator if you’re smart about it’s use.

There's something like this? it could be placed in a closet for emergency use:
https://tinyurl.com/yyyuabgj

It's induction.

quote:

Originally posted by Lineman101:
There's something like this? it could be placed in a closet for emergency use:
https://tinyurl.com/yyyuabgj

It's induction.

Yeah, Costco has one of those on the shelf at my local Costco. Single burner (If I can use that word) and it comes with a pot and lid. I think it is currently at $79.00 or so.

They have another one, it has 2 burners (again if I can use that word) and has something like 4 pots and 3 lids.
It's on their website.

I've got one, works great, just plugs into a normal household 15 amp 110 volt circuit.

quote:

it's probably more efficient to turn fossil fuel into heat than it is to turn fossil fuel into electricity and then electricity into heat.

this, the worst possible way to cook in an emergency is electric.