It's been some years since I've owned a portable generator.

Living here in Tornado Alley I've been lucky, so far anyway, and with winter coming up (not much snow here, we get more ice storms than snow), I've been looking,

I'm a big fan of Honda small motors and have been looking at the EU 1000 and EU 2000. I reckon the 2000 or 2200 watt will be able to power my basic needs for some days, refrigerator/freezer/furnace plugged in, running some extension cords. (Whole House big-assed generator is not going to happen).

I also intend to pickup a Honda EU1000, mainly for the purpose of going out Ham Radio remote operation around.

Anyway, as I said, I'm a big fan of Hondas, but my buddy keeps trying to get me to buy the Harbor Fraught Predator.

I'm not a big fan of Harbor Fraught, and their Predators only have a 90 day warranty, and they want you to buy their extended warranty to go to 1 or 2 years, and the price is way to high for the cost of the Predator.

Honda gennys have at least a 2 year warranty, and parts are anywhere and anybody can fix them, probably even me. But, they are a decent chunk of money.

I may have a line on a late model slightly used Yamaha 2000-ish watt genny, but that's not a sure deal. Working on that too.

SO, if you guys have any experience, thoughts, recommendations, etc to share, I'd appreciate it.

I have two Yamaha 2000 watt generators. A refrigerator can pull up to 800 watts, freezer up to 900 and not sure what your furnace fan may pull, assuming a gas furnace. I would suggest at least a 2000 watt unit.

I have a friend who has Harbor Freight generator and has not had any issues with it and swears by it.

No experience with either generator. However, we run a lot of small Honda motor powered equipment on the ranch and use a fair bit of Hazard Fraught tools as well. The two things that come to mind are: 1) For something that needs to work when you need it like a generator, I’d go Honda over Hazard Fraught every day and twice on Sunday. 2) Small Honda motors really do not like the garbage that one can buy at the gas station (at least in California, maybe Free America has better gasoline?). If you have access to a local airport where you can buy 100LL, your generator (and most other small motors you may have) will be a lot happier.

^^^^ Was talking to my brother, he has a bugsmasher cessna plane, gets his genny fuel at the airport where he lives, 100LL he said, and he says it's good for 2 years. So I would be able to get the fuel pretty easily. We have lots and lots of gas stations selling 100% Pure Gas, no Ethanol, that helps but I want an even longer lasting fuel.

Thanks!
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Big difference between a generator and an invertor. For sensitive electronics--anything with LED's--you want an invertor--NOT a generator.
Stick with Honda.

^^^ Yes. For my portable roaming around ham radio use, I will use the Honda EU1000 running to either a Lithium Iron Phosphate 100 amp hour battery, then to the electronics, or into one of those so-called Solar Generators, and the electronic radios and stuff plugged into that. Or I could run the power into a computer UPS supply first. That should smooth out and condition the power to a safe use for the electronics. I also plan to get a solar panel system for this mobil hobby, but that's another story entirely. A true sine wave, not the modified sine wave, inverter is the way to go.

The Honda genny is just really to keep the battery system charged up. When we go portable like this, we do not use commercial power at all.
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I don’t like spending money on stuff I’ll rarely use but I spent the money on the Honda instead of cheaping out on HF. I want to minimize the risk of something I really need to work not working. The extra money over a long term is negligible. Hey the Honda or the Yamaha.

I have 4 EU2000's. If one will do the load that you need then that's as good as it gets in small suitcase generators. Everything else is less in some way.

I thought the Honda EU generators were pure sine wave inverter generators?

If you can afford one, the Honda units are nice. They are super quiet. I have a 7000W Dewalt generator.

I recently bought a Honda 2000 but haven't needed it yet. Starts up easily and runs quiet though. Get a killawatt from Harbor Fraught and plug in a few things you want to run, then you can see actual draw. Google tells me my fridge and freezer are up in the 800 watt range but the meter tells me a couple hundred at startup.

With a Honda anything you k now what you're getting. With a Harbor Fraught anything, you know what you're getting.

Make certain you are accurately adding up everything you intend to run at the same time. We have a well pump and that takes a lot of wattage. Just two items, a refrigerator and freezer running at the same time may not allow for anything else with a 2000 watt unit. Pure gas and stabilizer are always a good idea.

I have a Kawasaki 10k that I have had for at least 10 years plus, starts immediately and runs great. I also have a Yamaha 2k inverter for electronics. That also starts 1st pull. I just start both 1x a month and use fuel stabilizers. Never can be to prepared.

The EU2000 is only 1,600 watts continuous. The current EU2200 is only 1,800 watts continuous. Those models are popular because they have fuel pumps which makes using a portable boat gas tank for extended run times easier. I’m not sure if the Yamaha has a fuel pump.

The newer Hondas have built in watt meters and a smartphone app that lets you monitor them remotely. With the bigger electric start Hondas, you can remotely start and stop them through the app as well.

Hurricane Matthew came through here in 2016, and I had rushed out and bought two of the Honda 2000's, the versions that you can hook together to increase the power, not quite double but close (too lazy to look it up).

I really only needed one to power the two fridges, one freezer (alternating the plugged in times) a microwave, a coffee maker, and the igniter for the gas instant water heater. I did unplug everything else to run the microwave or coffee maker.

Survived easily enough for 4 days without power.

The Hondas are very nice. I gave one each to my sons and then bought me another to serve as "suspenders" for my whole house Briggs and Stratton that was sitting at the local freight dock when the hurricane arrived.

I've had a Generac GP7500E for 10 years and it's bailed me out numerous times without any issues.

Just purchased a Powermate with a Generac motor, electric start, from Northern Tool. Free shipping.

If you need a generator on a regular basis, I agree that Honda is preferred. For the occasional need (like maybe every 5 years or so), Generac is ok.

I've lived in South Florida since 1992 and the only time I needed a generator was in 2005 (Wilma) for 3 days. Just went through Ian, didn't need a generator. I moved from Broward to Collier County a couple of years ago and left my first Powermate generator at the old house that my kid now lives in. Never had an issue with the Powermate, so I stuck with them.

As mentioned make sure the 2000 is big enough to run what you need during the worst case scenario such as 0 degrees outside.

Bought a Lowes Troy Built generator in 2003 for Charlie and his twins that came through, it's been used a few times since, and powered right up for IAN when we lost power for two days, 5500, runs everything in the house but 220 items.

HF predator engines are the choice of people rebuilding gas golf carts, good price, lots of power.

Hondas are great products, however 2000 wouldn't run what we need, and the Troy Built with B&S engine is now 20 years old and still fires up and runs for days.

IF I was going to replace it I'd hit Costco and get the 9000 watt unit with dual fuel and electric start, more power is better.

Honda did recently come out with a EU3200i that puts out 3,200 watt and supports up to a 30 AMP plug load. However, from what you listed, I would not go any lower than the 2200 series and I'd also opt for the dual fuel kit so you could use Propane. It's a whole lot easier to store long term than gasoline. You can get several 20lb tanks or contract for some larger tanks if you like and plumb it to your grill too. This generator is a little on their heavier side for "portable" at pushing nearly 60 lbs, but they do have a wheel kit for it.

I would NOT even consider Harbor Freight for anything like this unless they were the last and only place open on Earth.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jcsabolt2,

Currently use a Honda EU2000 for the fridge and freezer when the power goes out. Been using this set-up for about 5-years now, which is about how long California has been having yearly blackouts due to wind/fire and winter storm problems. That Honda generator has been incredibly reliable, no issues that my 80+ year old father hasn't been able to handle or, deal with.