Re: Electric power generators ?

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

You're talking about the wired.com article I wrote.

I carefully did not say there is a "shortage" of generators, diesel or
otherwise -- that's your own misreading of it.

I did say that the largest U.S. distributor of diesel generators has half
year delays on the most popular model. Same with bulk food suppliers like
Walton's. Solar power companies also report vastly increased demand.

You can buy cheaper gasoline generators at Home Depot, but there are
reasons people want to pay three or four times as much for a diesel model.
These differences and the other answers to your questions have been
well-documented elsewhere; I'm not inclined to list them for you here,
though others might be.

-Declan



At 05:52 PM 11-7-98 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
>
>Hi there,
>
>I saw an article posted about "shortages" of electric power generators
>and other Y2K "survival" goods, such as grains in airtight drums. My
>reading of the article gave me a feel that those products are bullshit
>products geared towards naive losers, and can be easily replaced with
>much cheaper products that can be bought at discount stores.
>
>More careful reading of the article showed that only certain high power
>diesel generators are scarce.
>
>A visit to my local discount retailer has shown that there are 10KW
>gasoline generators available for as little as $500. 10KW is far more 
>than I would need in an emergency. (I will probably need about 2KW).
>
>Questions:
>
>1) Aside from probably lower power, are those cheaper generators somehow
>worse?
>
>2) How reliable are those cheaper generators?
>
>3) What is their expected lifetime, in hours of operation?
>
>4) How hard is it to service them?
>
>5) How do you connect them to the electric system, to properly use
>them as backup? (this may be a stupid question, but I am not very 
>familiar with American system of electric wiring).
>
>6) How much gasoline do they consume if you draw 2KW power from them?
>
>Thank you.
>
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