Scored a generator

A friend of mine said he has a 3700 watt generator for me, for free. The engine has low hours, but needs a $50 repair. It's an American built machine with readily available parts. Probably put it in a small generator shack on one end of my property and wire it back to the house. One of the modifications will be a big muffler to get the sound level down to a whisper. Didn't move out to the woods to have a lot of noise. I'm sure most people on the lake feel the same way.

It's was one of the missing parts of my going totally off grid. There are times when the sun doesn't shine longer than the storage capacity of my battery bank. While I doubt If I'd use the generator much, it'll be good to have. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I love to have backups of all my important systems.

Leaving a battery bank in an under charged state for too long shortens its life. Right now I occasionally top it off from the grid. The generator will serve that function. I could get by without a generator -just live within my solar energy budget. At times I'd have to reduce usage to just essential equipment.

Ah . . . there's the rub. My lovely wife and I might have very different ideas on what's essential. My power tools or her sewing machine? My computer or her computer? It's one thing to work out occasional friction during an unusual event. It's another to have to deal with it all the time. In the pursuit of domestic harmony, having a second power source is a good idea.

-Sixbears