Now that I've chosen between a Standard or Inverter Generator, how do I know how much power I need?
While this seems like a difficult thing to figure out, it's really pretty easy!
All Generators are have rated outputs in watts. You can determine the wattage you need in several different ways.
The easiest of course is to look for this rating on the Product or in the Product Manual. For a simple example: a 100 watt light bulb needs 100 watts of output from your Generator. If you want to run 10 of these lights, you need 1000 watts.
Ok, great, but I want to run my circular saw, and it doesn't have the wattage on it, now what? Many products with electric motors will have amperage listed or advertised on them. Amperage can be used to calculate watts. The formula for this is straight forward as well:
So back to our circular saw: you know it's a 10 Amp saw from the label or advertising on it. From this you would get 120V x 10A = 1200 watts.
But wait, there's two different watt ratings on generators, which one do I use?
This is easy as well, use the running watts in determining the size you need. The surge watts allow for the brief extra draw created by many products when they start up. If you will be maxing out your generator's rating, it's better to buy the next size up!
Related Information
How do I safely operate portable standby electricity generator ?
