New 5000 Watt Enclosed Dual-Fuel Inverter Generator at Harbor Freight

With little wiggle room for the additional RPM an inverter genset can employ, a portable generator's output is tied to its displacement.

To make 5000W, one generally needs 340cc's displacement.
 
IMO Wen makes some nice equipment. It’s not as quiet as I’d like but still is decent. The engine will rev to high idle anytime the load increases then drop back down. It’s still better than a traditional generator. I have the 56385i which is a 3850 watt on gasoline only. For me no need for propane.

Just my $0.02
 
football said:
Harbor Freight released a brand new dual fuel 5000 watt inverter generator today. This is their first generator that can use propane as well as gas. Runs for 18 hours on a single tank of gas or 14 hours on a single 20 pound propane tank.

https://www.harborfreight.com/gener...tor-with-co-secure-technology-carb-70143.html
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I didn't see a continuous running watts specification. I have the Predator 3500 with 3000 watts continuous rating. My generator has a 212cc engine; this one has a 224. Call me a skeptic, a realist or whatever, but I serously doubt that the extra 12cc of engine displacement could get you more than another 250 watts of continuous power.
 
Rand said:
What do you need more than 5000w for? Rightsizing your gen saves fuel.

Edit: 3600w.. yes I wish a 5000w gen was 5000w.
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I'm sure bare minimum I could get by. Biggest critical thing in the winter is keeping the furnace and heat wire on the water line going. Furnace is on a 15a circuit and apart from the kicking on of the burner and blower it's not close. The heat tape uses something like 4w per foot and it's 30 feet long.

My better half gets to work from home. So there's electronics that would need to run. Inverter generator is nice here - pure sine wave. We've lost power for over a day before and never lost Internet connection. So we'd have to have a workstation, internet / associated stuff up. And then a TV and playstation ... the list goes on.

In the summer (while debatable), I know the central Air is going to be a "must". That runs off of 220. Ideally I'd get to the point where we have an interlock.

We may be switching to propane heat soon enough. Wanted gas but having issues getting that. Seems like we'd be able to run it off of the large tank.
 
propane heat is a big ouch. heat pump costs less.. although if you have many days below 0f you might want backup propane or electric for those few days.
What heat do you have now? oil?

Generator for house can get expensive to do it right... then throw in wiring etc.. you probably looking at 2k+ for a decent setup.
 
I bought one of the Champion 2500W invertors and it has just enough umph to fire my furnace. If I leave it on eco mode the wifi/router would reset when the furnace kicked on though, so when I would switch over, I would turn off the fridge, and turn off eco mode. It still had some wifi issues. So just enough but not really great.

And definitely not doing my 240V well pump. I really need a second generator, a 7500W one I think, with 240V for those two big loads. Fire that up only when necessary, leave the invertor to run fridge, lights and wifi. Not sure I should try a 5kW, no idea what the well pump takes.
 
Maybe OK for those without a gas supply, but for me the "dual" fuel would be gasoline and natural gas. You can install/have installed a flex gas line for use on patio gear (BBQ, heater., etc) Then you won't have to worry about refilling. I get that for those without natural (city) gas supply, propane would be their choice.

I would say 3,500 watts is minimum capacity. 5,000 watts would give you some spare capacity and be less stressful on the unit. The extra margin would also improve the power quality, so easier on whatever equipment is hooked up. Electronics are particularly sensitive but start up draw may need it for items like washing machines. Most of the hardwired/connected back up Res. setups are 8,000 to 10,000 watts plus.
 
As people move to heat pumps their wattage requirements may increase depending what the backup heat is. We have a 4 ton and.a 6 ton Trane heat pumps with electric booster coils. That was what was in the house when we bought it. The booster coils have huge circuit breakers 50 or 70 amps. The booster coils are needed during defrost and when it's really cold out.

Big difference from my NY house with ceiling fans and oil baseboard heat.

We do not get many power outages where I live now but I think we would need a 30 KW generator.
 
supton said:
I bought one of the Champion 2500W invertors and it has just enough umph to fire my furnace. If I leave it on eco mode the wifi/router would reset when the furnace kicked on though, so when I would switch over, I would turn off the fridge, and turn off eco mode. It still had some wifi issues. So just enough but not really great.

And definitely not doing my 240V well pump. I really need a second generator, a 7500W one I think, with 240V for those two big loads. Fire that up only when necessary, leave the invertor to run fridge, lights and wifi. Not sure I should try a 5kW, no idea what the well pump takes.
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I run my house during an outage with an HF 4375 (3500 continuous).
Runs the gas furnace for our 2 story. Lights which are led. I also run the well pump , and the refrigerator. We also watch TV, and use the computer. Works fine even though it's not an invertor.
I don't run the well pump with the furnace. But really it's easy to turn on the well pump only when you need it to shower , or fill up the toilets, when I do that , I shut off the furnace for a bit during our showers (hot water is gas).
The little 240v Genset uses about 5 gallons in 20 hrs.

It won't run the 4 ton a/c unit.
Most of our outages are in winter. If it went long in summer, I can run the travel trailer on the generator so we have air conditioning to sleep.
 
Last edited:
Donald said:
As people move to heat pumps their wattage requirements may increase depending what the backup heat is. We have a 4 ton and.a 6 ton Trane heat pumps with electric booster coils. That was what was in the house when we bought it. The booster coils have huge circuit breakers 50 or 70 amps. The booster coils are needed during defrost and when it's really cold out.

Big difference from my NY house with ceiling fans and oil baseboard heat.

We do not get many power outages where I live now but I think we would need a 30 KW generator.
Click to expand...
I have a heat pump that we really bought for the AC as we have an oil powered boiler for heat. Now we use the heat pump in a dual-fuel setup because it is much cheaper than running the boiler but since we weren't initially going to use it for heat we did not get the electric coils. I inquired about them but it means a whole lot of electrical work needs to be done to run them and since we have the boiler as backup we don't have to worry about backup heat under a certain ambient temp.

Defrost is not a problem without them, the house air is plenty warm enough to supply heat to defrost the outside unit, but the first 2-3 mins it can blow REALLY cold air!
 
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