What Size Generator Do I Need for My House? Calculate for Whole House

Some of the most common questions you will hear from people will be “What is the most suitable generator for my home?” this question holds greater importance because choosing a wrong generator for your home will destroy your appliances. The primary audience asks questions like, “What kind of generator will run my refrigerator” and “how many watts generator do I need to use my PC?”.

To know about the right size of generator for your home, you need to consider some things which are necessary for buying a generator which involves the number of appliances you are going to use in your home and preferably your range. Using more machines, including refrigerator and the air conditioner is going to demand more watts.

Calculate What Size Generator for Your Whole House

Number of Appliances to Be Used

Before buying a generator the first and foremost thing is to choose the number of appliances you are going to use in your home such as the mandatory appliances you use on daily basis. For this purpose, make a list of the appliances you are going to use on generator i.e. desktop, laptop, refrigerator, air conditioner, bulbs, fans.

Wattage of Appliances

When you have listed the number of appliances you are going to use, the first thing you are going to do is check the Wattage (W) of those appliances. For that, most of the appliances have a sticker on the back which shows the Watts, Amperes and Volts of the machine you are using.

Each appliance has Starting watts and Running watts, normally when operating, the appliance will consume more energy, then will be stable and consume less energy. So for the appliance to work well, you need to care about the starting watts to choose the right generator.

In addition, based on the relationship between Watts, Amperes and Volts, you can find out the Wattage of the appliance to figure out the Wattage your generator.

The formula for calculating wattages:

Wattage = Ampere x Volts

In case you don’t know from where you are going to find Amperes and Voltages, they are written on the backside of the appliance you are using or manufacturer appliance information on the internet.

For example, you need to find the wattage of a Refrigerator with the power label shown above. The Refrigerator is of 115 Volts and it takes 7.2 Amperes so calculation will be like:

Wattage = 7.2 x 115 = 828 (Watts)

Above is how wattage is calculated, but if the wattage is shown on the label, you should use that number immediately. The following is an example listing the wattages of the appliances to calculate the total power.

By this quick guide, you can compare the Wattages (W) to your generator for a perfect fit for your configuration.

Comparing The Wattages

When you have determined the number of appliances you are going to use and the Starting and Running Wattage of the appliances, its time to combine those wattages and check if that combine wattage exceeds the wattage of generator you are going to use. For this, add all the wattages of your appliances.

Remember to buy the generator which exceeds the wattage of your appliances so the generator does not underpowers the number of appliances. It should always exceed the wattage of total appliances being used otherwise it will heat up and will not work according to your expectations.

If you are powering up essentials then it is not even a hassle, because the less the appliances more the power and back up time you will get. For example, using the daily life appliances like refrigerator, air conditioner, TV, laptop, desktop computer, fan and bulbs. But if you are planning to power your whole home you will need to figure out everything you are running on a generator. It will include every appliance you have in your home and it will probably use 34000 watts of energy. You would probably need a 35 kW of a generator. Secondly, for the optimal performance you should always try to keep minimal amount of appliances for better performance of the generator and constant power to your sensitive appliances keeping the generator running for a long time and giving power back up for more than 10 hours.

When you are done with configuring appliances wattages and generators total power, it is always better to check your calculations again. One tip is to call the customer care or look at the chart of appliances with wattages.

Can We Use a Large Generator for Small Appliances?

Yes, you can use a more significant generator for small and sensitive appliances, but it is not recommended to use because old and big generators suffer from THD, which means Total Harmonic Distortion. For the safe side, only 3% threshold is required for the THD in modern generators, but same cannot be said for the conventional generators which operate on higher frequencies and hence, can also destroy sensitive appliances such as laptop and LCD TV. Better safe than sorry. But sources do say there is good news that portable generators do not suffer from the same problem and are safe to run laptops and TV’s and other sensitive appliances but don’t expect the small portable generator to run the whole house because they are less efficient and does not generate a lot of power. But most of the new technology, the portable generators come in parallel capability too, so you can run both the generators at the same time producing enough power to light up the whole house.

Highly Recommended Generator for Your House

If you are a person who is willing to run almost all the appliances in your home, then you should go for  Westinghouse WGen9500DF. As the name suggests, this generator gives a power of 9500 Running Watts and 12500 Peak Watts on gasoline. It has all the goodies one generator can offer with remote start key, electric start and it gives up to 12 hours of Run Time, so if your house runs out of power, this generator will provide more than enough backup for your home.

Even if you want to calculate all the appliance wattage in your home, it will, without any complications, handle it. Be it a refrigerator or air conditioner running at the same time. As long as the customer reviews, it can give 15+ hours of backup time depending on the appliances you are running, which makes it the best choice for you.

According to the need of people, most of the things they would need are as followings,

Portable fan or ceiling fan, Fridge, Air conditioner, LED TV, laptops, Sockets, Washing Machine, Deep freezer, Microwave and by combining the Wattage of all these appliances, it does not go above 2700 Watts. Even if you buy Westinghouse WGen9500DF and the remaining of the energy will be retained.

Note: Generators are sized not by their dimensions but by their ability to produce power which can be measured in kW or W which are measurement of electricity. If you buy a generator that is too small for your configuration, it will overload the generator and fry not only the generator but the sensitive appliances such as your laptop and LED TV. But if you buy a large generator as compared to your configuration, you will not only spend more money but the daily maintenance of the generator will be costly.

Conclusion

For the generators, the exact requirement for most of the people is lesser than they think they need. Most of the people get stuck in choosing the generator because they don’t know the exact number of Wattage their appliance provides and they don’t even bother to look at the appliances and calculate their total Wattage which results in big mistake, and they pick up the wrong generator.

The home in which you need almost all the appliances to run such as essential mandatory appliances including refrigerators, air conditioners, laptops, desktops, TVs, ceiling fans and things like that, the Westinghouse WGen9500DF is by far, the best choice.