Accessories

Saved me after Hurricane Omar
I bought this generator several months ago on a whim at Cost U Less in St. Croix where I live. I figure that if a Hurricane hit us it may be useful to have backup power. This proved to be one of the best purchases I ever made.

On Wednesday night into early Thursday we got hit with Hurricane Omar, a Category 3 storm. After the storm we had no power. My basement apartment that is occupied by a tenant was flooded. I fired up this little 2 stroke generator and plugged my wet vac into it. It worked great, it could handle the load the 3HP wet vac put on it (this is only a 2HP generator, we gained an entire horse :)). Within an hour and a half her apartment was cleaned up pretty good.

That night we still had no power. I was able to power up my 47" LCD TV, Satellite Box, DSL modem, and Linksys router off of it. I got about 6 hours with this load on 1 gallon of oil/fuel mixture....not bad. The next night we still had no power so my wife added her laptop to this load and got about 5 hours on a gallon of fuel.

Now it would not power my refrigerator or my water pumps from the Cistern which was a bit disappointing. The startup load of the fridge was just too great. Also, like all 2 stroke motor's, starting it can be a pain...when you let gas sit in it for a while the mixture gets a little oil heavy...adding a small amount of gas and "shaking" it seems to get it started again. You will have to yank the cord a few times which is challenging for my wife. It also is loud (as all 2 stroke motor's tend to be).

For the $130 I paid for this I got my money's worth. Just being able to get online and watch my Satellite TV after the storm made life post-Omar much easier. I am very glad I bought this product. It's not a solution to all your power problems but in a pinch such as the one I was in it has worked out great.