Generator advice

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Freakboy

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Hey guys,

My dad is looking to get a 7kW MAC-AFRIC Petrol generator. They guys at Adendorff told him this would be sufficient for their house, with them run either the geyser or stove one at a time.
They will be running the following:
2 x Fridges
1 x Freezer
1 x TV
1 x Decoder
? x Lights
Then either the stove or geyser

What is the opinion on the MAC-AFRIC brand, and would the 7kW/31.25A generator be enough?


We are expecting our second child in June, so we would have to run heaters (and maybe the aircon on warm in the room) for the baby. We would be running the following:
2 x Fridges
1 x Freezer
1 x TV (Won't use the amp and only the TV speakers)
1 x HTPC
? x Lights
2 x 400W Panel heaters
1 x 18000BTU aircon
Then either the stove or geyser (maybe)

My concern is the heaters and aircon. We could install a Ecoheat infrared heaters, but see they also use 1kW+ per unit. I don't think the 7kW/31.25A will work. Next is the 10kW/45.5A for 3 times the price of the 7kW one.
Spoke to my wife's cousin who works at ABB and he also recommends at least 10kW for our usage.

Will also speak to the electrician who is going to do my dad's switchover what he thinks. Still not 100% sure about the MAC-AFRIC brand, but Honda is expensive atm :(
 
What's this generator for? Just for load-shedding? or for going completely off-grid forever? I think it is better to think of 'what can I do without for 2 hours' rather than overbuying a large generator.

Fridges and Freezers kick in at high power -- so better if they 'soft-start' - or just don't connect them to your generator (how long is your power going to be off anyway -- 2 hours at a time, so you can probably just crank your fridge up a little and let it warm up a tad when the power is off... Same goes for your geyser and possibly even cooking.

In terms of heating and Air-Con - then I guess you don't have too many options. Babies lived just fine before their invention though, so just bear that in mind. Heating wise there are alternatives (more clothes, wood, gas etc... although don't under-estimate the health effects of burning wood!)

TV, Computers etc. are tiny loads. Lights should also be relatively small -- if they aren't - change them for LEDs.

Unless you want to spend a lot of money on automatic controllers, maintenance etc. then you're going to have to start this big noisy fume belching machine every time there is load shedding... Are you sure that's better than the TV being off? Watch TV from a tablet with a > 2 hour battery life instead!
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

Load shedding is suppose to be only 2 hours, but if we look how they screwed up the power system it might get longer in the future.
And the TV is for me when mom "tends" to number two :D
 
You will not be able to run everything at once , you will most likely have to turn off Geyser and Stove , the machines will probably run your stove but only if you turn off everything else. Lights and plugs should not be a problem but heaters will definately put strain on the machine.

The worste thing you can do is buy a small generator and run it at full load for long periods.
 
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