Generator Sizing Worked Example: One Family's Complete Load List and Math

Sizing guides explain the method — list your loads, sum the running watts, check the surges — but the method only clicks when you watch it happen with real numbers. This walkthrough follows one fictional family (call them the household of four, suburban, gas heat, city water) through the entire sizing process: the appliance census, the surge problem, the decision, and the alternatives their numbers ruled out. Copy the process with your own numbers; the arithmetic does the deciding. Step one: the census (what must run in an outage) The family's list, inventory-style, with label-derived wattage estimates: The family's list, inventory-style, with label-derived wattage estimates: the refrigerator (18 cubic feet) at 500 running watts and a 1,200-watt starting surge; the chest freezer at 350 running, 900 surge; the gas furnace blower at 500 running, 1,100 surge; the basement sump pump at 900 r…

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