Refrigerator/Freezer: Estimating Power Requirements?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Older freezer/refrigerator.

Neither seems to have anything printed on the back that tells how many watts are
needed.

I'm shopping for a generator - but the smallest one that will run both the
fridge and the freezer concurrently, but nothing else.

Our power outages come only a few times per year and only last a few days max.
During that time, all I really want to do electric-wise is keep from losing the
contents of the fridge/freezer and be able to continue working through my PC
(which, I'm guessing, draws less than 1kw even with the monitor and other
peripherals.

Can anybody suggest a means of determining how much the fridge/freezer draw?

Alternatively, is there some ballpark maximum for devices like this. I'm hoping
2kw steady would do it and thinking in terms of a Honda eu2000 because of it's
quietness and ease of deployment.

 

[Vaughn Simon]

I'm shopping for a generator - but the smallest one that will run both the
fridge and the freezer concurrently, but nothing else.

You are smart to look for the smallest generator that will do the job, you will
save a lot of gas, and gas can be very hard to come by during a long power
failure.

The only way to know for sure is to try it, but my guess is that the EU2000 will
do the job just fine. My Eu2000 will easily run my big old side-by-side and a
lot more. In recent tests, I tried that same 'fridge on a little Yamaha EF1000i
and that worked also! It even worked in the eco mode. You will want to start
the units one after the other, so the EU only sees one starting surge at a time.

In short; my guess is that it will work, but worst case you can alternate
powering the boxes and they will still each get enough power to save your food.

Vaughn

 

[m Ransley]

Get an amp meter to check what it pulls, but remember surge load is 3-6x
run load dont figure it in and your gen may do nothing, or burn out
quicker.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Ulysses:

BTW my eu2000 will also run a small TV, DVD player, and desktop computer
with a 17" LCD monitor at the same time but they are all plugged into an
inverter with a battery charger usually running at 20 amps while the fridge
is running.

That's something that I hadn't considered: the possibility of supplementing the
generator's capacity with one or more 12-volt batteries. Sounds like that
would be my fallback position if I needed to keep the thing maxed out on the
fridge/freezer combo for some hours - yet wanted to be able to do some work as
well. Plug the PC stuff into an inverter into a fully-charged lead-acid car or
golf cart battery... and charge up the batt later when I don't need to push the
other load.

In light of comments from others and various reviews, I'm shopping right now for
a decent price on the EU2000.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Ulysses:

I like the inverter method rather than running directly from the generator

Just to make sure I understand:

EU2000 ===> 12 v Battery ===> Inverter ===> (whatever appliances...)

 

[no one that you know]

My eu1000 runs my fridge, freezer, furnace at low blower speed and any of my cf
lights that I need with a little left over for small stuff. It can do this in econo
mode. It however does not like to try and start all of them at once so I throw the
breakers one by one. It can start the furnace no problem even with the fridge and
freezer allready running. I do have the new energy wise apt size fridge and freezer
less than two years old. Last year during a five day outage I ran these items off my
inverter in my work van........ouch I was burning a hundred buks a day idleing.