Looking to purchase a backup generator for your home? It’s a great way of ensuring minimal interruption in the event of an outage. At Diesel Generation Australia, we are leading suppliers of petrol, solar and diesel generators for sale and hire, catering to various domestic, commercial, and industrial applications in Tasmania. Our expert team has put together the following guide to help you determine how powerful of a generator you need.
How Many Household Members?
In most cases, petrol or diesel generators with 10,000 watts of power should be more than enough to run your essential appliances. It ultimately depends on the number of people in the household, what appliances they are using, and how many. 1000 to 2000 watts per household member is usually a safe bet. To get a closer estimation, it’s worth looking at the power consumption of your major appliances.
High and Low Consumption Appliances
Household appliances vary drastically in terms of daily power consumption in watts. Some examples of high consumption household items include:
- Air conditioner: 1500-3500 watts
- Clothes dryer: 4000 watts
- Dishwasher: 2400 watts
- Hairdryer: 1500 watts
- Kettle: 2400 watts
- Microwave: 700-1000 watts
- Pool pump 1100 watts
- Pool heater: 5000 watts
- Toaster: 1000 watts
Appliances that consume very little power include:
- Computer and monitor: 100 watts
- LED light: 11 watts
- Modem: 5 watts
- Phone charger: 5 watts
- Printer: 100 watts
- Refrigerator: 50-100 watts
- TV: 30-200 watts
- Video game console: 60 watts
When shopping around for generators, roughly calculate the daily power consumption of your household appliances.
Start Up Wattage
Another thing to consider is the start-up wattage of your appliances. Appliances with moving parts like fans and pumps can consume a lot of electricity at start-up but consume far less power to continue functioning. This is because motors and other moving parts need a lot of power to get from a stationary position to their normal running position.
This surge of power consumption can cause many diesel and petrol generators to fail, even when its capacity should be sufficient for all your appliances’ running wattage. A good approach to avoid this happening is by adding another 30% on top of your appliance power usage.
Petrol and Diesel Generators for Sale in Tasmania
From small portable petrol generators to larger commercial diesel generators, Diesel Generation Australia have the right product to fit your needs with features like automatic starts, wheel kits, long range fuel kits and more. Enquire today for Tasmania-wide services.