The focus of today’s article is on how electricity could potentially damage things in your home in the event of a power outage (whether induced by a natural disaster or otherwise).
(If you’re interested, or want a little background on electricity, I’ve written a previous article that explains how electricity is measured you can check out.)
Given events in the world right now (wars, natural disasters, civil unrest, etc.) I’ve spent a decent amount of time thinking about how I’d fare in a situation where things we normally take for granted break down.
These things include, but are not limited to, supply chain (just this week there have been more toilet paper shortages), running water (particularly safe-to-drink running water), electricity, etc.
Electricity is something I use every day and literally rely on to survive (sure I have a gas furnace to stay warm in the winter, but without the electric blower to push the hot air it produces, it’s not much good), so what would happen if the electric grid was damaged somehow, leaving a large area (city, county, state) without power?
I thought the answer to this was to just go get the biggest generator I could afford, wire a generator inlet into my home (along with a transfer switch) and call it good.
While this is OK and does provide some benefit, I’ve recently realized that in some instances this could end up causing more harm than good.
The reason for this is due to the quality, or “cleanliness” of electricity that some generators produce.
You may have shopped for a generator before and noticed that some are just called “generators” and others are called “inverter generators”.
The “inverter” variety are generally (quite a bit) more expensive, and usually smaller.
There’s a reason they’re more expensive, and one you should probably consider if you’re thinking about using a generator to power things in your home if/when the power goes out.
Without getting too in-depth - a non-inverter generator simply uses an engine to spin magnets around coils of copper wire to produce electricity.
This electricity can be consumed directly through the outlets on the generator.
An inverter generator does the same thing, only before making the electricity available via the outlet it is passed through a rectifier (converting the electricity from AC to DC) and then passed through an inverter (converting the DC electricity back to AC).
Why is this done?
The “original” electricity isn’t “clean” - variations in things such as the speed of the engine can cause the magnets to spin faster or slower and thus change the properties of the electricity.
Passing the “original” electricity through a rectifier and then inverter allows for the “purification” of the electricity, into a “cleaner” form that most devices in homes expect (think flat screen TVs, refrigerators with computer chips, wi-fi routers, laptops, etc.).
If you were to plug a laptop or other sensitive electronic device into a non-inverter generator it might not run at all (and if it does, it could end up being damaged or have its life reduced by the variations in the quality of the electricity produced by the generator).
So, while having the biggest generator you can afford may provide you with electricity in the event of a power outage, it’s likely it’ll provide you with a quality of electricity you may not want anything and everything in your house being exposed to.
There are several other considerations and points of comparison to discuss related to non-inverter vs. inverter generators, but this article is already getting a little long, so I’ll end with this for now and possibly discuss the subject more in a follow-up article.
Just keep in mind - if you need “raw power” for running something like an electric chainsaw, or bouncy house fan, a normal generator will probably be fine; however, if you’re thinking you’d like to keep your TV and smart fridge running during the next power outage, you’ll almost certainly want to use an inverter generator to avoid the risk of potentially permanent damage to the devices.