Most certainly. Even sitting in the bed of a pickup truck, they are nearly inaudible 5 feet away. I have just such a genset. Ensuring adequate air flow is key for a cool running genset. We just set ours under the vehicle at campgrounds (AK) - exhaust facing along the length of the truck. We've yet to hear a noise complaint...

Build a 'hush box'.

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I strongly recommend a very stout chain and a way to secure such (say, a ring bolt set in concrete)

BTW -leaving a generator running at night unattended is an invitation for theft...

Best of luck

 

Agreed, out of the box they are very quiet. I have very good hearing, and can barely pick up the sound 20 or so feet away. Sound is only one thing you need to keep hidden. Refuel it at night, or when nobody's looking.

Obviously you should not run it in your garage, or near windows/doors. Have you figured out how to get the power into the house? An orange extension cord running across your yard, or through a window, will be a little obvious. I'm about to install an outlet outside and one inside, and will hard-wire the 2 together as a pass-through.

 

I don't know.
Have you ever been outside walking around when the power is out?

Happened here after a storm last summer. I am on 2 acres and have one of the smaller lots in my area. It was so dead silent you could hear generators running and certainly the direction they were in.

We have a couple of "quiet" ones for RV's and when they are the only sound they can be heard from a distance.

So I would sure try to make it a quiet as possible, but focus more on how to prevent theft. Securing it.

I was worried about the same thing, mine is a 10hp, 4 stroke single cylinder engine. they are just noisey. You can't quiet them much at all. After hearing all the neighbors gensets running I just chained mine to a tree and let er rip.

 

I got this Generac for mostly your same reasons. While not "whisper" quiet, it's quieter than the equivalent Honda. I was impressed how quiet it actually is. But as stated above, if it's the only thing running in a quiet area, it can be heard. However, I keep it on my patio and the houses around me tend to baffle what little noise it makes so I'm not too worried about the small noise signature.

https://www.costco.com/generac-3000w-running--3500w-peak-electric-start-carb-compliant-inverter-generator.product.100566964.html

 

Baffling works well. Don't wait until you need it to practice/learn.

While I do have a few inverter generators and the gas to run them, my go-to is now solar. Panels are in spots where nobody can see them, no fumes, no worries.

 

Watch Nomadic Fanatic on YouTube. A while back his RV Onan quit and he was showing how quiet the Honda knockoff was in an RV park.

 

You may need more than 2000W for what you listed.
Motors and compressors have a high start up current. Around 40 % or so more than their running wattage. So a 1500 watt itemcould need 2100+ watts of starting current.

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You may need more than 2000W for what you listed.
Motors and compressors have a high start up current. Around 40 % or so more than their running wattage. So a 1500 watt itemcould need 2100+ watts of starting current.

A lot of truth in this. My genset is like 4 or 5KW.

I have to start my refrigerator, or furnace first, then start adding other circuits. Sometimes it takes a couple resets to get them going.

I usually turn the furnace blower on and leave it on so it doesn't have to try and restart later.

 

Test it out before it is actually needed. Dig a hole to put your baffle box in. This directs what sound is left up and not toward the street or the neighbors. Don't completely enclose the generator, leave the top open to the air which the generator needs to run and keep cool.

Line the box with some anechoic foam. Direct the exhaust downward into the dirt or away from the foam so it isn't melted.

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I have an inverter generator, it is incredibly quiet when idling along. But as you put more load on it it begins to rev up. As it revs up it makes more noise. Even fully revved up it is quieter than a non inverter generator.

If the exhaust is pointing at you it is fairly loud even 50 feet away. If the exhaust is pointing away it is quieter and if there is something between you and it it becomes very quiet. However that doesn't mean neighbors wont hear it, it just means it will be fairly quiet. The quieter the neighborhood is the easier it will be to hear.

Often times in the evening when things get quiet and the wind stops blowing I can hear my neighbors gate opening and closing a half mile away and I can hear their their conversations but can't quite make out what they are saying. So at that time I would expect even the quietest generator would be heard by them.

 

When you run a generator at close to its peak output, the noise level increases dramatically along with the wear on the engine and inverter pack. Better to get a larger generator and run it at a much lower output, which also builds in a safety margin for high starting currents.
Instead of leaving the top of the baffle box open, you can use overlapping louvers on top that allow air to circulate but helps decrease noise and prevents water from getting to the generator if it rains or snows. The main reason to buy a small generator is that they are much more portable than large units. I have a little 2KW unit for camping that I can carry around even over rough ground without much effort. My 5.5KW unit with oversized gas tank weighs over 125lbs and originally came with small 12" wheels that I replaced with 20" bicycle wheels.

 

Last loss of power...to an ice storm....my Honda EU2000i....ran for five days straight....and my two neighbors told me they never heard it running......was sitting in back yard on a slatted bench...covered with a rubbermade tub....with soffett vents...for a rain/sleet/snow cover

the Honda would run 11 hours on the one gallon internal tank......gas furnace/frig/big screen/two laptops ..and a few lights....micro wave with the furnace off......added a remote marine fuel tank to refuel at noon each day...without shutting the Honda off

 

I worked in a very dangerous environment where the generators could be hit by flying debris. we had tunnels made from culverts, and buried - earth sheltered generator tubes. point the opening away from others. remarkable sound erduction

 

IIRC you have to have a Sine Wave inverter run a computer or other sensitive electronics so the power doesn't fluctuate going to the device. And thats all I know about generators.

I have thought of getting a genny myself. I was just looking at the ones a Northern tool yesterday. All I want one for is to run the refrigerator for a while then run the freezer for a while. I would put mine in the garage with the door cracked open and would buy or make an extension for the exhaust. Or just put it on my back patio in my fenced in yard and run the cord through the window with towels stuffed around it.

Last winter when the power was out I took all the food and put it in laundry baskets and ice chest and put them on the back patio. They stayed frozen or colder out there than in the fridge. I have a little propane gas heater and a Coleman Camp Stove I ran in the house for heat. I have LED Lamps and lots of batteries. We did just fine. No freeze ups and I never ran out of gas. I plan on buying another propane bottle too. That will give me 4 of them.

 

Correct, you need Pure Sine Wave to run modern electronics on an inverter. Though not pure, it switches the bigger steps into smaller steps on the sinewave, enough for the devices to 'believe' the signal coming in is what they need.

A thought on the noise. If you cannot baffle it, make a louder noise. Lots of folks have battery powered radios, why not just crank it up to hide the noise? Try it now, before you need it, and remember the volume setting.

 

Correct, you need Pure Sine Wave to run modern electronics on an inverter.

I "solarized" my hamshack/shed some years ago. 600 watts with a 1750 watt modified sine inverter. I ran my LCD TV, Blu-ray player, microwave oven, stereo receiver, LED lighting, 5 cu. ft. freezer all with it. The radio is connected directly to the batteries. I recently bought a 2000 watt pure sine inverter to replace it, but can't tell any difference other than the LED lights now flicker. I think the freezer compressor likes pure sine better.

 

I like the buried in the ground scenario, that has my mind spinning.

 

In an emergency scenario such as you posit, I would expect there to be enough loud generators running in the neighborhood that yours would pretty much be unnoticeable. Plan on turning it off at night, this is what most folks around me did after Michael passed thru.


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I doubt it. Yes. These things are very quiet. We have one honkin' big portable that the folks 5 blocks away would hear it. But I also use several at our fire department of the small, quiet inverter type. (several Hondas.) So yes, again... they're very quiet. (Forget the decibel rating; we're just kind of talking opinion here.)

However... even with baffling, etc... as has been said, in the dead of night, within nothing on anywhere around on a cool evening without wind/weather, there's almost always a little bit of 'what is that sound?' One answer here is just to avoid running it at oh-dark-thirty. I'm up sometimes for 3rd shift work. Sound just carries at night. Maybe with a lot of snow or when it's snowing a lot less so. But still. Sound will carry better in the cold, even if - ironically - less so through snow. So sometime between 0100 and 0600 when not a lot is moving, even in the 'burbs... except for EMS and delivery and a few other random third shift work types or dumb ass late night partiers, you hear everything. Go outside sometime between 2 - 4 AM for a few nights and listen. Here's what might strike you... 1) Just how utterly quiet it is, and 2) just how much crap actually is moving around at that hour; from small animals to random vehicle traffic. (One thing I can tell you after decades in volunteer EMS, even in your little candy land suburb, there's some crap going on not far away.)

So you might be able to make it really good and keep it to several hundred feet or a bit more. Mostly. But essentially not detectable? That would be a heck of a challenge and still allow for required ventilation.

 

Here's what might strike you... 1) Just how utterly quiet it is, and 2) just how much crap actually is moving around at that hour; from small animals to random vehicle traffic. (One thing I can tell you after decades in volunteer EMS, even in your little candy land suburb, there's some crap going on not far away.)

It sure is. I live right in town and had problems with people going up and down the sidewalk and letting their dogs crap in my yard. So I install a trail camera. I caught a few of them and after a few kind words they didn't come back. Its surprising how many people jog in the dead of night and how many walk their dogs at 2am.

I got one guy at 3am who was of all things walking his cat on a leash. I kid you not. The camera was mounted on the roof and he spotted the red lights that come on when it takes a photo. So he stood there long enough for me to get several sets of photos. I guess he finally figured out it was a camera and left. And I never saw him again.

 

I have been running Honda Generators for over 50 years. I still have one I bought in the mid 70's and it runs fine. I would choose the Honda 2200 or two Honda 2200's. Make a 3/4" plywood baffle box, and line it with "Sound Down" (Mylar, acoustic foam, lead impregnated sheet, acoustic foam and glued to the plywood). You may need to have a muffler for the exhaust--a few baffles, with fiberglass fiber on the sides open to the exhaust. Make embankments around the generator if possible.

The Honda's cost more--but they last. They are reliable. Always drain the gas from the carburetor, unless you are going to use the generator within a week. Even though the new ones shut off the gas, and allow the engine to run out of fuel, there is some gas left in the carburetor bowl. That will settle and cause issues in time.

 

Fwiw, we've (since..) tried this with one of Our little 2K'ers, and it worked Great.. Generator Silencing

Fwiw..
jd

 

Solar generators are very quiet.

 

especially after dark...during a snow storm....

 

yes they can be made extremely quiet, someone I knew built one into a cargotrailer, added heavy duty ventilation ducts with silencing materials in it. pretty much all you could hear outside the trailer was the fan in the ventilation when standing right next to it AND you could smell the fumes. but move a few meters away and you didn't hear it and definetly didn't smell it

 

There are many ways to tame the sound. Easier on a fixed location as you can baffle and "soak" the sound, and then exhaust the chamber. I've seen a few gov installs where you have to be within a foot to detect them. And usually it's not the sound, but the smell.

 

Thanks for everyone’s input. I really appreciate it.

As far as how many watts I would need, I think I could manage everything I need with a 2000w generator as long as I only ran 1 item at a time. 2000w is almost 17 amps at 120v. Everything I want to power is on it’s own 15 amp breaker. I understand that a breaker may allow more than its rated amperage at startup but I think I’ll be ok. I’ll test whatever I get before the power goes out just to make sure.

This weekend I paid special attention to noises in the neighborhood. While I would probably not run the generator at night, I think night is a good representation of what my neighborhood would sound like in a power outage. It is amazing how quiet things get. Late one morning I heard some neighbors through the woods about 1/4 mile away running some small lawn equipment. I’m not sure myself whether I can make an inverter quiet enough that my neighbors WILL NEVER notice it, but I don’t think it is super critical either. Unfortunately due to my property layout I can’t dig a hole or build a permanent structure for the generator so that somewhat limits my options for sound reduction.

I think I will look for something on sale for Black Friday. If that is a small, quiet inverter, then I will see how quiet I can make it. If I find a slightly larger open frame inverter on sale I’ll pick that up and be happy with the larger wattage and just deal with the louder noise.

Thanks again for everyone’s help, and feel free to post here if you have more relevant info.

 

As far as solar, I don’t think I can afford a solar setup that would be powerful enough to meet my needs. I think I would want to use something like 5,000 to 10,000 watt-hours per day. since This is planned to be used during inclement weather, I would need enough batteries to last at least 1 entire day with little solar input. From what little research I’ve done, a solar setup to meet those needs would be significantly more expensive than $500 for a generator. Remember, I’m looking at the Honda knock-offs, not a genuine Honda. Ultimately I would like to get a solar setup but for now I can only afford the cheaper generator setup.