Choosing a Generator for Dummies

Portable gasoline-powered generator in use

Ahhh, Spring: it's when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love, and everyone else worries about power outages caused by violent storms. Well, almost everyone else: the people who sell home generators are rubbing their hands together like greedy cartoon bankers. Ever priced a generator? you can buy small ones that run on gasoline for a few hundred bucks, but if you want to run the whole house for days at a time – you know, Superstorm Sandy? a Gulf Coast hurricane? – then you'd better be ready to fork over much more than $10K for a natural gas-powered generator. Just be certain you don't go looking for information about how to choose a generator at eHow.com, where today Andrea Stein picks up her fifth DotD award with the woefully unhelpful "Natural Gas Vs. Gasoline Generator."¹ Need we mention that it's... stupid?

Now, to any homeowner with a wee bit of experience, the title of the piece suggests choosing between power sources for emergency backup generators. Andrea, however, apparently didn't know that: the words "emergency" and "backup" appear nowhere in her article! Oddly, Google adsense is smart enough to figure out the reason for the comparison (something you definitely can't say for Stein). Nope, Andrea instead concentrated on "informing" her readers with such scintillating facts as

"Generators can work via gas power, which can take the form of gasoline or natural gas."

Huh? Where did that bull come from? And then there's the illustrative "Natural gas, more costly than gasoline, refers to a gas consisting mainly of the chemical compound methane, which must undergo extensive processing to serve as a fuel source..." Besides making a questionable economic comparison, Andrea apparently forgot that gasoline is a refined hydrocarbon and refining is – you guessed it – "extensive processing"! Andrea then went on to blather a while about pollution: "Natural gas generators are clean burning, they use fuel without venting harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. Gasoline generators produce emissions, or transfers harmful exhaust gases into the air, negatively impacting the environment." The first statement is exaggeration: natural gas generators of course create pollution. The second is... just plain badly written. Stein also lectured readers about "availability," saying

"Natural gas generators require no fuel storage, since the generator connects to commercial or residential utility lines and draws gas as needed. Gasoline generators require the outside purchase of gasoline which must be manually fed into the generator."

We'll buy the sense of the comparison, though we're pretty sure that owners don't usually "manually [feed gasoline] into the generator" -- they pour it into a tank! Oh, and yes, you can buy a natural gas generator that runs on propane; which does in fact require fuel storage. Dumbass. It was already obvious that Stein had no idea what the question was. Here, however, are a few helpful things she could have said:

Gasoline-powered generators come in a wide range of capacities, most of them smaller than the most basic natural gas generator. You can buy a gasoline generator at any large hardware store, take it home, fill the tank with gas, and fire it up. When the power outage is over, you unplug everything and shove the generator back in the storage shed. Most natural gas generators power entire houses, including the HVAC system. Gasoline generators have a few plugs to run a collection of lights, fans, the refrigerator and other essential circuits (e.g., the wireless modem). A natural gas generator is a permanent installation, outdoors, that requires wiring to the breaker panel and connection to its fuel source.  A natural gas generator installation is on-demand, automatically engaging when there is a power outage. It requires a safety power transfer switch to prevent electrical accidents (at additional cost). Gasoline generators cost a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars. You are unlikely to find a natural gas generator installation for under $10K.

That's what Andrea Stein should have been talking about, not vague bull about pollution and fuel sources, She didn't have a clue, however, which is the same reason she won the Dumbass of the Day award the previous four times!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. The URL was   ehow.com/facts_7862894_natural-gas-vs-gasoline-generator.html

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