Anyone who has gone through a category 2 hurricane and a prolonged electricity power outage during or after it will remember the sound of emergency generators working through the night. They sound like cars revving up for a drag strip. That’s just fine, as the noise from generators is often the last thing on your mind when you have loads of house repair to do after the hurricane.
But there are situations you’d be glad to have a silent or near silent generator, short of asking your neighbor to turn it off when you’re about to sleep, like when entertaining outdoors. Or when you have your kid’s friends do a camp-out sleep-over out in your backyard directly below your bedroom and across the neighbor. They decide to enjoy some electric conveniences on the side, like a computer or TV. Maybe you have a baby who can’t sleep through all that noise. Or can’t concentrate on doing some computer work while on standby power. It is times like these that a quiet suitcase generator would be most welcome.
Quiet doesn’t mean silent
There are a lot of inverter-type suitcase generators out there that proudly claim to be silent, well not, really silent. Any kind of piston motor will always have a signature sound and a 4-stoke one often has. Almost all of them are the suitcase portable types whose plastic molded body casing helps to sound proof the inherent noise in their engines.
A more reliable way to gauge how quiet a generator is would be to get its decibel rating. Most suitcase generators claim 8-10 decibels quieter than a conventional generator. One needs to have that figure in perspective. A quiet library is about 30db quiet. A typical room in our homes is around 40db. The kitchen, with the refrigerator on is a bit noisier at around 45 db. A normal conversation 3 feet away will get you to from 50 to 55db. So with all that, it would really be comforting to know there are suitcase generators that can go to just 55db to 60db, when a typical regular generator can be 70 db noisy. So the claims seem realistic enough.
Is noise a criterion for choosing your generator?
Only when you have specific situations in mind, like the one above. Otherwise, while a quiet generator would be great, at the end of the day, it will be your power needs that will decide for you.
On the other hand, if your power needs fall within the power envelops offered by various suitcase generators out there, and most likely they do, you’re in luck. Noise is rarely an issue with them. Their construction makes it so. Typically in the 1000 to 4000 watts, these suitcase generators can be the best options for the common household. At 4000 watts, you can power up the lights in your house, a TV, ref and your computers. At a lower wattage, you will need some power management for a drawback. That means doing a juggling act. At 1000 watts, you can still enjoy your TV and your computer, but you may not be able to power up some appliances simultaneously. Power tools, air conditioners and water pumps won’t be support. But not to worry, a power outage can often just tax your power management skills for just a few minutes, an hour or two at the most.