Why Dual Fuel Generators are a Game-Changer for Van Life!

if you want to avoid that story of your own that's a dark and stormy night and you were woken up out of bed and you jumped up and said what is that noise and then you realized it was your inverter telling you that you you're out of power you're out of power if you'd like to avoid that this is a good way to do that so hi everyone welcome back to my next video well today as you can see we're going to do a product review and this is a generator obviously it's a Champion generator but uh what's unusual about this is in my entire time of making videos I have never reviewed a single generator in fact I have just told people don't get generators uh there are times when you should get a generator but they're few and far between so here I just bought myself I bought this myself no one sent it to me uh a generator and so there's a little story behind that let me tell you the little story behind that it was a dark and stormy night does it every good story start with that every good Masterpiece of writing it was a dark and stormy night and in the middle of the night there was this loud piercing noise in Our Hero's ambulance and our hero is Disturbed to the depth of his being and he said what is this oh what is this and he recognized it as the sound of his inverter going crazy because the power was low and he thought oh no oh no I'm running out of power I bought a huge system so I'll never run out of power but I've run out of power then he thought about it how could I run out of power well first before he thought about that he ran around and turned off the inverter so it stopped screeching because he couldn't think with that thing on but it was still a dark and stormy night and uh I thought about it for a while our wonderful hero he's being so wise and good looking too uh our hero thought well we've had a storm going for a long time and I guess I'm not getting enough power and I'm put I'm using the most power that I have ever used and so uh oh my big system isn't big enough and I I ran out of power that's that's enough of the little uh storytelling I guess that get got your hearts racing I'm sure um so it had been raining and cloudy for a week and I just wasn't getting any sun in and I in retrospect I have two smaller battery bank I have a lot of solar but way too small a battery bank and so the batteries kept every night they would go down a little more and then not get full because it was raining and in the rain you virtually get no no power at all and so I realized that my system didn't work for the amount of power use I had and it was winter time as well so it was December and in December the sun's really low on the horizon you're not getting much power those days are very short and so it just doesn't work well in in the winter I have a lot of solar I have 720 Watts on my roof but in the in December in the rain those might as well be 720 rocks on the roof because they weren't bringing any power through the rain and so I realized that I had not sighed done my followed my own advice and sized my system for the worst possible times and I had increased my power usage by quite a lot I'd added the starlink and I'm now really aware that if you try to run Starlight 24 hours a day you're going to run out of power unless you've got a very big good system and it's not stormy for a week at a time and uh I was running not just my fridge but a full freezer so I had two of them they were both running and so here are the inverter runs out in the middle of the night and uh I've got a freezer full of food that I'm going to lose and I got a freeze a fridge full of food I'm going to lose and I don't have any uh Power now I don't have any Internet now it was very very very inconvenient so I thought have I been wrong all along about generators if I had a generator right now I could just pull that baby out and I'd be in business and I guess this is my answer I decided yeah baby I've been wrong maybe there are times and places when a generator is really a very good solution so today's video is the beginning of a long-term review of the champion 2000 watt dual fuel generator I'm going to run it I'm going to be using it I thought well you know I've been wanting to test AC units long term and that's really going to make a big difference but really quickly let me tell you the advantages to a generator that may make you think a generator could be a good part of my life the first great advantage to a generator is storms you get a week two weeks three weeks of rain just start your generator and run it then the second reason is shade if all my solar is on my roof if I want Power I've got a park in the Sun and that makes my rig hot another really great reason is they are really cheaper per watt of power much cheaper so this is a 2000 watt generator but uh it's only putting out about 1700 lots of power but it was uh 500 this cost me 500 dual fuel so it's a little more you could pretty routinely buy a 2000 watt inverter generator which is what this is uh for 400 or just a little bit left so that's two uh 400 between four and five hundred dollars for 1500 watts of power well 1500 watts of solar is fifteen hundred dollars you can figure a dollar a watt and if you're lucky you can get it for a little less so it is much cheaper power than than solar installation if you want to put in a real solar system you gotta install it what if you don't know how to install it you're you can't you don't have the tools you don't have the skills you're afraid to get up on the roof you don't have enough room on your roof so uh in that way you just buy this put the oil in it starter up you run it installation it couldn't be any simpler on a generator and that is a huge thing if you have to pay someone to install your solar power system then you've not only invested double or triple the amount of money for the generator versus solar you're paying a thousand two thousand dollars to have someone install it on your rig another great thing I about I love about the generator is you can run an AC if you're someplace where it's hot you get one of these you run an AC easy as pie you can run a microwave I run a microwave off my Solar without any problem when I ran out of power that dark and stormy night I didn't run my microwave I didn't use it for the whole week boy there's a lot of great reasons to think about one a generator so why now let's talk about this generator why did I choose the champion champion was kind of the original Honda clone Honda's the big name but they're very expensive Hot super high quality super durable they are going to last you forever for the long as I've been making YouTube videos I've told you to buy a Honda they're a thousand bucks they're just simply going to cost you a thousand bucks or more they're more like 1400 now this is 400 to 500. they get fantastic reviews on Amazon I think Champion was uh when I decided I was going to buy a generator I wanted the champion now the next thing that stands out about the uh this inverter generator inverter generator means it's quiet that's the main thing and so these are very quiet generators they're just as quiet as the Honda the Honda doesn't have any advantages over these clones and basically that's what they are they found a Honda and they reproduced it the only advantages it has is that the durability Honda quality is just going to be superior to this one of the biggest reasons why I do not like it uh generators is you've got to carry gas that means carrying gas in a gas can that means spills that means smells that means it seeps out I I hate carrying gas in a gas can gas is very volatile it's extremely flammable uh extremely ready to ignite and burn you to death and it's dirty it's a dirty fuel and by that I mean if it's in your tank for very long it's going to come up it's just such a pain carrying gasoline that alone has kept me from buying a generator and still would today but these dual fuels eliminate that problems dual fuel mean you can just plug it right into propane uh you know it this comes with this is dual fuel so it comes with the regulator to go into your propane tank s or you can just unplug it switch it over it's got a simple switch over to gas pour gas in it run right off your gas I'm carrying propane no matter what uh and so if I'm carrying propane adding the generator is not a sacrifice it's not going to come up like that it's not going to go bad in two three four five months uh it's not going to get full of water and not run I'm not going to buy bad propane I've never heard of such a thing buying bad propane so the propane the Dual fuels really being practical has convinced me that I wanted the champion because they've made been making dual fuels for a really long time they're really really good at them let me just say right away there are some real negatives to propane I can't tell you the goods without the bads it's got to carry it around it's 40 pounds you've got to fit the thing in there you've got to start it every time unless you buy electric and then you're a lot more money in a much bigger unit you're going to change the oil every 10 20 30 hours that's a pain in the butt some point it's going to have to go into the shop to be repaired that's a pain in the butt so it's not all peaches and cream there are definite reasons not to those have been overwhelming and the the problem with the fuel on top of all that I didn't I wouldn't buy one so let's look at this Champion inverter generator at the beginning of a long-term review I cut the bottom off so I could get it out of there real easily this is brand new never um never seen the light of day before boy that's a nice piece of packaging it packages really well and again Champion has been around since 2003. so if the unit is shipped completely dry there's no oil in it there's no gas in it you wouldn't want either one and it obviously uh so it comes with its own uh half a liter bottle of oil and so you just pour it in and it's pour in the gas or hook it up to propane and it's ready to start the first time so so if you know propane bottles at all this just plugs right into your uh propane bottle this goes right on to your the generator I hope bright yellow is one of your colors actually I kind of liked it being bright yellow I didn't mind uh and so there it is and then attached on this side is the manual so two more things I found in the um in packaging was a funnel and I'm almost certain I'll that this goes into the oil because the oil is then set a little bit so you just pour the oil down there it's a spout for the oil so it also comes with this uh standard USB dongle that plugs into a cigarette lighter uh plug your gas goes in here so here is your uh the side panel which gives you pretty darn good access to nearly everything you want this just pops off this is a little better than the Honda the Honda doesn't pop one off on and off nearly that well uh here's your oil fill your car you know basically your engine your uh this must be the air filter so here you have a 20 amp fuse if you ever blow a fuse that's easily replaced here you have the Echo and full power so if you want to run on Echo mode so it defaults down to um to idling another fuse I'm not exactly sure why there are two fuses but there are so this is off you turn it off here this is a propane you can see that that's a little propane tank and on this side is the little gasoline looks like a gasoline pump and then over here is the choke that's kind of a universal sign for a choke here is the 12 volt outlet and it comes with a handy little USB so now that's how you're going to get your USB ports they're not built in this is the inlet for the propane and here are the two uh to do a link says paralink here uh you'll get a box with two cords um one to go to this generator one to go to the other generator and they are mix and match you can connect the 2500 and the 2000 together here you have your standard 110 Outlets so there you have uh your power so this uh goes into this hole right there just snaps in and then to get it off you just kind of you have to pull down these these ball bearings catch this you just push it down and it pops off very simple system and that's it that's about all the controls you got one thing to be well aware of is that propane is not as volatile it has less BTUs British thermal units per unit of propane versus gasoline so you get less power out of propane than you do out of gasoline that's one of the reasons why it's so much safer is because it doesn't want to explode on you and it just doesn't have all the problems but that's a huge disadvantage in that it puts it produces less power so you take the same engine and you run it on gasoline you get your power level and then if you put it over on propane that power level is going to drop you're not going to get nearly as much so this is a 2000 watt generator but that means it's 2000 watt at Peak it can't run 2 000 Watts continuously now here on the side it lists uh the different amounts of power it produces uh steady state it will constantly run gas and propane let me show you that okay so when it's on gasoline it produces 1700 Watts as a steady amount you can take 1700 Watts out of there you see that's this number and this number is propane and it drops down to 1530 because propane produces less power so that is a disadvantage and you when you buy one of these any dual fuel you have to know what the lower number is and make sure that's enough 1500 watts is plenty for me that's going to run anything I could possibly want to run but it may not be for you and that's also why they've jumped the newer ones this is still available it's not old there's just newer ones up to 2500 so that you're getting a full amount that you're kind of expecting out of this size of a generator but just be aware that about 1500 watts is all you're going to get out of propane and 1700 Watts it's all you're going to get out of gasoline as a steady state so as long as your item will run on 1500 watts or less you're good good to go so if you want to avoid that story of your own it's a dark and stormy night and you were woken up out of bed and you jumped up and said what is that noise and then you realized it was your inverter telling you that you you're out of power you're out of power if you'd like to avoid that this is a good way to do that okay I hope you got something out of this video if you did like us on YouTube subscribe to that channel hit that Thumbs Up Button why not beat that thing and we'll talk to you later bye now

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 106,290

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: yo7-EICTsIo

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023