I have a Sportsman 7000LP that I bought from Home Depot for $599. I picked up a 100 lb. cylinder from Lowes for $79, had it flushed and filled, and plug in a couple space heaters for the quarterly maint. run. Docs say it will run 8 hours on a 20 lb. tank at half load. I keep the battery on a good quality tender. Key start is a snap, and there are no fuel storage problems. I have about 80 lbs. of other propane tanks around. It's very quiet and convenient, and big enough to run the well pump and water heater at the same time. The longest power outage we have had here was 5 days about 15 years ago, so I'm good for fuel. The propane will still be good 15 years from now. It is very quiet running. That's the up side.
The down side is that it uses brushes, so the power has a lot of high frequency noise, and the brushes will wear out. I ordered a spare set of brushes, in case I have to change them. At current usage rates I might be 90 years old and unable to remember where I stored them when they need replacing. Oh well. I wired a .02 MFD cap across each of the transfer switch lugs to ground, which should soak up a lot of the RF noise.
Regional data: Summer outages are unheard of. No tropical storms here, and if I need a fire pump I have a 5 hp Honda plumbed to a 2500 gallon cistern, which also provides low head domestic water in a power outage. We have wood heat, and the comfort level of the house doesn't change during winter outages. We just cook on the wood stove. If I was on the Gulf, a genset that would run the AC would be a must.
