Westinghouse iGen1250 Inverter Generator 1250w

One thousand watts continuous is the number to plan against. That's your lights, phone and laptop chargers, a camping fridge, a fan and a TV, comfortably and all at once. What it will not do is a kettle, a toaster, a heat gun or any power tool with a real motor in it, because either the continuous draw or the startup surge is past it. If your list has any of those, step yourself up to the iGen2250. If it doesn't, this is your lightest and cheapest way to proper clean power.

Westinghouse publish 9.1 hours at quarter load and 3.8 hours at full. Quarter load is roughly 250W, which is your fridge, your lights and chargers, and that covers a night. Full load is 1,000W and off a 3 litre tank that's under four hours. Most people at this size sit near the quarter-load end, so 9 hours is your realistic figure. Just know your tank is small, so if you run it hard you'll be refuelling the same day.

This is the lightest real generator Westinghouse make, and weight is why you'd choose it over anything bigger for yourself. At 12.5kg dry you pick it up with one hand and put it in your boot with the camp chairs. Anything from 2 kVA up becomes a deliberate two-hand lift. If your generator is going in and out of the car every trip, that's the difference between it getting used and it living in the shed. Packed it's 431 x 274 x 409mm, so it takes about as much of your boot as a milk crate.

Total harmonic distortion measures how clean the waveform is. Mains sits under 5%, most inverter generators claim under 3%, and this is rated under 2.5%. Because a machine this size mostly runs your electronics rather than tools, that's exactly where it counts: your laptop, a CPAP machine, camera gear or a battery charger all run off it the same as they would at home. Cheap 1kW generators without a proper inverter cannot say that.

One 15 amp outlet and a 12V DC accessory socket, both IP44 rated against dust and splashes. The Data Center shows your output voltage and frequency, current run time and cumulative hours, and that last figure is what you use to track servicing. You also get an ECO throttle switch, an overload indicator with a push-button reset, a low oil alarm and a frame earthing terminal. The panel lights are LED and work while it's running, which sounds trivial until you're setting up after dark. Try the Generator Finder if you're weighing sizes.