The best portable generators for home backup
Generators judged on the one number that decides the job: the watts on tap for the second a fridge and a chest freezer both restart at once. Not battery capacity, and not the running total.
Buy the Westinghouse WGen9500DF. It clears this plan's worst-case starting surge on gasoline with room to spare, it has a 240-volt locking outlet for a transfer switch, and it is the only generator that clears this plan that we found on Amazon as the bare unit. Several Champion and FIRMAN inverters also clear the surge, but none is sold on Amazon as the bare unit today, so we do not rank them; the roster below still lists every one with its figures.
The Amazon links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which units are picked. How that works.
| Model | Running | Peak | Margin over worst-case surge | Weight | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our pick |  Westinghouse WGen9500DF | 9,500 W | 12,500 W | +8,980 W | 211 lb | $999 at Amazon |
Who this is for
You want a fridge, a chest freezer, the Wi-Fi and a few lights to outlast an outage measured in days, and you would rather store fuel and pull a cord outside in the rain than watch a battery empty. You need somewhere outdoors, well away from windows and doors, for the machine to sit and stay.
How much generator you need
A generator is not sized the way a battery is. A battery has to hold the whole day's energy, so you shop for watt-hours. A generator makes power for as long as you feed it, so you shop for watts instead, and above all for the watts it can deliver in the second or two when a compressor restarts. This plan takes 210 to 1,320 watts to keep running, which is the easy part. The number that decides it is 710 to 3,520 watts of starting surge.
Adjust this plan to your house. Change the hours or the loads and the picks are re-scored here, with the same planner and the same maker figures.
Where the energy goes, load by load
| Load | Hours | Running watts | Duty cycle | Energy | Share of worst case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refrigerator/freezer | 24 | 100–700 | 20–50% | 480–8,400 Wh | 55% |
| Chest freezer | 24 | 80–500 | 15–45% | 288–5,400 Wh | 35% |
| Wi-Fi router and modem | 24 | 15–40 | 100% | 360–960 Wh | 6% |
| A few LED lights | 8 | 15–80 | 25–75% | 30–480 Wh | 3% |
Energy = running watts × duty cycle × hours, at each end of the range. The right-hand end of every row is what the plan is sized on.
A refrigerator, a chest freezer, Wi-Fi and lights for 24 hours, run against all 73 units we track: 46 clear at least the best case, 23 do not, and 4 could not be judged (a missing maker figure or an unresolved recall identity). Every figure is from the maker’s own page or manual; nothing here was tested by us. The method.
Our pickWestinghouse WGen9500DF
The one we can price
$999 at Amazon, October 3, 20269,500 W continuous12,500 W peak211 lbgasoline, propane
Westinghouse WGen9500DF clears this plan's worst-case starting surge with the most output of any generator we track that is sold on Amazon as the bare unit, gasoline or propane, with 120- and 240-volt outlets including the twist-lock a transfer switch uses. It is heavy and loud, and Westinghouse lists no CO shutoff on it.
Our rule: the lowest Amazon price among the generators that clear this plan's running and starting watts.
Price as of October 3, 2026; the listing we verified as the bare unit.
A refrigerator, a chest freezer, Wi-Fi and lights for 24 hours:
- Running loadyes, even in the worst case
- Starting surgeyes, even in the worst case
What you give up: Weight, noise and carbon monoxide.
Owner reports and tester figures are on the model page.
Figures from westinghouse.com, captured August 11, 2026; recall screen: no published recall names this exact model (screened 2026-10-01), but a similarly named product was recalled; the dossier names it (how we screen, CPSC).
Past the first tank
A generator has no fixed runtime; it runs as long as you keep feeding it, so day two is a fuel question rather than a capacity question. Each maker quotes runtime on a full tank at a quarter of rated load, the figure on each card, and this plan sits near that mark. Count the refuels that implies across a 24-hour outage, and follow this page's safety notice every time you fill: cool engine, outdoors, fuel kept clear of the machine.
Hooking it up safely
Four rules that are not optional
Outdoors only, at least 20 feet from the house, exhaust pointed away. Never in a garage, even with the door open. Fit battery-powered CO alarms indoors; a CO shutoff on the generator is not a substitute.
Never plug it into a wall outlet. That backfeeds the utility line and can kill the worker restoring your power. Wired loads need a transfer switch or inlet installed by a licensed electrician: which transfer switch fits your generator.
Keep it dry. Running it wet is an electrocution hazard; the makers sell covers for a running generator.
Fuel: never refuel a running or hot engine, and store fuel outside living space in containers made for it. The full safety boundaries.
Buying it right
A search for these models returns bundles, sibling models and the same unit under two prices. We link only a listing whose own title states the bare unit with its exact battery and output. Match the model number on the label to this page. How we check a listing.
- Westinghouse WGen9500DF: we link the bare unit, checked October 3, 2026. We turned down 9 other listings (bundles, sibling models, repeats); see which and why.
What this page can’t promise
Nothing here was tested by us. The figures are the makers' own, read off their pages and manuals and cited under each pick; what owners report comes from public forum threads and review sites, labelled as such. Some of those threads were readable only through search snippets, and where a maker's page and its manual disagree we say so.
We rank only generators we can price. For several that clear this plan we found parts and lookalike models rather than the bare unit, so they stay in the roster without a price. That is a hole in our data, not a verdict on the machines.
The competition
Every unit we track, run against the same plan.
Every unit on Amazon that clears at least the best case (2)
| Model | Running | Peak | Fuel | Amazon price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westinghouse WGen9500DF | 9,500W | 12,500W | gasoline, propane | $999 | Clears it |
 Honda EU3000iS Inverter Generator | 2,800W | 3,000W | gasoline | $2,399 | Best case only |
7 more clear it but have no verified bare-unit Amazon listing; the planner lists them.
What will not work, and why (23)
- 19 hold too little energy for the plan
- 3 cannot start the biggest motor
- 1 cannot carry the running load
Every one, with the figure that fails, is in the planner when you enter this plan.
Questions people ask
How many watts do I need to run a fridge and a chest freezer in an outage?
This plan takes 210 to 1,320 running watts, but the number that decides whether a generator copes is 710 to 3,520 starting watts, for the moment a compressor restarts. Our pick is rated past the top of that starting range. Size to the running total alone and the machine can stall the first time the fridge and the freezer restart together.
How long will a portable generator run my fridge, freezer, Wi-Fi and lights?
As long as you keep refuelling it. Unlike a battery it has no fixed runtime, so the useful figure is the maker's quoted hours on a full tank at a quarter of rated load, shown on each card. Work out from that how many refuels a 24-hour outage costs you, and follow the refuelling rules in this page's safety notice every single time.
Why only one pick?
Because a pick must be something you can buy. Of the generators that clear this plan's surge, only the Westinghouse WGen9500DF is sold on Amazon as the bare unit today; for the others we found parts and lookalike models. The roster lists all of them with their figures.
Other plans we sized
- Home backup
- Camping and road trips
- CPAP
- Refrigerator
- Sump pump
- Furnace
- Well pump
- Power station or generator: which do you actually need?
- How to connect a power station to your house
- Solar panels for a power station: how many, and how long
- Expansion batteries: what an extra battery for a power station actually does
Westinghouse WGen9500DFOur pick
$999 at Amazon