Anyone use your truck to power an Inverter for house during an outage?

rav3 · November 24, 2024

Having recently experienced a week long power outage here in WNC from Helene, I have decided to use a 12V inverter to power our gas furnace & run our refrigerator during any future outages. Has anyone setup there Silverado (or any other model) to power an inverter? It appears fairly straight forward from what iver seen on line. Pros/cons?

I have a 17 silverado w/5.3 and currently equipped with an AGM battery & standard 150 AMP alternator. I plan to hook it up to the battery power tray where I have an empty 125A terminal so that it is fused. I bought a 1500 watt Pure Sine wave & will run a 14 gauge extension core to the furnace & refrigerator from the inverter.

On a side note, I was able to use the 120v dash outlet on the truck with extension cord to run our flat screen TV during the outage and the truck running to keep the battery charged. I didn't experience any issue while doing that.

I'm just trying to have a simple backup plan to keep heat & refrigerator running in the future.

Any suggestions appreciated.

64BAwagon · November 24, 2024

I doubt the alternator would be enough to supply the needs you outlined. There is a loss when going from DC to AC and the cable costs for wiring and a large enough inverter puts you into the range of a generator costs.

mikeyk101 · November 25, 2024

My suggestion is to just pick up a portable generator from Harbor Freight and it would probably be more useful. I picked up a Predator 3500 inverter generator a few years back and have had to use it a couple times for last couple winters. I plug in not only my furnace, but my refrigerator, my freezer, and a couple lights. What I did on my furnace was cut off the male connector and lead from an old extension cord and then wired it into furnace wiring. I wired it after the emergency shutoff switch. I just flip the emergency cutoff switch to off and this makes sure it is disconnected from the house wiring. When power comes back on, I disconnect the generator extension cord and then flip the emergency shutoff switch back on. When not in use, I locked up a bare 3 prong connector and put that on the end.

To get the power in to the house, I have a 50ft heavy gauge extension cord that has a triple tap on the end. I run that through a window, close the window as far as I can and use a towel to cover the rest of the gap. I make sure to set the generator plenty far from the house so no fumes enter. It has been a lifesaver for me.

I also have some woodland property that I bring my toy hauler to. There are no utilities there so the generator is a must. I have power to everything including my AC in warmer weather.

Edited November 25, 2024 by mikeyk101

mikeyk101 · November 25, 2024

Just wanted to add, I had upgraded the 12v battery on my Toy hauler from a Group 24 wet cell to a Group 31 AGM. The new one is 110ah deep cycle. The fridge in toy hauler is a 12v and can run off the battery. I have occasionally stopped overnight in parking lots like Walmart, etc... In these cases, using a generator is usually frowned on.

I always unplug truck from toy hauler. I can run the fridge and maybe a few lights and still have some power in battery when I pull out the next morning. Unfortunately I cannot run the AC when doing this. I do believe if I had to run the furnace overnight, I'm not sure the battery would have enough power to last the entire night.

And when I use the generator on my woodland property, 5 gallons of gas was about right to get me from Fri afternoon until I left Sun afternoon

But the point I'm trying to make is that if I had to rely on battery power from my truck only, I might get 1 nights worth out of it and also have to sacrifice while doing so. And even with starting up the truck to let it idle, it's still going to take gas to run and keep a charge on the battery. You would also be limited on what you would be able to run. Might as well just grab a inverter generator and be able to be comfortable. Some inverter generators will also run in propane as well as gas which gives options. Mine is gas only. And inverter generators are also quieter than standard generators so they are easy to be around.

rav3 · November 25, 2024

This is what I'm wanting to do rather than buying a generator.

Edited November 25, 2024 by rav3

kickass audio · November 25, 2024

I wouldn't recommend using a inverter for long outages like you experienced. As others have mentioned converting DC to AC causes power loss and running your truck at idle to try and run the inverter and not kill the battery on your truck would likely cost you more money in fuel let alone wear and tear on your truck for excessive idling.

Plus the other problem is at idle your alternator isn't working that much to output it's capability of amperage so you will be drawing more than the alternator can keep up and can run the battery down.

For me in the north east I have 2 generators. I have a portable 6200 watt generator (it's heavy as hell so it's not portable unless you have another person to help you get it in and out of the bed or use ramps) and converted it to bolt on a converter that lets me hook up to the natural gas feed on my house to fuel the generator so I don't need to worry about running out of gasoline or having the gas spoil from lack of use. My other generator is a 7000 watt and it's a standby generator I picked up for free that runs off natural gas but i do have a carburetor from a old lawn tractor since it's the same engine that lets me run off gasoline if I so wanted to.

My truck has a 370 amp alternator on it now and a upgraded AGM battery but I still wouldn't run the inverter for a long time and the engine guzzles gas so bad at idle that it would cost me more than natural gas on my generator for less power output for my fridge, furnace, etc.

Also the inverter is a tiny bit undersized for running a fridge. Your furnace if it's high efficiency won't be that bad for electric consumption but that fridge will draw a ton when it first kicks on and will still be about 3/4 of your capacity for the inverter and it will run very hot with that big of a load on it.

If I were in your shoes, this is what I would do.

1.) If you don't lose natural gas or if you have a large supply of propane in your house; get a generator that either comes from the factory with the ability to run off natural gas/propane or get a generator that you can bolt on before the carburetor on your generator (lookup century fuel products conversion kits).

If you're handy you can handle bolting the conversion kit on and at the worst might need to cut and modify the brace for the generator set to accommodate for the extra length on the intake train of the engine. You can also wire up a hookup outside your house to plug the generator in with a single wire and install a generator interlock on your panel so you can backfeed the entire house (with limiting your current consumption of course) and not kill a lineman working in the field.

2.) If you just want periodic protection you can use the inverter but be prepared to waste a ton of gas in your tank and risk running low on fuel in the event you need to evacuate yourselves. Also make sure you keep an eye on the temperature of the alternator since it doesn't have that much airflow at idle to cool itself down from heavy loads and watch your voltage to make sure you're not overdrawing the alternators output. The big downside to the truck is your alternator and the smart charging system, you would want to press the tow/haul button to force the trucks charging to maintain 14V of power.

3.) You can explore battery backups but they cost at least double or triple the cost of a generator of the same size but you can recharge them and move them around the house if you wanted to and you can get a solar panel to help recharge the batteries when you're giving it a break.