I was going through craigs list, and saw a Yanmar YDG 5500 diesel generator, for sale for $ 550, wow looked them up and the cheapist I found was $3900, great. I called the guy up and he said he bought it for camping, but it was too big. I went over today, with my older Honda EU1000 (barely used) and of course the $550, I asked him if he ever got a smaller gen set he said no so I showed him the Honda, I walked away with the Yanmar diesel generator for $50 plus my old Honda that I wanted to get rid of anyway (I've got a Honda 2000), the thing runs perfectly, a little loud, but high speed diesels are. So now all I need is a transfer switch and the next black out I will just power up my house. With the 55 gallons of diesel in my truck and the 20 gallons in my Jeep I could run this thing for everyday for like 6 months, and let it rest at night.
