Good idea, but you need to carefully analyze your needs before buying equipment.
A run-of-the-mill middle-aged car battery is only good for maybe 4-500 watt
hours. A brand new group 27 marine (deep cycle) battery might make 1000 watt
hours. It depends on the size of your furnace, but a typical blower draws
around 250 watts, and 12v inverters are notoriously inefficient. So, unless you
use multiple batteries (and marine batteries get expensive), you'll likely only
get a few hours runtime. Don't forget to size your inverter for the startup
current of your blower.
Randall
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Susan and Mark Miller
>
> If what you want is for your gas heater to work without AC power or a fussy
> generator you might consider getting a power inverter. You only need
> a few amps
> and can get one that will run off of a car battery or two (better
> though if you
> get a real deep cycle battery) for a fairly long time. Then recharge the
> batteries in/on a car or wait till the AC returns. Good enough to
> run the heater
> intermittently for your two days every couple of years. (but you
> have to keep the
> batteries on a trickle charge or they'll be dead the only times you
> want them).
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