Inverters

Hi Everyone..  Finally getting settled and and our stuff arrived, YEAH!!!  We are now in the market for an Inverter for our home.  We want one that will run a 200 Watt TV, our fridge (lets say 696), wifi modem, cable box, lights, fan, coffee maker, microwave and possibly the computer.  We have absolutely no knowledge about this and have gotten tons of conflicting advice locally so I am reaching out to you all.

Can you recommend a brand name and size to get as well as how many batteries will we need?  I think it is a Deep Cycle battery, correct?

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Wow,  you want a LOT.  MOst of us do not put fridge, microwave or things like a toaster or your water pump on an inverter.  They use way too much power.  A refrigerator is fine for like 12 hours depending on how old it is.  A microwave you can do without........etc.  Water pump - uses too much power, use the water from your tinaco.

I have an inverter and 2 batters but its just me. It will keep my light, fan, internet, computer, tv and cable box going almost  10 hours. 

So, you might want to rethink this.  The more batteries you need the bigger the inverter the higher the cost.

I thought perhaps it would be best to over-think it since we have been plagued with daily outages for hours on end and for the past week or so we have lost power in the evenings around 8 for a few hours.  When we have guests from the U.S. I thought it might be better to have than not too since I was not sure how they would handle the lack of power.  My main concern is the fridge (because we have had allot of spoilage due to the outages), 2 fans, the light in at least 1 or 2 rooms, computer, wifi and possibly the tv/cable box.  I am not too worried about the water as we have tons of bottled water on hand.

I live off the grid on my farm. I use propane refrigeration because the demand for power  is almost constant. New electric fridges draw less than 2 amps. So you might want to buy one.
The best advice I can give you for your inverter is that it should use half if it's potential. So if it's a 4K only hook up 2K of demand. Also make sure your have a way to switch the charging output so you can equalize your batteries. Which you'll want to do once a month and every time you add water to your batteries. You'll also want to use at least a 24 volt model for household power. 12 volt is good for a boat but you get a better bang for your buck with 24 volt. For batteries I use Trojan golf cart batteries, the maroon case, and my batteries last for 6 years. They're 6 volt batteries so you hook them up in series and 4 batteries will equal 1 24 volt battery. Depending on your amp hour needs you'll need at least 4 batteries, maybe 8.
There's lots if opinions about all this. I'm just letting you know what works for me. I use wind and solar to make most of my power. I use a small gas generated to power my farms water pump and my bigger shop tools. If you have a tinako (water tank) on your roof, you can gravity feed your plumbing a negate the need of using your water pump when you don't have power.
I hope this helps

Yes it does, thank you so much!  All of these things are new to us since we have only been here for 2 months.  We purchased all new appliances so what you mentioned below is great to know.  I also realize I need to be realistic about some things however I do want the option to run everything if we want to.

Thank you again!

It's true, a lot  of people only run the bare minimum. But there's no reason you can't run whatever makes you comfortable. You can do anything, it'll just come down to initial cost then maintenance.
Good luck!

Can't help much here as we use a generator for backup.  Which means we never worry about what we are running or for how long we can run things. Some friends have had blackouts were the inverter runs out as well and they then have NOTHING.

Bob K