​Powerhouse PH1000i Review

Honestly, inverter generators aren’t supposed to be fraught with any complications. In fact, my advice is to get an inverter generator if all you want is a basic backup or campsite power. The Powerhouse PH1000i, in my opinion, is a little underpowered but that is fine as long as you aren’t looking at it as a primary backup generator. I got mine about 5 days back and have mainly kept it for backup to my backup generator. Nevertheless, I did run it for a couple of hours the first day just to see how well it operates.

My choice of device to test it with was a battery bank I keep for my home inverter. First off, the packaging was decent although not great and everything seemed to be perfectly in place. I got the tank filled, added the required oil (10W-40 synthetic) and took it outside to start it. It started fluently on the second pull and ran for about 5 minutes before the low oil light sprung to life and the engine shut down. Tried it a couple of times and the same thing kept happening. This was a dampener but after a bit of tinkering I found the oil shut down float was stuck from all the bouncing. I had read this in another review on Amazon and instantly knew what to do. Ever since then the generator has been idling well. The moment I connected the battery bank, the engine began revving up and probably ran at about 80 percent load. It went on until the gas tank was dry and I got over 4 hours of work time from it, which is actually decent with regards to inverter generators. Haven’t yet pushed it to 100 percent capacity but knowing that there is an auto-reset button for overload situations is a good thing.

My only complaint is that it is loud for such a tiny generator. Not at all silent like a Honda inverter generator but at least it is efficient and powerful, although endowed with a tiny engine. Considering its fractional cost in comparison with a Honda, I think this is a good investment for folks with a tight budget.