SBRaider is right, if you have natural gas piped in, you have the best of both worlds. I would still get around 5000 watts or higher to take out the washer, dryer and oven if needed, if I was to go to a less wattage then go with a Yamaha generator. There great 2000 watt ones and a 1 gallon tank but with the freezers and the washer and dryer it is probably not enough. I have an old AW Sperry amp meter that can measure amps AC/DC up to 2000 amps that I use to see where my loads are coming in at. Do you have access to any amp meters that you can use to check your current draw? Power=Voltage X Amps. I think a 5000 watts may be what your after but I don't know all your load data. The 5000 watt ones have a 5 gallon tank and run 12-15 hours on a tank and it is a great generator from Brigs and Straton. We loved ours but after the DW complained about not having AC after a week without power and cold showers, it was worth it to shut her up to spend the money on one that would run the whole house.

We all talk about surviving bit when you have a wife going through flashes and taking cold showers then rules change. We sold our 5500W after one of our hurricanes and with the help of Fema, we got the brand new one (12.5K watt) for $1800 at Home Depo. It cost me $800 out of my pocket and has been working since.

In your case, depending on your wife, you could go with a window shaker (portable window AC $110) and a 5500W brigs with a gas converter and you should be set. A big one would be useless to you unless you want your house AC running due to your natural gas appliances. A 3000-4000 watt generators have poorer gas performance than the 5500W Briggs and since it has a 5 gallon tank, you can make ice at night and put the ice in trash bags to keep the freezers and fridge cool in the day time (drink the cold water when the ice melts ) and you can run it full bore at night with a portable AC unit at about 5 gallons of gas per day or 6-8 pounds of natural gas (assuming running the generator at night only).

Here's one for $540 off of Craig s list from San Antonio Texas, we paid around that for ours a while back. There are deals out there through e-bay and other stores,also with all that rain water you guys get plus your rain collection system, you should have a months supply of ice right there, just UV it before you drink it . The beauty of hurricanes is there's plenty of fresh water every where, if you collect it.

http://sanantonio.craigslist.org/tls/851028242.html


US Carbs is a good company and they can probably help you, they are pretty good at retrofitting carbs, shoot them an e-mail telling them what you want before you buy and see what they recommend.

http://uscarb.com/type_1.htm

Good Luck and welcome to the WWG (Wonderful World of Generators), a poor temporary solution to getting off the grid. Also a final note, with the economy going the way it is, and the hurricane season almost over, you will probably see many up for sale pretty soon. People tend to buy them when they need them the most and sell them when the danger passes instead of keeping them.