I live in a town home community. The person who loves immediately behind me (the backs of our homes face each other,) has been running a generator from 8am to 10pm every single day for the last two weeks. It is driving me up a wall. It's right outside my bedroom and kitchen. I have complained to the HOA and the town but nothing has been done. He is using a generator to power his whole house because they ran up their electric bill over the winter, didnt pay, and now can't afford to have it turned back on. Is running a generator even efficient? I imagin e spends more on gas every day then he would electric. Why not just sell the generator to pay the bill???
Nowhere near as efficient or cheap as electricity off the grid, Sounds like this person is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and is just compounding his financial woes, but then again you might want to check with others in your area to see if there having the gas in there vehicles stolen in the middle of the night. Desperate people will do desperate things, With that said I'm surprised your HOA has not done something, normally there pretty strict about matters such as these, Kinda the point behind a HOA, I'd suggest you talk to the HOA director and get some answers there.
I am having the same problem with a Neighbor. also to add they could be living there illegally and squatting on the property. Also they could be a grow house and a big sign of a grow house is a big electric bill. So they will probably grow stuff off the Grid and not get caught for a while because the electric bill is not high. I would also agree keep Tabs on your Gas and watch your Fuel Level and if it drops fairly quickly then that is a problem.
The simple answer is NO. About 2/3rds of a gas engines energy is lost to heat. If a generator was more efficient than the grid then you could have it run itself off an electric motor plugged into the generator. Perpetual motion. As for the noise most locations regulate the sound in db's a device can make.
Well it does cost more to constantly run the generator you are right there, unless it is on natural gas then probably not. What has happened is the electric company probably won't let him have service again because he owes them money for the unpaid bills, and he will have to pay the owed money plus late fees to get the power back on. So in his feeble mind he thinks running the generator is sticking it to the man so to say, when really he is only costing himself more money in the end and annoying the neighbors in the process. Sorry but if the HOA or town has no rules on owning and operating a generator there might not be much you can do. He is operating it within what I would call respectable time frames. I am not in support of him running it all the time but it is what it is. You could call the police and see if they could do something but don't expect it to be much.
They are in a catch 22 situation. If they have to buy street fuel to keep it running it is very doubtful they are saving anything by doing this. If they can get access to fuel that road tax was not paid for, it might be a break even thing. Generators can be found that use a lot of different fuels besides gasoline, propane, diesel and natural gas to name a few. The odds are that there is no law that can be used to prevent this and more then likely there are no restrictions in the covenants for the development either. So trying to get intervention will not work. About the only solution would be to help them get the electricity back on. But this might only encourage repeated financial problems in the future. Good luck- maybe look into a white noise generator to low the irritation factor.
