What Appliances Can A 1,000-Watt Generator Run?

Last Updated on January 2, 2025

Generators are a lifesaver in the winter months if you happen to face a power outage, in hurricane-prone areas, or in parts of the country where powerful storms are prevalent, such as tornado alley. However, even very large generators can only run so much.

A 1,000-watt generator can run most of your small appliances, such as coffee pots, computers, slow-cookers, mini-fridges, and smaller power tools. Anything much larger than that is questionable and it certainly won’t run your air conditioner.

A 1,000-watt generator is an excellent emergency device to keep around and it’s also great for camping, so long as the noise it generates isn’t disturbing to other campers. You can also use them for off-grid living, as long as you have several of them to spread around.

This size generator is a valuable commodity for emergency situations and it will surprise you with what it can do and run.

What Kind Of Appliances Can A 1,000-Watt Generator Run?

It will run most of your small appliances. You’re probably not going to be able to hook it up to a large refrigerator, but it will run a mini and it will also run a mini-freezer. Microwaves, hairdryers, smartphone chargers, waffle irons, and flat-screen TVs will all do well on a 1,000-watt generator.

You can probably squeeze in a very small, budget-type of window unit air conditioner, but you couldn’t put anything else on the generator at the same time.

If you have a large home it would be better to run a box fan or two in order to create a good level of air circulation.

When it comes to camping and outdoor recreation, a 1,000-watt generator could run small, portable heaters and A/C units, especially the kind that utilize ice rather than antifreeze.

It will also allow you to operate a small, electric stove for cooking.

If you own fish you can keep an aquarium up and running and—for any evening entertainment purposes—a 1,000-watt generator will run a gaming system and just about any HD TV or projector you can think of, often at the same time.

Can A 1,000-Watt Generator Run A House?

Not even close, unless you had about 30 of them and a credit card with a high enough limit to afford the gas.

A 1,000-watt generator is a great tool to have as an emergency piece of equipment that can keep you going and power the devices you need through an emergency.

However, as far as running your home is concerned, it simply isn’t big enough to do that.

To run most of the things in your house—all at the same time—you would need a generator that is 7,500-watts at a minimum. Of course, even that would be pretty limited.

If you want to run your entire house in the event of a long-term power outage, you would need something like the Generac Guardian 7042 22kW Aluminum Home Standby Generator.

If you decide to have a look at it, you’ll easily see the drastic leap it would take to run a whole house.

The 22kW Generac Guardian 7042 is one of the better, whole-home generators out there and it will run you a cool $5.1K. Outside of Generac Guardian, there are other, lesser-known whole-home generator manufacturers, however, Generac Guardian stands head and shoulders above the rest.

You also have the Tesla Powerwall, which is a giant storage battery that charges itself from installed solar panels. You can purchase up to ten batteries for a single grid and they’ll store energy enough to run your house for days if the grid goes down.

Other than those types of options, there aren’t any generators in the 1,000-watt class that will power your entire home, or even half of the appliances in it—much less the A/C, lights, stoves, dishwashers, washers, and dryers.

See a list of our favorite generators here

Will A 1,000-Watt Generator Run A Deep Freezer?

A full-sized deep freezer would probably be very iffy, however, it will definitely run a small-sized, deep freezer. A refrigerator or deep freezer is one of the appliances in your house—along with the hot water heater and the air conditioner—that pulls the most power.

Perhaps the stove can pull more but you’re not going to be running the oven consistently like you are with the deep freezer or refrigerator.

As far as a deep freezer is concerned, the food inside can last up to two days in the event of an extended power outage, so long as you keep it closed so that it doesn’t lose any air.

So if you lost power, the deep freezer wouldn’t become a major concern until about two days into it.

Now you may wonder why a deep freezer or a refrigerator—both rated between 300 and 750 watts—couldn’t be handled by a 1,000-watt generator. The problem is the compressor. When the compressor kicks on, there is a power surge up to 1,500-watts.

So in order to properly and consistently run a deep freezer of decent size, you would have to get a generator that could handle the surge whenever the compressor kicks in.

Will A 1,000-Watt Generator Run A 5,000 BTU Air Conditioner?

In order to run a 5,000 BTU air conditioner, you would need at least a 2,000-watt generator, for exactly the same reason as the deep freezer and standard size refrigerator.

When the A/C compressor kicks in, it’s more than a 1,000-watt generator can handle.

This is true even if you find a 500 to a 700-watt air conditioner.

So don’t be fooled by comparing watts. A 1,000-watt generator would happily run the fan in your window air conditioner all day long, but as soon as the compressor kicks in, it will shut down.

Mostly it’s the surge that does it and you can’t afford to trip the breaker on your generator every five seconds.

If you know that you will need to run a window unit in the event of an emergency power outage, it would be a good idea to upgrade your generator to at least a 2,000-watt version.

Can A 1,000-Watt Generator Run A Refrigerator?

It can definitely run a mini-fridge or one of those small coolers that hold bottles of water and keep a small number of items cool. It won’t run a full-sized refrigerator.

It comes down to the compressor once again. That surge of power is too much for a 1,000-watt generator to handle and will shut down the refrigerator while tripping the breaker on the generator.

However, if you can get by on a mini-fridge during an emergency power outage or want to run a small cooler while camping, a 1,000-watt generator is more than enough to handle the job.