They're really not that loud. Would say quieter than my Honda lawnmower and been awhile since I've used the Honda generators fr work but probably not a whole lot louder than those. Either way can't see it being loud enough that the neighbours would complain or even think twice, but if they didn't like me running it in the middle of winter with the power out in the neighbourhood, well what can I say about them.
Build quality, seems okay to me. Maybe not as shiny as the Hondas and Yamahas I was looking at this spring but then they were $1200.
Reliability; remember it started after only a couple of pulls out of the box and figure for that was first time fuel in the tank. Might have run it for 1/2 hour playing around with it when first got it in Feb. Most of my camping was at powered sites or just figured run on batteries where there wasn't so unit sat until mid Aug. In August run it for the first time in about 6 months and then probably around a hour in total but no problem starting.
Yesterday it fired up for the test on the tank (having sat unused for ~ 2 months) and then it was only a few pulls and that was probably more me as had the choke lever the wrong way.
Yes the unit is cheap, but then maybe so am I. I justified it to myself as something to use to maybe charge batteries on the travel trailer and a standby for the house in the very rare time I might lose power in the city.
If I was buying a unit for a backup of a heart/lung machine or lived in a area with frequent outages or actually could see myself using it for more than a few hours a year I might consider the Honda or Yamahas but for my usage, my little Princess Auto unit is perfectly fine.
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