I had the same issue with a heavy generator and a big hill. My "solution" was to install a battery backup in the basement and only use the generator for recharging.
The last two outages we had lasted 8 hours and 6 hours, and the battery backup didn't even go down to 60%. We recharged it after power came back, so no need for the generator. This setup also allows my wife to switch to backup power if I'm not around...just flip a few switches and power is back.
I wanted some redundancy and for a long grid-down scenario, I didn't want to have to rely on just a generator running continuously for days or weeks. In such a scenario, we will only need to run the generator a few hours a day, running on battery the rest of the time. The 30% federal tax credit also reduced the battery backup system cost quite a bit.
The last two outages we had lasted 8 hours and 6 hours, and the battery backup didn't even go down to 60%. We recharged it after power came back, so no need for the generator. This setup also allows my wife to switch to backup power if I'm not around...just flip a few switches and power is back.
I wanted some redundancy and for a long grid-down scenario, I didn't want to have to rely on just a generator running continuously for days or weeks. In such a scenario, we will only need to run the generator a few hours a day, running on battery the rest of the time. The 30% federal tax credit also reduced the battery backup system cost quite a bit.