Home Depot Generator Rental - Here Are The Options & How Much Will It Cost You

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Besides being a retailer of tools and materials, one of Home Depot's other major business ventures is equipment rentals. If you visit your local chain, you can rent a variety of tools, heavy-duty equipment, and vehicles like moving vans. Within the category of tools in particular, one kind of rental Home Depot offers that you don't need to be a contractor to appreciate is generators.

All Home Depot locations have a small array of generators in various sizes and power capacities available to rent. Whether you need portable power for a busy job site or there's a big storm on the horizon and you want to be sure your home has backup power, Home Depot should be able to accommodate you. The only catch is that the precise bill you'll have to foot for a generator rental will depend heavily on the kind of generator you want, where you live, and how long you need it for. Pricing can get high, possibly past the point that you may expect to simply buy a generator instead. But if you only need it for a brief period, it should be much cheaper.

Home Depot has four different generator power capacities on offer to meet various energy needs. The smallest, cheapest generator on offer is the 2,000-watt inverter option, intended for small-scale, short-term usage like tailgating, RVs, and powering small appliances like coffee makers or televisions. Since it's an inverter generator, it's safe to use with delicate electronics like computers.

Second on the docket is the 3,000-4,000-watt inverter option. The precise wattage you get will depend on what your local Home Depot has in stock. This option can handle the same functions as the 2,000-watt option, but with a greater efficacy and capacity. Besides RVs and small appliances, it can also serve as a temporary short-term power backup for homes.

Moving away from inverters, the third option is the 3,500-watt generators. Compared to the smaller inverter generators, this option is more heavy-duty, able to run multiple strenuous appliances like refrigerators and furnaces simultaneously. This would be the ideal option for longer-term home power backup.

The final option is the 6,500-watt generators, the largest and heaviest rental generators you can get at Home Depot. This model is best suited for professional work purposes like a construction site rather than simple power backup, powering energy-hungry tools like circular saws and air compressors.

Besides your actual power needs, the vital question that determines which Home Depot rental generator is right for you is how much you're willing to spend. On its generator rental pages, Home Depot notes that its listed prices are merely estimates and are subject to change. Generally, though, the two factors that determine pricing, besides the model you want, are how long you plan on renting for, and where you live.

Home Depot offers four rental timeframes for generators: 4 hours, per day, per week, and 4 weeks. As an aside, in order to rent a generator, you'll need a valid identification, and a credit card to pay with, as Home Depot doesn't allow cash for this.

The Home Depot location you go to rent from will ultimately determine how much your fees are. For example, we compared two different locations from different parts of the United States for prices on a 2,000-watt inverter generator. In one part of the country, prices ranged from $36 to $624 for 4-hour and 4 week rentals, while in another, prices ranged from $50 to $864 for those same timeframes. To get your best estimate, visit the Home Depot website and set your closest retail location.

As we mentioned at the top, prices can get high for the longest timeframes. That 4 week rental for a 2,000-watt inverter generator is over $100 more expensive than simply purchasing a comparable generator outright from a brand like Ryobi. Before you sign a long-term rental, make sure to check product listings for any better deals.