Quick home electric question

I'm not an electrician, and maybe one on here will verify this. How big is your generator. Unless it's pretty big, (20-30K) I wouldn't even try to run it that way. I've known of people wiring too small of a generator to their breaker box, and burned out compressors on freezers and refrigerators, etc, (My ex father in law did this) For example if you've got a 5K-10K generator, it won't run your whole house. It will take almost 5K just to run a water heater, if it's electric.