How about a home owner question, Power Problems ?

During the recent power outage in MA, I had to power up my portable generator. That's when I found out how temperamental this unit is.
This was this time I had to run this furnace of off the generator ( 1 year old) and unless I had the right configuration of other appliances running in the house the boiler would not fire ?
After hours of trouble shooting by the plumber he finally found out that the 60hrtz cycles on the AC power had to be almost dead on. Has anyone had this problem and found a reasonable solution ? It's one thing to loose the TV but not the heat in the winter.

Any help would be appreciated.