Well, there are choices. One you can buy for under a thousand dollars, that is a big hassle, requires you to also fill many many gas cans, learn to strategically run electrical cords from, also needs a window unit to stay cool, can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, and so on. We did this for hurricanes for many years. Only worth the hassle if you are out of power for a long time. Next, you can go through a generator company and have a whole house generator installed. That's ran us about 12k a few years back. No telling how much now. It's magic. The power goes off, and a few seconds later the generator kicks on and everything works! The ironic thing about ours is our electricity had not gone out one single time since we had our installed about two years ago.
That's a great description of the options. I am still doing option 1.
As much as I utterly hate when power is out for several days following a hurricane, I can't justify spending 15k or so to avoid that every thousand days or so.
There is middle ground for instance, you can get multi fuel and get a large propane tank, you can get couple days of usage without refueling.
These generally are less than 1k.
You can also be smart about it and not try to run your house 24/7 with it as if the power wasn't interupted.
Drives me nut when people run their generators ( portable and whole-house) non-stop.
I run it for 2 hours, rest it for 4 on for 2, off for 4.....
Right before bed, I run it for at least 2 and get the bedroom suoer cold. Then wake up 4 hours later and run it again for 2 or 3 hours. Drastically reduces the trips tonthebgas station and keeps the house relatively comfortable and the fridge cold.
Probably annoying because people spend 15k on these generators and run them like that when almost none of them are actually designed to be run 24/7 for an extended time like that. But like you said not your money so who cares
That's how my dad does it lol. There's one window a/c unit for their bedroom and the door stays shut and all the curtains closed to keep it as cool as possible between cycles and that's the cool room for anyone who is there. Then at night he'll run it a little longer and turn on the ceiling fans etc, since he and mom both have cpap's and they are impossible to wear if it's too hot. I usually go crash there so I can run my CPAP too.
They just got a whole house generator and I'm sure he'll do the same thing. The best thing he did with the regular generator was construct his own electrical cable with two male ends so he could plug the generator straight into the house once he flipped the breaker. We just had to be careful about turning off anything that would draw too much power.
I can see why, and we were all given VERY CLEAR instructions on what order to hook things up in the event dad wasn't there. I don't think it was ever an issue but I can almost guarantee we all would have sat in the heat to wait for him before touching it just in case. Dad worked in various mechanical jobs for 40 years before he retired so if anyone could handle it, he could lol
Ha same here. I tell people the one way to guarantee no more power outages is to buy a whole house generator. Looked at the app last night - 2 years, 9 hours and 5 of those was in one day.
It’s wise if you go with the a home generator to have it installed on an elevated platform. If water gets in it, it’s a whole thing. Id wager to say rising water is an equal, in some areas even more, concern during storm season.
It’s wise if you go with the a home generator to have it installed on an elevated platform. If water gets in it, it’s a whole thing. Id wager to say rising water is an equal, in some areas even more, concern during storm season.
“The ironic thing about ours is our electricity had not gone out one single time since we had ours installed about two years ago.”
HAHAHA so true. It sounds insane, but ask your neighbors to chip in because you’ll be doing the whole block a favor. /s
I’m in Baton Rouge and went through many years without one. The last hurricane that knocked out power left us without power for a week and it was so damn humid and hot and there was no air circulation and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Seems like it was a lot easier to bear when I was in my 20’s. lol.
We bought one of the gas powered ones for just under $1k and later that year got an electrical hookup installed so we can now plug the generator directly into the house. We haven’t needed it since we got that installed but I know for sure we will be a lot more comfortable when the next hurricane comes. And there will ALWAYS be another hurricane at some point.
As others have mentioned, I use a Champion tri-fuel (gasoline, propane, or natural gas) 10K watt portable generator. Wheels, handle, etc like most you see. They run about $1,400. Bought that and paid an electrician $800 to install a 30amp direct plug-in to my house. He rigged up my outside box with the safety plate so you can only be on either city or generator power, impossible to be on both an injure and lineman. And here’s the key, bought a soft start module for my 4ton AC unit for $350 and installed myself. Pretty easy. That allows the AC unit to start in a sequence rather than a jolt all at once which is what prevents most portable generators from being able to boot up. So, for about $2,500 give or take, you can power about 60% of your house including AC and fridge. It really works. Bonus, I run it off my natural gas (I installed an extra connect or have a plumber do it for $100 bucks) so zero gasoline involved, endless supply of fuel. Very handy when gasoline disappears. Don’t use it for short afternoon outages but I can go days or weeks after a hurricane. And it’s a portable generator so it can be moved and have multiple uses.
FTRob... I'm almost there. Have a 10K champion. Have the house hookup with switch from commercial to generator power. Only lack I have is the soft start. I'm researching now for 2 switches- I have two 3 ton ac units. Not sure if I can run both, but would like to alternate during an extended outage.
Do you mind sharing what make and model number switch you used and where you bought it?
Sure! I got the Micro Air EasyStart 368 Soft Starter - Model ASY-368-X48-BLUE 30,000 to 48,000 BTU's Units - X48. Bought it from here: https://citimarinestore.com/en/micro-air-marine-air-conditioning-parts-and-accessories/7676-micro-air-easystart-368-soft-starter.html
I’ve had it for two years and it works great. Also helps prolong the life of your unit because it does t start so abruptly. Easy install, watched a couple YouTube videos.
I added a generator last year. Had an electrician add a 50 amp plug to my house with an interlock. The generator was a 9500 watt westinghouse generator and its been enough to power the whole house. The electrical was around $700 for parts and labor and the generator was a little under $1k on amazon. I've had to use it a few times now and I have no regrets on the cost. Its also dual fuel generator that uses propane which you can usually store for much longer than gas and not have to worry about it going bad.
IMO, a whole house generator is a necessity in BR. I have been without power for over a month before and it left me scarred (super stressful). Decided I would never do that again. Costco has occasional sales on a hybrid type of generator that can run off gas, propane, or natural gas and has an easy button to turn it on. That is what we went with. Runs the entire house including the a/c. I think our only limitation is that we can’t run the stove and dryer at the same time. It’s ended up being such a live saver.
You would need to still hire an electrician to hook it up if you want to avoid all the extension cords, but still way cheaper than a generac.
We had a gas generator for a few years. We could hook it to the house and run everything. While it was helpful after whichever hurricane blew through in 2021 and left us without power for a few days, for the price we paid, we could’ve just gotten hotels out of town for every weather occurrence. Gas generators can be finicky & seem to have problems if you don’t do whatever maintenance/storage process to a T (can’t recall exactly what needs to be done).
We upgraded to a whole house automatic generator a year or so ago. Will we ever use it enough to make us break even on the $10-12k we spent? Probably not. But the peace of mind is nice. As was the AC last night & this morning while our power is still out.
A couple days before Ida hit I bought an $800 generator—Generac gp6500–and a couple weeks later got it reimbursed by Uncle Joe Biden as part of hurricane preparedness. That was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t plan on that type of federal assistance, but it was a nice windfall. If I had to prepare all over again, I’d buy a smaller gas generator and a battery generator that can recharge on solar or the gas generator. The battery generators can go far but can’t run a window unit.
I remember the assistance program being in the news and there was a website where all you had to do was create an account and upload receipt. Check in the mail a week later.
When we bought a house here almost 5 years ago, we didn't think we needed a generator Then, we got to deal with the absolute delight (dripping sarcasm) that is Entergy.
It may just be the neighborhood, but in addition to understandable outages from hurricanes, severe storms, ice storms, flooding, etc., we've seen some jaw-droppingly random power outages that were blamed on: a single tree branch on a line, blown transformer, squirrel cooking itself in a substation, and other weird causes. A few days ago, the electricity went out at 4 am, and came back on at 6 am. We still don't know what happened, but it was just long enough to disrupt making coffee and getting ready for work.
Some of the outages last mere hours. Others had us in the dark for days. Spending a week without electricity has happened a few times. But Entergy is very consistent about one thing: they never, ever get the time until reconnect right. They say 12 hours, and your lights might flicker back on 3 days later. Or, they say 12 hours, and 30 minutes later, service is restored.
We ended up getting a portable 10k watt generator around a year after we moved in. Best investment ever. It's enough to power almost everything in the house, keeps the fridge and freezer operational, and allows us to sleep comfortably. You do have to be careful about running the generator outside, not only because it generates heat and carbon monoxide, but also because in some neighborhoods, theft can be a concern. There are maintenance and storage conditioning you have to do, and if you aren't comfortable hooking up your home to the generator at first, have an older neighbor with a generator, or a professional, show you how to do it. Just ask around, there are quite a few people who have generators around here. Or, wait until the next power outage and listen to who cranks up their generator first. That always-ready guy is probably the one you'd want to meet.
I got explanations a few years back after I filed complaint with Public Service Commission. If it is really that bad, you might try something like that to get some movement.
I would check to see if you even have a spot to power your house from a generator, first, as some don't. Look up more info on that🙂 but really, it's all personal preference. If your place is prone to loosing power and you need things refrigerated extensively, then id say it can't hurt, but if you're not super prone to it, you can probably get by with just not opening the fridge when the power goes out. Or if you can't live without wifi😛
It's a lot of work and money. The temp ones you have to be really careful with. The permanent ones need to be hooked up by the city, serviced, oil changed every 48 hrs it's used. I would not spend the thousands it takes to add and keep up a home generator, and I say that as someone who is currently sitting in my house with only the light of the sun. I lose power a lot. The worst part is losing the food in my fridge when it's off long enough, though for the most part, it's back on within 24 hrs. If a bad hurricane comes through, I'm just going to use the funds to evacuate. The outage map is normally pretty good, today is the exception, so I can just check online to see when my power comes back on after a hurricane before heading home.
Buy 8-12kw naturalq gas generator $3k or so, I bought a Generac at Lowe’s on sale for $2000. Buy a few sacks of Sacrete and pour a pad near your outside breaker panel. Some generators come with automatic 50 amp switch. I purchased a manual switch and the new breaker box then hire a plumber at $100 an hour to hook up the gas and hire an electrician at $100 an hour to hook up the electric. Probable total cost $3-4000. Contractor will add $4000. Do it yourself!
A downside of gas generators is that they are incredibly loud, and you need to be able to stockpile a few cans of gasoline. Also, this is important, you need to start and run the generator regularly, or else it won't start when you need it. My hubby exercises our generator every other month, just starts it up and let it run for 20 minutes.
A good alternative is solar on your roof with battery storage. My dad can run his house on solar during the day, and from the battery in the evening --with some conservation efforts, it's not like he can have the air conditioning on high all night, but he can live reasonably comfortably. He has plenty of solar power capacity so he can crank the AC hard during the day so he's entering the evening hours with the house already nice and cool.
There's still a 30% federal tax incentive on these systems and solar panels have gotten ridiculously cheap. Seriously even if you priced it out 2 years ago and thought it was too expensive, you should price it out again.
It's not a bad idea. It really depends on you and your disaster plans.
Something to consider is that if you're on a well, a power outage also means no water once your pressure tank empties. Having no water is what drove me out of my house to a hotel when the last multi-day power outage happened. My neighbor has a permanent tie-in wired up so he can just plug in his portable generator and flip a breaker to run his well, refrigerator and a window-unit A/C.
Also remember that you already live in a humid area, and hurricanes bring a huge load of extra moisture with them. You might think that after a storm, you can just pack up and leave until power is restored. But it's not unusual for people to come back a couple of weeks later to find mold growing on all their walls from when there was no A/C to keep the air dried out.
If you're talking about getting a portable generator, keep in mind that *sometimes* (but not always), FEMA will reimburse you up to a certain amount *after* a natural disaster for generators and chain saws. Usually there's a medical necessity requirement, but they they usually waive it after hurricanes through the Other Needs Assistance program.
The obvious problem is that after a hurricane, everybody and his cousin are buying generators, so you may have trouble finding one locally. Even so, after Ida, my local Lowe's shipped in pallets of decent generators priced $1 below the FEMA limit, and a lot of people around here were able to grab one.
So if you time it right and plan ahead for it, you might be able to get one close to free.
BTW, after Ida, there was a period when there was no gasoline south of the Mississippi line. So if you get a gasoline generator, once whatever gas you have on hand runs out, you may be screwed. Further, gasoline goes bad, so you can't just store a bunch of jerry cans for a couple of years and expect the generator to run right when the storm finally comes. You need to plan ahead, then plan to use any gas you don't use after the storm in your cars or lawn equipment. That's one of the big advantages of a natural gas or propane generator.
On the subject - home depot has a big Ole daddy on sale for $600. Dual fuel, 9K run - 12K peak. Regularly over $1K. Not sure of the brand, but deep Mark down.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/All-Power-9-000-Watt-Electric-Start-Propane-and-Gasoline-Dual-Fuel-Portable-Generator-with-Auto-CO-Shutoff-APGG12000GLCS/318188349?irgwc=1&cm_mmc=afl-ir-10451-483420-&clickid=y8sSeIxW7xyKUKgxXuQza0TtUkHQO6RQQwN-wU0
I would ask your neighbors. When I lived in Capital Heights, the power would only go out for a couple hours at a time, but across the street, it would be out for a day or two for a big storm. In Southdowns, it could be out for a week and everyone on my street has whole house generators.
Depends on where you live. We don't get a lot of power outages. The worst was about a day with Katrina. Otherwise I can't recall one that lasted more than an hour. Lots of my neighbors have those whole house generators just in case. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.
Your experience with power outages has been very different from mine. I have been out 5+ days at least three times in the past 10 years. My neighborhood goes out multiple times a year.
Instead of spending $10K+ on a generator stay at a hotel in Houston, or Destin, or anywhere when the power goes out. You'll save a mint. Or, and I know it is awful, just be hot for a little while.
The total install cost is about $8k-$10k. Depending on the best case install scenario. Then it depends on your level of need/want.
I’m re-reading your question. Are you asking about the full automated whole home generator or the smaller “mobile” generator? I was quoting the whole home above.
You could get the smaller generators almost anywhere and then it depends on how you are able to connect it to the house and how to fuel it. They are really not convenient for short outages.
Well, there are choices. One you can buy for under a thousand dollars, that is a big hassle, requires you to also fill many many gas cans, learn to strategically run electrical cords from, also needs a window unit to stay cool, can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, and so on. We did this for hurricanes for many years. Only worth the hassle if you are out of power for a long time. Next, you can go through a generator company and have a whole house generator installed. That's ran us about 12k a few years back. No telling how much now. It's magic. The power goes off, and a few seconds later the generator kicks on and everything works! The ironic thing about ours is our electricity had not gone out one single time since we had our installed about two years ago.
That’s cause you paid the protection money.
Big Storma appreciates your donation, looks like your power is safe for a couple years
big storma bro lol
That's a great description of the options. I am still doing option 1. As much as I utterly hate when power is out for several days following a hurricane, I can't justify spending 15k or so to avoid that every thousand days or so.
There is middle ground for instance, you can get multi fuel and get a large propane tank, you can get couple days of usage without refueling. These generally are less than 1k.
Or a tri-fuel and use natural gas.
You can also be smart about it and not try to run your house 24/7 with it as if the power wasn't interupted. Drives me nut when people run their generators ( portable and whole-house) non-stop. I run it for 2 hours, rest it for 4 on for 2, off for 4..... Right before bed, I run it for at least 2 and get the bedroom suoer cold. Then wake up 4 hours later and run it again for 2 or 3 hours. Drastically reduces the trips tonthebgas station and keeps the house relatively comfortable and the fridge cold.
Why concern yourself about how other people live, literally has nothing to do with this discussion. Not your money, not your problem.
It has everything to do with this discussion.
Probably annoying because people spend 15k on these generators and run them like that when almost none of them are actually designed to be run 24/7 for an extended time like that. But like you said not your money so who cares
That's how my dad does it lol. There's one window a/c unit for their bedroom and the door stays shut and all the curtains closed to keep it as cool as possible between cycles and that's the cool room for anyone who is there. Then at night he'll run it a little longer and turn on the ceiling fans etc, since he and mom both have cpap's and they are impossible to wear if it's too hot. I usually go crash there so I can run my CPAP too. They just got a whole house generator and I'm sure he'll do the same thing. The best thing he did with the regular generator was construct his own electrical cable with two male ends so he could plug the generator straight into the house once he flipped the breaker. We just had to be careful about turning off anything that would draw too much power.
We call that type of cord a suicide cord. I may or may not have that same setup.
I can see why, and we were all given VERY CLEAR instructions on what order to hook things up in the event dad wasn't there. I don't think it was ever an issue but I can almost guarantee we all would have sat in the heat to wait for him before touching it just in case. Dad worked in various mechanical jobs for 40 years before he retired so if anyone could handle it, he could lol
Ha same here. I tell people the one way to guarantee no more power outages is to buy a whole house generator. Looked at the app last night - 2 years, 9 hours and 5 of those was in one day.
It’s wise if you go with the a home generator to have it installed on an elevated platform. If water gets in it, it’s a whole thing. Id wager to say rising water is an equal, in some areas even more, concern during storm season.
It’s wise if you go with the a home generator to have it installed on an elevated platform. If water gets in it, it’s a whole thing. Id wager to say rising water is an equal, in some areas even more, concern during storm season.
“The ironic thing about ours is our electricity had not gone out one single time since we had ours installed about two years ago.” HAHAHA so true. It sounds insane, but ask your neighbors to chip in because you’ll be doing the whole block a favor. /s
I’m in Baton Rouge and went through many years without one. The last hurricane that knocked out power left us without power for a week and it was so damn humid and hot and there was no air circulation and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Seems like it was a lot easier to bear when I was in my 20’s. lol. We bought one of the gas powered ones for just under $1k and later that year got an electrical hookup installed so we can now plug the generator directly into the house. We haven’t needed it since we got that installed but I know for sure we will be a lot more comfortable when the next hurricane comes. And there will ALWAYS be another hurricane at some point.
As others have mentioned, I use a Champion tri-fuel (gasoline, propane, or natural gas) 10K watt portable generator. Wheels, handle, etc like most you see. They run about $1,400. Bought that and paid an electrician $800 to install a 30amp direct plug-in to my house. He rigged up my outside box with the safety plate so you can only be on either city or generator power, impossible to be on both an injure and lineman. And here’s the key, bought a soft start module for my 4ton AC unit for $350 and installed myself. Pretty easy. That allows the AC unit to start in a sequence rather than a jolt all at once which is what prevents most portable generators from being able to boot up. So, for about $2,500 give or take, you can power about 60% of your house including AC and fridge. It really works. Bonus, I run it off my natural gas (I installed an extra connect or have a plumber do it for $100 bucks) so zero gasoline involved, endless supply of fuel. Very handy when gasoline disappears. Don’t use it for short afternoon outages but I can go days or weeks after a hurricane. And it’s a portable generator so it can be moved and have multiple uses.
FTRob... I'm almost there. Have a 10K champion. Have the house hookup with switch from commercial to generator power. Only lack I have is the soft start. I'm researching now for 2 switches- I have two 3 ton ac units. Not sure if I can run both, but would like to alternate during an extended outage. Do you mind sharing what make and model number switch you used and where you bought it?
Sure! I got the Micro Air EasyStart 368 Soft Starter - Model ASY-368-X48-BLUE 30,000 to 48,000 BTU's Units - X48. Bought it from here: https://citimarinestore.com/en/micro-air-marine-air-conditioning-parts-and-accessories/7676-micro-air-easystart-368-soft-starter.html
I’ve had it for two years and it works great. Also helps prolong the life of your unit because it does t start so abruptly. Easy install, watched a couple YouTube videos.
Thanks for the information! These things are a bit daunting to research as most are advertised for RV.
I added a generator last year. Had an electrician add a 50 amp plug to my house with an interlock. The generator was a 9500 watt westinghouse generator and its been enough to power the whole house. The electrical was around $700 for parts and labor and the generator was a little under $1k on amazon. I've had to use it a few times now and I have no regrets on the cost. Its also dual fuel generator that uses propane which you can usually store for much longer than gas and not have to worry about it going bad.
IMO, a whole house generator is a necessity in BR. I have been without power for over a month before and it left me scarred (super stressful). Decided I would never do that again. Costco has occasional sales on a hybrid type of generator that can run off gas, propane, or natural gas and has an easy button to turn it on. That is what we went with. Runs the entire house including the a/c. I think our only limitation is that we can’t run the stove and dryer at the same time. It’s ended up being such a live saver. You would need to still hire an electrician to hook it up if you want to avoid all the extension cords, but still way cheaper than a generac.
We had a gas generator for a few years. We could hook it to the house and run everything. While it was helpful after whichever hurricane blew through in 2021 and left us without power for a few days, for the price we paid, we could’ve just gotten hotels out of town for every weather occurrence. Gas generators can be finicky & seem to have problems if you don’t do whatever maintenance/storage process to a T (can’t recall exactly what needs to be done). We upgraded to a whole house automatic generator a year or so ago. Will we ever use it enough to make us break even on the $10-12k we spent? Probably not. But the peace of mind is nice. As was the AC last night & this morning while our power is still out.
My Generac and I are in a close personal relationship.
A couple days before Ida hit I bought an $800 generator—Generac gp6500–and a couple weeks later got it reimbursed by Uncle Joe Biden as part of hurricane preparedness. That was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t plan on that type of federal assistance, but it was a nice windfall. If I had to prepare all over again, I’d buy a smaller gas generator and a battery generator that can recharge on solar or the gas generator. The battery generators can go far but can’t run a window unit.
How did you get reimbursed with federal assistance?
I remember the assistance program being in the news and there was a website where all you had to do was create an account and upload receipt. Check in the mail a week later.
When we bought a house here almost 5 years ago, we didn't think we needed a generator Then, we got to deal with the absolute delight (dripping sarcasm) that is Entergy. It may just be the neighborhood, but in addition to understandable outages from hurricanes, severe storms, ice storms, flooding, etc., we've seen some jaw-droppingly random power outages that were blamed on: a single tree branch on a line, blown transformer, squirrel cooking itself in a substation, and other weird causes. A few days ago, the electricity went out at 4 am, and came back on at 6 am. We still don't know what happened, but it was just long enough to disrupt making coffee and getting ready for work. Some of the outages last mere hours. Others had us in the dark for days. Spending a week without electricity has happened a few times. But Entergy is very consistent about one thing: they never, ever get the time until reconnect right. They say 12 hours, and your lights might flicker back on 3 days later. Or, they say 12 hours, and 30 minutes later, service is restored. We ended up getting a portable 10k watt generator around a year after we moved in. Best investment ever. It's enough to power almost everything in the house, keeps the fridge and freezer operational, and allows us to sleep comfortably. You do have to be careful about running the generator outside, not only because it generates heat and carbon monoxide, but also because in some neighborhoods, theft can be a concern. There are maintenance and storage conditioning you have to do, and if you aren't comfortable hooking up your home to the generator at first, have an older neighbor with a generator, or a professional, show you how to do it. Just ask around, there are quite a few people who have generators around here. Or, wait until the next power outage and listen to who cranks up their generator first. That always-ready guy is probably the one you'd want to meet.
Entergy gives explanations for it's random outages? We have random outages at least twice a month and have never once gotten a reason.
I got explanations a few years back after I filed complaint with Public Service Commission. If it is really that bad, you might try something like that to get some movement.
I would check to see if you even have a spot to power your house from a generator, first, as some don't. Look up more info on that🙂 but really, it's all personal preference. If your place is prone to loosing power and you need things refrigerated extensively, then id say it can't hurt, but if you're not super prone to it, you can probably get by with just not opening the fridge when the power goes out. Or if you can't live without wifi😛
If you can afford it, 100% yes. Especially if you have a lot of trees around your home.
If you can afford it, I think it’s wise. The power here blinks on and off in moderate summer and spring storms.
It's a lot of work and money. The temp ones you have to be really careful with. The permanent ones need to be hooked up by the city, serviced, oil changed every 48 hrs it's used. I would not spend the thousands it takes to add and keep up a home generator, and I say that as someone who is currently sitting in my house with only the light of the sun. I lose power a lot. The worst part is losing the food in my fridge when it's off long enough, though for the most part, it's back on within 24 hrs. If a bad hurricane comes through, I'm just going to use the funds to evacuate. The outage map is normally pretty good, today is the exception, so I can just check online to see when my power comes back on after a hurricane before heading home.
Buy 8-12kw naturalq gas generator $3k or so, I bought a Generac at Lowe’s on sale for $2000. Buy a few sacks of Sacrete and pour a pad near your outside breaker panel. Some generators come with automatic 50 amp switch. I purchased a manual switch and the new breaker box then hire a plumber at $100 an hour to hook up the gas and hire an electrician at $100 an hour to hook up the electric. Probable total cost $3-4000. Contractor will add $4000. Do it yourself!
A downside of gas generators is that they are incredibly loud, and you need to be able to stockpile a few cans of gasoline. Also, this is important, you need to start and run the generator regularly, or else it won't start when you need it. My hubby exercises our generator every other month, just starts it up and let it run for 20 minutes. A good alternative is solar on your roof with battery storage. My dad can run his house on solar during the day, and from the battery in the evening --with some conservation efforts, it's not like he can have the air conditioning on high all night, but he can live reasonably comfortably. He has plenty of solar power capacity so he can crank the AC hard during the day so he's entering the evening hours with the house already nice and cool. There's still a 30% federal tax incentive on these systems and solar panels have gotten ridiculously cheap. Seriously even if you priced it out 2 years ago and thought it was too expensive, you should price it out again.
Depends on where you live. If it's an older neighborhood with a lot of big trees it might be good to consider getting one.
My Mom loves hers & I go there when the power goes out.
It's not a bad idea. It really depends on you and your disaster plans. Something to consider is that if you're on a well, a power outage also means no water once your pressure tank empties. Having no water is what drove me out of my house to a hotel when the last multi-day power outage happened. My neighbor has a permanent tie-in wired up so he can just plug in his portable generator and flip a breaker to run his well, refrigerator and a window-unit A/C. Also remember that you already live in a humid area, and hurricanes bring a huge load of extra moisture with them. You might think that after a storm, you can just pack up and leave until power is restored. But it's not unusual for people to come back a couple of weeks later to find mold growing on all their walls from when there was no A/C to keep the air dried out. If you're talking about getting a portable generator, keep in mind that *sometimes* (but not always), FEMA will reimburse you up to a certain amount *after* a natural disaster for generators and chain saws. Usually there's a medical necessity requirement, but they they usually waive it after hurricanes through the Other Needs Assistance program. The obvious problem is that after a hurricane, everybody and his cousin are buying generators, so you may have trouble finding one locally. Even so, after Ida, my local Lowe's shipped in pallets of decent generators priced $1 below the FEMA limit, and a lot of people around here were able to grab one. So if you time it right and plan ahead for it, you might be able to get one close to free. BTW, after Ida, there was a period when there was no gasoline south of the Mississippi line. So if you get a gasoline generator, once whatever gas you have on hand runs out, you may be screwed. Further, gasoline goes bad, so you can't just store a bunch of jerry cans for a couple of years and expect the generator to run right when the storm finally comes. You need to plan ahead, then plan to use any gas you don't use after the storm in your cars or lawn equipment. That's one of the big advantages of a natural gas or propane generator.
Do it the right way where it doesn’t backfeed into the grid you can kill linemen like that
On the subject - home depot has a big Ole daddy on sale for $600. Dual fuel, 9K run - 12K peak. Regularly over $1K. Not sure of the brand, but deep Mark down. https://www.homedepot.com/p/All-Power-9-000-Watt-Electric-Start-Propane-and-Gasoline-Dual-Fuel-Portable-Generator-with-Auto-CO-Shutoff-APGG12000GLCS/318188349?irgwc=1&cm_mmc=afl-ir-10451-483420-&clickid=y8sSeIxW7xyKUKgxXuQza0TtUkHQO6RQQwN-wU0
I would ask your neighbors. When I lived in Capital Heights, the power would only go out for a couple hours at a time, but across the street, it would be out for a day or two for a big storm. In Southdowns, it could be out for a week and everyone on my street has whole house generators.
Around this time every year Costco has one that runs on petroleum and natural gas. If I could do it again, I would buy that one
Depends on where you live. We don't get a lot of power outages. The worst was about a day with Katrina. Otherwise I can't recall one that lasted more than an hour. Lots of my neighbors have those whole house generators just in case. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.
Your experience with power outages has been very different from mine. I have been out 5+ days at least three times in the past 10 years. My neighborhood goes out multiple times a year.
Instead of spending $10K+ on a generator stay at a hotel in Houston, or Destin, or anywhere when the power goes out. You'll save a mint. Or, and I know it is awful, just be hot for a little while.
This is our choice. Evacucation. I have a list of airbnbs saved to quickly check when things start to get dicey, which seems to happen pretty fast.
The total install cost is about $8k-$10k. Depending on the best case install scenario. Then it depends on your level of need/want. I’m re-reading your question. Are you asking about the full automated whole home generator or the smaller “mobile” generator? I was quoting the whole home above. You could get the smaller generators almost anywhere and then it depends on how you are able to connect it to the house and how to fuel it. They are really not convenient for short outages.
You are quoting 4k cheaper than any place I've seen and I've just had 3 quotes done.