New-Vegetable-1274 t1_j8e329d wrote on February 13, 2023 at 5:06 PM

Reply to comment by dpceee in Stories/Pictures from the Ice Storm by dpceee

I think that anyone who owns a house in a vulnerable area ought to have a generator. You can have a portable generator hard wired into your home with it's own circuit breaker panel. The size of the generator depends on your house. Any generator, portable or permanent needs to be started once a month and run for awhile. The other option is home standby generators, also called whole-house generators, they are permanently installed by a pro and have insulated weatherproof housing that keeps them relatively quiet. The advantages? They kick on automatically when the lights go out, and they can power everything in your home at once. They also self start and run once a month. These are expensive but convenient and last about 15 years before they need to be replaced. There are also solar options just coming on the market, I'd wait on that to see how that technology progresses.

dpceee OP t1_j8ecmcg wrote on February 13, 2023 at 6:12 PM

You've described exactly what we did after the storm, except we went with the more simple option. The hookup is on the outside of the house and there is a four switch panel in the basement that controls that.

However, we've not gotten it so sophisticated, since our generator is in 80-90 year old garage. The generator we got still needs to be plugged into the outside of the house, but that's better than snaking an orange extension cable through the house.