Who doesn’t want to be the envy of their neighbors, toasty warm with the lights on, when they’re freezing in the dark?
You can be if you have 10 or 20 thousand dollars to spare and someplace on your property to put a standby generator.
For most people, that’s as much a vanity purchase as a convenience. In many places, power outages are infrequent and last only a few hours, so it’s not worth the expense. Generac, the leading manufacturer, estimated that as of 2013 about 3% of U.S. homes were equipped with them (source here). Most people either wait for the power to come back on or improvise with a portable generator.
A brief word about portables. For computers and sensitive electronics, you need an inverter generator that produces “clean” power. The popular Honda 2200 inverter generator, which retails for about $1200, is about as reliable as they come. You can get cheaper inverter generators, but you get what you pay for. The biggest disadvantage of portables is their limited output; a 2000-watt generator can run a microwave or a computer, but probably not both at the same time. Also, a heating furnace hard-wired into the house circuitry can’t be run off a portable. You can discuss with an electrician how to hook up your home to a portable if you really want to go that route and see if there was a way that spare heat can be used in the house during an outage.
Some areas of the country are more prone to prolonged outages than others. A hurricane can take down power for a couple of weeks. Of course, if your house didn’t survive the hurricane, that’s the least of your troubles. In the cold states, where winter storms cause most outages, it doesn’t take that long for loss of heat to be acutely felt. And not just boilers; gas furnaces need electricity for their blowers. When power outages occur frequently, your heating systems or boilers may malfunction, requiring you to contact this service provider or similar others in your vicinity. Other issues to consider are food spoilage (although in cold climates, food in a refrigerator should be okay for at least a couple of days) and loss of internet access.
These problems go away if you install a full-house standby generator that replaces grid power when the latter goes down. Provided, of course, it isn’t put out of action by mechanical malfunction or lack of fuel. You can’t assume the availability of fuel. (If power is out in your neighborhood, you won’t be able to get gas for your portable, because the gas station pumps won’t be working.) Standby generators can run on diesel, natural gas, or propane; natural gas is a popular choice, but if the gas system fails along with the electrical system, as it just did in Texas because the gas pipeline pumps need electricity, your generator is nothing but an idle lump of metal. So you might want to consider propane.
If you live in Texas, you should consider only propane, install a large propane tank, and keep it filled (you could Visit kellypropane.com to learn more). Accordingly, you can learn more about all the necessary equipment needed for a propane gas generator by taking a look at some of the useful resources on propane gas supplier websites such as nelsonpropane.com. Of course, it is not just residential properties that can benefit from stocking up on propane gas. Hospitals and certain businesses must have reliable backup power, so fuel reliability is studied at length. You can even read an experts’ report on that subject here.
From a homeowner’s perspective, diesel generators are noisy and best suited to rural locations, and natural gas is likely to be the most convenient fuel in a city. Where you have neighbors close by, noise can be an issue. Water-cooled standby generators are the quietest, and pretty standard for large generators, but also more expensive. A house-sized air-cooled generator sounds like a loud lawnmower.
Generators that tie into a gas main and house wiring need to be professionally installed. They require a transfer switch that isolates the generator’s electricity from the powerline. Without this, your generator could kill or injure a lineman working to restore grid power. The transfer switch shunts your home circuits to the generator when grid power goes out, and back to the grid when power comes back on. Because it takes a couple minutes for the generator power to kick in, you want a backup battery with 5 to 10 minutes of reserve power for your computer (these cost about $100 or less).
A water-cooled standby generator for a house probably will cost around $20,000 to $25,000 including installation, and will power all the circuits, including the 220-volt circuits to the stove and clothes dryer, with power to spare. You don’t really need the 220 circuits for 99% of outages, or that much power; for about half that price, you can install an air-cooled generator to run the 110-volt circuits, which is everything except the stove and clothes dryer. You’ll have a working microwave, and you can buy a decent hotplate for about $25. Caveat: If you have central air conditioning, it probably requires 220 power, and if summer power demand blackouts are a potential issue in your area, you’ll probably want that larger (and quieter) generator despite the higher cost. If you own, or anticipate owning, an electric car that’s another reason to consider 220 generator power.
Generators, whether portable or installed, have to be outdoors. They exhaust carbon monoxide, just like cars. (See article here.) Zoning and building codes specify how far they must be located from a house wall or property boundary. Generally speaking, you want an open clear area away from fences and sheds. I wouldn’t put it where it could be hit by a vehicle.
Probably the trickiest part of buying a standby generator is choosing an installer. You can run afoul of poor service and padded bills if you don’t do due diligence. You want an authorized dealer for the brand of generator you’re buying, preferably a specialist for whom generators are their business and not a sideline, someone without a lot of bad online reviews, who is dependable and will service it for you. (Generators require periodic maintenance.) This will required some looking. A qualified installer will be a licensed electrician who’s also certified to work on gas lines. The completed installation will have to pass electrical and gas inspections before it can be used.
Don’t think you can call a generator installer during a winter storm and expect to have a generator the next day. The lead time is likely to be 6-8 weeks or more. On top of that, it may take a couple weeks for the inspectors to show up, and a couple weeks more if corrections and reinspections are required.
The best time to undertake a generator installation is from late spring to early fall, not when the storm season is approaching and everyone suddenly wants a generator on short notice. The actual installation takes at least 2 or 3 days, the installer can do only so many installations in a month, and you may be quite a ways down on a waiting list. Also, because a standy generator is a major purchase, you want to do your homework and give it lots of thought before you make decisions about whether to take the leap, what size and type and brand to buy, choosing an installer, and so on. From start to finish, the entire process could take 3 or 4 months, maybe longer.
Bottom line, it’s a nice convenience to have for $10,000 or so, and if you use it 10 times for an average duration of 4 hours, that electricity will cost you $250 an hour plus fuel and maintenance. This makes more sense if you have essential medical equipment. your livelihood depends on having your computers up and running, or you live in a rural area with a lot of trees where winter outages are common and can last a couple days or longer. And it makes a lot of sense if you live in Texas, where the grid is unreliable in freezing weather. Otherwise, it’s more a luxury than a necessity. If it’s something you want and are willing to pay for, as with any costly home improvement, it makes more sense if you plan to stay in the house than if you might move in a few years. It might add to resale value, but not what you paid for it.