6/18/21 Boy Scout Motto "Be Prepared"?

     Technically, I was a Boy Scout for a summer or so and the take away from that is that we learned that we must always "Be Prepared".  On that note, the state has told us to prepare for rolling blackouts this summer and that is something I am not excited or willing to live with.  As a consequence, I have been looking for a generator to provide power when and if we are put in that position of no electricity if even for a few minutes.

    There are two ways that I see to do this.  We could either buy a nice sized generator that will run a window unit air conditioner and maybe the freezer and refrigerator along with some lights.  This would also require us buying a good sized window unit and it would have to be large because all the rooms are big in our house.  In this scenario I would imagine the generator sitting in the patio in the back and the electricity coming in through extension cords.  This might be a little sloppy but the generator would be a portable power source if we ever needed power away from home, and running on gas is something we could keep handy as long as we had gas in the cars and a few containers.  This type of unit would cost around $1000 or so.

    The other way to do this would be to get a whole house generator, Lowe's carries the Generac brand and this come on in the event of a power out and will run the whole house once an electrician connects it to the house main panel.  My biggest fear with this is that it is big and meant to sit outside like an air conditioner unit which means in this day and age it would be susceptible to getting stolen, you know how shit humans are.  These type of generators seem to run off propane or natural gas, so a house cylinder would also have to be installed.  Apart from the cost of an electrician to install, it would require a cylinder and routine fill-ups of gas, not as easy as getting unleaded gas at a gas station.  These units are also more like $8000-$10,000.

    In an emergency, I don't know how much you would want to stick out with a loud generator humming in the yard attracting undesirables specially if you are the only house in the area with power.  The more I think of it, the portable generator seems the better route, but I do like the convenience of having use of the whole house and not being confined to one comfortable room.  Are events like the freeze going to become more common?  Are blackouts a new normal to get used to?  If so, I'll get a hole house unit, but like everything, it is probably being blown out of proportion in my head.