When the February blizzard unplugged my Connecticut home from the power grid for the fourth time in recent years, the whining started immediately: here we go again with the spoiled food, the lack of running water, the dormant oil burner.
We layered up for the first night, and cooked food in the fireplace on Day 2 like good campers. Then, heading into the second night of the storm amid plunging temperatures, we settled around the fire. All I could think of was our vulnerability to a house fire or carbon monoxide fumes from the fireplace.
Time for a generator.
Time, in other words, to bleed money and enter a process where I’d try to conceal deep ignorance while talking to retailers and electrical contractors — all of whom, of course, knew better.
To keep the fiscal bleeding to a minimum, I sought guidance from people who know a thing or two about buying and installing generators. They included Julie Selton, a master electrician who teaches electrical technology at Saint Paul College, in St. Paul; Stephen Borrelli, president of All-Brite Electric in Connecticut; Michael McAlister, a co-author of “Wiring Complete,” a reference book for homeowners; and Lisette Rice, the Home Depot’s generator merchant. (She reminded me that the smart time to buy and install a generator is when the forecast is free of blizzards or hurricanes, when you don’t have to fight the crowds for one.)
My experts suggested brushing up on some basic electrical knowledge, getting to know your home’s wiring and thinking hard about what you really need to get through a storm. Doing so, they said, can save you considerable amounts of money, and maybe save a life in the meantime.
We’ll get to that drama later. First, though, Ms. Selton said, homeowners should decide which parts of their homes are truly crucial. “Is it a freezer with hundreds of dollars worth of meat in it?” she said. “A well pump? A home office you have to power up?”
If the answer is that you want your entire house to work as it normally does, have an extra $8,000 to $10,000 on hand. So-called standby generators from manufacturers like Kohler, Caterpillar, Generac and Cummins Onan are miracles of engineering that switch on automatically when your electricity shuts off, and can power everything in your house. Read More
