Who has gone all electric in a colder climate?

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

@WayDownSouth - I live in the city limits of Denver. A power outage lasting days or weeks would be an apocalypse on a scale that would mean we have bigger problems.

[WayDownSouth]

Okay, buen suerte entonces!

[Dictionary Time]

How would gas keep your house warm in a power outage without electricity to run the blower? Just running the oven and burners?

[WayDownSouth]

How would gas keep your house warm in a power outage without electricity to run the blower? Just running the oven and burners?

Because the backup systems generally run a battery system for the fan motor or use a different model than that altogether. For example completely different design than a typical furnace. Many solutions if you search online. Several of these are straight emergency though and not for regular use. Generator is a must-have addition as well IMO.

For example, you can setup the blower motor on a gas furnace to be run by a generator with the right equipment installed and the expense is low, which is cool too if you already have gas and want to add electric. Turn off your gas line when not using, and in case of emergency, open gas line, use generator, fire up furnace... I just personally wouldn't underestimate the need for a solid gas backup solution of some sort and also a generator.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

[Cranky]

It kind of depends on your pipe location and insulation, and I don’t know how to figure that out, but we did have the occasional frozen pipe when we lived in Denver. Gas heat doesn’t help if the electric goes down, so I’d rely on the electric space heaters, I guess.

[Retire-Canada]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver.

I've lived all over Canada and nobody I know has owned a backup generator. In ~50 years here losing power long enough to be a problem in winter has never happened to me. Not saying it could never happen, but it's a pretty outside possibility. As mentioned EVs being common in the future may end up being a built in mitigation for that issue.

[WayDownSouth]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

My bad, I thought you were trying to eliminate the potential for a gas leak since your husband cannot smell and since you have a young child. I thought those would also be intelligent reasons to ensure you always have a heat source. There's a lot of Military in your area so maybe the power grid is super-reinforced, or constructed heavy-duty to hold up in the large amounts of snow.

[uniwelder]

There are lots of people with dooms-day prepper mindset in the outlying area of where I live, so whole house generators are more common than their cost-benefit justifies.  It's largely a cultural thing.  Let's spend $5,000 to make sure we don't lose $100 worth of food in the fridge/freezer, plus I can still watch tv while running the air conditioner.

If you want a practical solution for electricity, here's an article I always like to reference---- https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/02/can-a-pint-sized-power-inverter-replace-a-generator/index.htm 
Buy a $100 inverter that you can hook up to your car battery, then run an extension cord into your house for any essentials you need.  I would prefer an alternate heat backup myself, so perhaps a small kerosene space heater, like I mentioned earlier.

edited to add-- looking up kerosene heaters, you can buy a new one for about $150-200 and a 5 gallon canister of kerosene will stay good for at least 5 years.  I know I've burned some that must have been 10 years old.

[nereo]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

As winter climates go, Denver CO isn't terribly challenging (IECC Zone 6).  It's at or more mild than all of Canada (save coastal BC), northern New England and most of the Great Lakes region. As has been pointed out, there are millions of homes in this region which are electric only and have no non-electric source of backup heat. That doesn't mean that it's risk free, only that it can be done without consequence under most circumstances.

When considering how an all-electric system can fail, I find it helpful to list out backup options and what they can (and can't) protect against.

tl;dr - there's no perfect source of backup electricity and heat.  The majority of electric-only homes go decades with little more than occasional power disruptions that get resolved before any real damage occurs (within a 48 hours), but there is a possibility (albeit slight) that you can loose power for several days during a particularly cold snap.

Gas Heat
Pros: Depending on size can heat entire house even in sub-zero conditions.
Cons: Typically still needs some electricity (blowers and control unit), albeit at low electrical load (i.e. coupled with a generator or battery backup). Requires redundant system ($$$) often with typical monthly hookup fee ($). Natural disasters which disrupt electrical service often also disrupt gas delivery (particularly earthquakes and fire). Does nothing for extreme summer heat waves.

Wood burning stove:
Pros: Use only when needed, often cheapest form of heat
Cons: Risk to small children. Needs supply of wood, must be at home to work, risk of fire/CO - particularly if not maintained. Air pollution. Does nothing for extreme summer heat waves.

Pellet Stove
Pros: Substantial heat. Lower storage requirements than corded firewood.  Can be programed
Cons: Risk to small children. Needs power (or battery backup) to work.  Does nothing for extreme summer heat waves.

Fireplace:
Pros: May be "pre-installed" in your home. Otherwise not many
Cons: Basically worse than a pellet stove or wood burning stove in every way. Risk to small children. Needs supply of wood, must be at home to work, risk of fire/CO - particularly if not maintained. Air pollution. Does nothing for extreme summer heat waves.

Propane/Kerosene space heater:
Pros: Very inexpensive
Cons: Serious fire and CO risks. Must be at home to use. Should never be left unattended. Probably your worst option for small children.

Propane hearth / "Rinnai"-style heater
Pros: Fairly cost effective
Cons; Vented versions require expensive piping and solid installation. Unvented versions dump water vapor into your home - extensive use can cause serious issues. Requires exterior propane tanks. Only provides heat and is worthless for summer heat waves.

Portable Generator
Pros: Among the cheapest option
Cons: noisy, needs either transfer switch ($$) or running extension cords. Must be refueled every few hours at load.  Won't work if you are away

On-Demand Generator (propane)
Pros: Can supply your whole house with all the power you need. Works when you aren't home.
Cons: Stupid-expensive. Needs propane tank to operate. Often the highest per-kw energy cost. Ugly lawn ornament.

On-Demand Generator (gas)
Pros: Can supply your whole house with all the power you need. Works when you aren't home.
Cons: Stupid-expensive. Needs gas hookup (with fees).  Gas supply can be disrupted by same events that disrupt power (e.g. earthquake, wildfires) Ugly lawn ornament.

Whole house battery backup
Pros: works particularly well when coupled with PVs (particularly with metering and recouping costs over time). Works when you are away.
Cons: Stupid-expensive. Takes up interior wall space.  High embodied energy. Typically supplies only 1-3 days in winter unless coupled with PVs

[GilesMM]

Generator necessity depends on your climate, electricity reliability and how an outage affects you.  Most hospitals have generators.  Most NYC residents do not.


In the PNW, a lot of people have them.  Where we live everyone is on well water and the power goes off for 4-15 days every winter when the ice storms hit.  No juice means no water pumped up the well. Toilet flushing becomes an issue.  It can get pretty tiresome, especially when roads are iced over or blocked with downed trees. We have a large generator and all our neighbors have whole house generators with transfer switches. The last two installed them last summer.  Some of us have natural gas service while others use propane. I think one guy has an underground diesel tank.


After the incident in Texas a couple years ago a lot of people installed them there as well. Costco sells them for around $5k, reflecting their great popularity.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

Generator necessity depends on your climate, electricity reliability and how an outage affects you.  Most hospitals have generators.  Most NYC residents do not.


In the PNW, a lot of people have them.  Where we live everyone is on well water and the power goes off for 4-15 days every winter when the ice storms hit.  No juice means no water pumped up the well. Toilet flushing becomes an issue.  It can get pretty tiresome, especially when roads are iced over or blocked with downed trees. We have a large generator and all our neighbors have whole house generators with transfer switches. The last two installed them last summer.  Some of us have natural gas service while others use propane. I think one guy has an underground diesel tank.


After the incident in Texas a couple years ago a lot of people installed them there as well. Costco sells them for around $5k, reflecting their great popularity.

Yeah, I think my folks have one- they're on well and septic (and their septic is uphill, so it has to be pumped as well) and they are in a more rural area, so it would take longer for their power to be restored. Doesn't seem necessary here.

We decided against having backup heat at all. Instead, we are going to take some money and improve the insulation in the attic. I crawled around up there back in 2019 when we first moved in and sprayed in 8 bags of cellulose, but it needs more. Much more! Apparently we are only at R15! Ouch! At the time, it only had the blanket kind, nothing blown in.

There's also a bunch of leak sealing up there that needs to be done that is definitely beyond my skill level. We are going to get a quote on having the whole thing done. If it's really $$ then I might just have them to the sealing and blow in the cellulose myself, but:
-I've gained thirty-five pounds since the last time I crawled around the attic: The quarantine 15 AND the fertility 15. And of course 5 years old. Less limber, more easily injured.
-We would need someone to watch the baby (see above!)

[seattlecyclone]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

My bad, I thought you were trying to eliminate the potential for a gas leak since your husband cannot smell and since you have a young child. I thought those would also be intelligent reasons to ensure you always have a heat source. There's a lot of Military in your area so maybe the power grid is super-reinforced, or constructed heavy-duty to hold up in the large amounts of snow.

The need for a backup depends on how likely it is for your primary to fail, and how long such a failure is likely to last. If a multi-day power outage in mid-winter is relatively common in your area, yeah a backup generator may make some sense. In my particular area, in 15 years of living in Seattle, I've never had a power outage lasting more than a few hours. I have some sweaters and a small stack of firewood in my garage. A generator would be overkill.

[AccidentialMustache]

We decided against having backup heat at all. Instead, we are going to take some money and improve the insulation in the attic. I crawled around up there back in 2019 when we first moved in and sprayed in 8 bags of cellulose, but it needs more. Much more! Apparently we are only at R15! Ouch! At the time, it only had the blanket kind, nothing blown in.

A little late to the party but I've been all-electric in a similar climate (IL) for 15 years now. No problems getting heat. We've had two, well three heat pumps -- one geo, one air sourced and the air sourced's replacement. The geo was nice because it was (probably still is) SILENT. Like put your ear to the unit to know if it is running. The new house's original air source heat pump was fine but not particularly efficient. Our replacement air sourced (trane) is in theory more efficient (works in colder temps) but gets real noisy in the deep cold. I'm not impressed with it. Unfortunately Mitsubishi and the other Asian heat pump brands busted onto the scene after this house's original air source heat pump decided to copper-steel corrosion all the slated-for-banning refrigerant out... so we missed that boat by having to replace too soon.

All of ours have had backup heat -- but backup in this case is electric strip heat, integrated into the unit itself as "aux heat". IMO that's a reasonable way to do it. Strip heat is cheap to add and good insurance if there is a problem in the heat pump parts. Inefficient though, so you want to not need to run it on anything but the very coldest day or two.

[nereo]

We decided against having backup heat at all. Instead, we are going to take some money and improve the insulation in the attic. I crawled around up there back in 2019 when we first moved in and sprayed in 8 bags of cellulose, but it needs more. Much more! Apparently we are only at R15! Ouch! At the time, it only had the blanket kind, nothing blown in.

There's also a bunch of leak sealing up there that needs to be done that is definitely beyond my skill level. We are going to get a quote on having the whole thing done. If it's really $$ then I might just have them to the sealing and blow in the cellulose myself, but:
-I've gained thirty-five pounds since the last time I crawled around the attic: The quarantine 15 AND the fertility 15. And of course 5 years old. Less limber, more easily injured.
-We would need someone to watch the baby (see above!)

Without a doubt, air sealing and improving insulation (in that order) are the mot impactful improvements you can make in your home in terms of HVAC/Comfort. 

In your climate (zone 6) it's recommended that you have a minimum R-49 in your attic, but blown cellulose is so cheap that I'd strongly recommend R-60 assuming there's no weird access issues (like a very narrow headspace where you can't get ≥18" of cellulose and maintain airflow above.

Airsealing has an even greater ROI, as it can typically be done with little more than expanding foam, caulk and gaskets.

[Cranky]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

Interestingly, we biked through a neighborhood yesterday that is quite near ours but considerably fancier than ours. Just about every house had a generator. Now we know where to loot when the power goes out! ;-)

[nereo]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

Interestingly, we biked through a neighborhood yesterday that is quite near ours but considerably fancier than ours. Just about every house had a generator. Now we know where to loot when the power goes out! ;-)

In another forum there was a lively discussion about how generators (and access to one) is becoming the next socio-economic division. 

If we assume that the grid will become less reliable with more frequent and more intense natural disasters on top of an already aging infrastructure, the people who can afford to install a $10-15k "instant on, whole-house" generator will go about life-as-usual while those without will be impacted the most.  That can range from losing all your food in your fridge to not being able to work if you are WFH.

tl;dr -whole house generators - the new economic status symbol

[NorCal]

I have never heard of anyone owning a generator in Denver. I think this must be a difference in personality - I don't generally prepare for things that have never happened. If my power went out tomorrow, I wouldn't have heat.

I do plan to get solar panels next year and possibly an electric car at some point (their batteries can apparently provide some backup I. A pinch

Interestingly, we biked through a neighborhood yesterday that is quite near ours but considerably fancier than ours. Just about every house had a generator. Now we know where to loot when the power goes out! ;-)

In another forum there was a lively discussion about how generators (and access to one) is becoming the next socio-economic division. 

If we assume that the grid will become less reliable with more frequent and more intense natural disasters on top of an already aging infrastructure, the people who can afford to install a $10-15k "instant on, whole-house" generator will go about life-as-usual while those without will be impacted the most.  That can range from losing all your food in your fridge to not being able to work if you are WFH.

tl;dr -whole house generators - the new economic status symbol

There's something to this, although it varies by geography.  I think this is one more economic advantage to urban or urbanish living.  Buried utilities and dense utility networks simply have fewer single-points-of failure.  Rural areas just don't get those same benefits of density.  But the well-off in areas with unreliable power can purchase resilience. 

My personal prediction for 10 to 15 years out is that a socioeconomic divide will open up between those that can afford to ditch fossil fuels and those that can't.  Ditching fossil fuels of any type is now doable, but it comes with some upfront costs.  There's also an advantage built in for homeowners and those that can charge EV's at home. 

When I look at the fossil fuel infrastructure, I see lots of network effects, high fixed costs, huge fixed assets, and expensive skilled employees.  Simply having a couple percent of users drop out of this network over time will start adding up.  Those fixed costs will get passed on to a smaller and smaller userbase, making them ever more unaffordable.  This isn't an imminent change, but it will be pretty major when it happens.  I suspect the financial viability of a lot of the mid-stream infrastructure (refiners, pipelines, etc) will be in question long before fossil-fuel users are ready to give them up entirely. 

[MayDay]

It really is so regional. When we lived an hour outside of Columbus, we lost power all the time and it took a while to come back on sometimes. Whole house generators were common. We rented a house that had one and I loved it. The house was on well water so no electricity= no water. It was really stressful to be at constant risk of no electricity. Silly? Maybe but I don't care.

Now we live in Mpls and have lived here a total of maybe 16-18 years. I can't think of a single time we've lost power. It would be completely silly to have a generator here.

[Just Joe]

Ugh - I’m so sorry, though im not terribly surprised. It’s tough to get trades to do anything “new” (to them)

I don’t get this. Our “new to us” place has heat pumps from 2008 installed by the same local HVAC company around today.  There was gas available then so not sure what the thinking was but glad they did it because the house has solar now to defray costs of electricity.

What is it that you don’t “get”? Could you rephrase what you mean?

I don't get that HVAC contractors are playing dumb that heat pumps are not a thing in 2024 when they have been a thing for ages.

Yep, my parents have had heat pumps since the early 1980s.

Another data point for OP: we switched to gas from very expensive local propane. We did not own the tank and so we had vendor lock and their prices became very high. We have a house generator so I want to have gas for the foreseeable future. The past couple of years though the electricity has been quite reliable. Not so when we first moved here.

Switched to HPWH from instant hot water heater (propane only). Love it b/c it dehumidifies the basement. Replaced the upstairs a/c and electric heat. Thought it was a heat pump, not so. Had several quotes that were crazy high. Went with a recommended HVAC supplier. Should have studied more, listened less. System works great but doesn't heat well below ~25F. It struggles. We had a week long cold snap of sub-10F and it switched over to electric backup heat. Downstairs has a gas furnace and a/c unit. Figured out that we could adjust the upstairs thermostat down to 62F and the downstairs thermostat up to 67F and the heat pump didn't come on as much. I have gas/monoxide/smoke detectors throughout the house.

At a previous house we put in a Trane heat pump / gas furnace hybrid. Very nice machine. Switchover temp was ~34F I think. I liked that setup because all the gas lines were outside and the meter was less than 4 ft from the furnace. Everything else was electric.

Long term in this house I think we'll do a heat pump / gas hybrid for the main floor when the existing system ages out. We have alot of mild winter weather (30s-40s) where heat pumps thrive but we need the capability to heat to 0F occasionally. We have a gas log fireplace but I need to replace the gas logs. Currently only propane rated so the fuel is off. Same with an area wall heater in the basement which was strictly emergency heat b/c it was an unvented propane heater. Not fond of breathing the exhaust.

[Just Joe]

One more anecdote: we had a major ice storm a few years ago. That's generally what we see here - ice. 

Friend had no electricity so no heat. No backup. We discussed options for them but as far as I know, they never did anything about it. 

Our power went out for ~6 hours hours and the generator did its job. However b/c we were on propane I could not know how much propane we had left. Had our power stayed out, we could not have lasted the week heating the house and running the generator. That was part of the motivation to get off propane and on to gas.

We invited friend and pets over to stay with us so it all worked out well.

Consider this: we have an all electric house aside from the gas furnace. The generator is not a large generator, only ~12K watts or so. We can't power the electric stove so I need to bring in our butane powered camp stove. Can heat the house, can run the water heater, can power the common areas and the master bedroom.

[NorCal]

I'm looking forward to the day that EV batteries are a viable backup system.  There's a few models that can do it today, but it's impracticable and expensive.  I suspect this will be a standard feature 10 years from now, although the home install will always have some level of upfront costs. 

Most people don't appreciate how big the battery in an EV is.  The newest high-capacity Tesla powerwalls are 13.5kWh.  Most ~300 mile range EV's have 65-75kWh batteries.  A Rivian or a Lightning have ~130kWh batteries.

For context, my family of 4 uses about 15kWh/day excluding hvac and EV charging.  These batteries can theoretically power a lot of house without the need for a generator. 

[nereo]

I'm looking forward to the day that EV batteries are a viable backup system.  There's a few models that can do it today, but it's impracticable and expensive.  I suspect this will be a standard feature 10 years from now, although the home install will always have some level of upfront costs. 

Most people don't appreciate how big the battery in an EV is.  The newest high-capacity Tesla powerwalls are 13.5kWh.  Most ~300 mile range EV's have 65-75kWh batteries.  A Rivian or a Lightning have ~130kWh batteries.

For context, my family of 4 uses about 15kWh/day excluding hvac and EV charging.  These batteries can theoretically power a lot of house without the need for a generator.

That brings up an interesting philosophical topic - do we prioritize individual resilience to power outages (and include things like transfer switches and whole-house generators in builds and permitting, and on- site power generation) or do we prioritize a resilient, dynamic grid?

The more we move towards the former the less important the latter becomes. Which is all good if it’s equally distributed… but right now that’s certainly not the case.

I’ve spent some time working in developing countries with highly unreliable grids. There’s a palpable advantage for those who can have reliable access to power (either by being in the “nicer” neighborhoods with new infrastructure or because they’ve installed and pay for their own generators (which gets stupidly expensive when it’s most of the time).

[WayDownSouth]

I'm looking forward to the day that EV batteries are a viable backup system.  There's a few models that can do it today, but it's impracticable and expensive.  I suspect this will be a standard feature 10 years from now, although the home install will always have some level of upfront costs. 

Most people don't appreciate how big the battery in an EV is.  The newest high-capacity Tesla powerwalls are 13.5kWh.  Most ~300 mile range EV's have 65-75kWh batteries.  A Rivian or a Lightning have ~130kWh batteries.

For context, my family of 4 uses about 15kWh/day excluding hvac and EV charging.  These batteries can theoretically power a lot of house without the need for a generator.

That brings up an interesting philosophical topic - do we prioritize individual resilience to power outages (and include things like transfer switches and whole-house generators in builds and permitting, and on- site power generation) or do we prioritize a resilient, dynamic grid?

The more we move towards the former the less important the latter becomes. Which is all good if it’s equally distributed… but right now that’s certainly not the case.

I’ve spent some time working in developing countries with highly unreliable grids. There’s a palpable advantage for those who can have reliable access to power (either by being in the “nicer” neighborhoods with new infrastructure or because they’ve installed and pay for their own generators (which gets stupidly expensive when it’s most of the time).

I'd much rather live with the comfort and confidence of knowing that I am capable of providing for myself in any given event apart from complete apocalypse. This is the same for food, basic medical, etc...

Too many people IMO here think they don't need a generator and it's silly because they've never lost power. I think that's nuts to put your lives and faith in the hands of power companies - regardless of their track record. If you want something done right, you sometime have to do it yourself. And while you don't require a massive generator to heat your whole house and sit around with full-featured living, I think it's a smart move for at least every other household to have a portable generator that can be combined with other methods to help ensure not only staying warm, but many things that electricity offers us. In any location, in any climate.

A little Honda generator on wheels can be the difference between life and death, or maybe just a more comfortable night's sleep until the grid kicks in again.

[Just Joe]

I don't think a grid needs to prioritize individual addresses or the grid as a whole. Build a solid grid. As the irregularities decrease, people will be less motivated to seek house generators and house batteries b/c the cost will be unnecessary.

We have a house generator b/c it was there when we bought our used house. It was important when we first moved in b/c the grid was not reliable. Better in 2024. Ice storms and winds knocked out the power often back then. Many people around here have fireplaces and wood stoves which can deliver heat when the power is off. In 2024 it's easy to light the house with LED lamps and keep the TV on with a battery "power station" for a few days.

Eventually we hope to own an EV like a Leaf with a 60+ kwh battery that can power the important circuits - heat and food refrigeration mostly.

[tygertygertyger]

I would MUCH rather have a solid grid. But admittedly, we do have a generator. When we were looking at houses a couple years back, there were two houses that had their own generators. We ended up getting ours, which was one of them.

We think the generator was installed due to a power outage a few years back in which the basement flooded... they wanted a backup to their backup sump pump. Since we've moved in, there have been minor power outages (a few minutes at a time) but nothing major.

The generator is supposed to run a short auto-test once a month, but we found ours coming on more often... so we think there were micro-outages tripping it on. We ended up shutting it off and haven't had it tested. That's on the list but it's not a priority. Bah.

[NorCal]

I'm looking forward to the day that EV batteries are a viable backup system.  There's a few models that can do it today, but it's impracticable and expensive.  I suspect this will be a standard feature 10 years from now, although the home install will always have some level of upfront costs. 

Most people don't appreciate how big the battery in an EV is.  The newest high-capacity Tesla powerwalls are 13.5kWh.  Most ~300 mile range EV's have 65-75kWh batteries.  A Rivian or a Lightning have ~130kWh batteries.

For context, my family of 4 uses about 15kWh/day excluding hvac and EV charging.  These batteries can theoretically power a lot of house without the need for a generator.

That brings up an interesting philosophical topic - do we prioritize individual resilience to power outages (and include things like transfer switches and whole-house generators in builds and permitting, and on- site power generation) or do we prioritize a resilient, dynamic grid?

The more we move towards the former the less important the latter becomes. Which is all good if it’s equally distributed… but right now that’s certainly not the case.

I’ve spent some time working in developing countries with highly unreliable grids. There’s a palpable advantage for those who can have reliable access to power (either by being in the “nicer” neighborhoods with new infrastructure or because they’ve installed and pay for their own generators (which gets stupidly expensive when it’s most of the time).

I'd much rather live with the comfort and confidence of knowing that I am capable of providing for myself in any given event apart from complete apocalypse. This is the same for food, basic medical, etc...

Too many people IMO here think they don't need a generator and it's silly because they've never lost power. I think that's nuts to put your lives and faith in the hands of power companies - regardless of their track record. If you want something done right, you sometime have to do it yourself. And while you don't require a massive generator to heat your whole house and sit around with full-featured living, I think it's a smart move for at least every other household to have a portable generator that can be combined with other methods to help ensure not only staying warm, but many things that electricity offers us. In any location, in any climate.

A little Honda generator on wheels can be the difference between life and death, or maybe just a more comfortable night's sleep until the grid kicks in again.

That's a fair point.  It depends on what you're defining as backup "needs".  The price of insurance against backups is more than linear.

Getting something that will back up a 1,500W load is fairly straightforward and affordable.  Getting something that will back up a 20kW peak home load is an entirely different story.

My EV can already handle a 1,500W load.  This could run a space heater, my induction cook-top, my refrigerator, and plenty of small items like phone charging.  It just can't handle them all at once. 

[GilesMM]

I would MUCH rather have a solid grid. But admittedly, we do have a generator. When we were looking at houses a couple years back, there were two houses that had their own generators. We ended up getting ours, which was one of them.

We think the generator was installed due to a power outage a few years back in which the basement flooded... they wanted a backup to their backup sump pump. Since we've moved in, there have been minor power outages (a few minutes at a time) but nothing major.

The generator is supposed to run a short auto-test once a month, but we found ours coming on more often... so we think there were micro-outages tripping it on. We ended up shutting it off and haven't had it tested. That's on the list but it's not a priority. Bah.

It is best to run it regularly lest it fail to start up when you need it. Ours exercises 30 min weekly to get to full operating temp, circulate oil, etc.

[Just Joe]

I would MUCH rather have a solid grid. But admittedly, we do have a generator. When we were looking at houses a couple years back, there were two houses that had their own generators. We ended up getting ours, which was one of them.

We think the generator was installed due to a power outage a few years back in which the basement flooded... they wanted a backup to their backup sump pump. Since we've moved in, there have been minor power outages (a few minutes at a time) but nothing major.

The generator is supposed to run a short auto-test once a month, but we found ours coming on more often... so we think there were micro-outages tripping it on. We ended up shutting it off and haven't had it tested. That's on the list but it's not a priority. Bah.

It is best to run it regularly lest it fail to start up when you need it. Ours exercises 30 min weekly to get to full operating temp, circulate oil, etc.

Same. Our fuel solenoid got flaky when I switched over to gas from propane (dual fuel). Runs fine now. Don't let it sit too long. Find out what is tripping the generator. Might be a larger problem independent of the generator.