Winter is coming—do you need a backup generator for your home?

When Winter Storm Uri—or as I like to call it, the Snowpocalypse—hit Texas back in February, leaving over three and a half million residents without power for multiple days, I was not prepared.

I spent the first night bundled up in bed with my dog, who was there for body heat. It was 32* in my house, and even wearing every layer I owned, I was miserable. The second night, I got crafty. I found a DIY project online—a feat I was only able to accomplish after charging my phone in the car for two hours—for a “home heating hack” that claimed lighting tea candles under a terra cotta pot could warm up an entire room. Let me tell you right now—it does not.

Unfortunately, large-scale power outages following inclement weather or other climate crises are becoming commonplace. Damage from Hurricane Ida in September resulted in power outages for over 1.2 million electricity customers across eight states. Thousands of families in southeast Louisiana had to wait more than two weeks before power could be restored to the area.

If you’re concerned about how your family would weather a multiple-day power system failure, it may be time to consider purchasing a backup generator for your home. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some situations in which a generator can be absolutely critical and compare features of the two types of generators you can get.

 

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