Are you a home or business owner who understands the risks that power outages cause to your family or organization? If so, you are not alone. Thousands of people just like you are purchasing items like standby generators for just that reason. The fact is, you never know when you will lose power, and if it happens you don’t want your loved ones or employees to be in any sort of danger. Below are just three of the biggest reasons that you should be looking into generator installation:
Grid Outages – Did you know that from January to June, 2014 there were 130 reported grid outages? That is over twenty per month! The cause of these grid outages can vary from waning infrastructure to trees and animals on power lines and near transformers. If you live in an area of the country that is plagued with quite a bit of power outages then having a couple of standby generators would be a game changer for you.
Unpredictable Weather – Outages caused by weather might be one of the best reasons to have standby generators on hand. Weather-related electricity disruptions cost American business owners over $100 billion per year, and much of that could be avoided if a properly sized generator had been installed. If you live in one of the many states in America that sees tornadoes or hurricanes regularly then you probably know what it is like to have a sudden storm take away your power for hours or days at a time. Be prepared for it next time by having one or two standby generators to count on.
Food Waste – When power outages occur, one of the first things that crosses people’s minds is whether or not the food in their refrigerator and freezer will go bad or not. A good rule of thumb is to keep the doors to the appliances closed, because if the power is out for less than 4 hours, then the food will still be safe. Where the concern usually comes in is when the outages lasts much longer than 4 hours. Ice storms in the south sometimes leave people outside of city limits without power for weeks at a time. Be prepared with standby generators so that this doesn’t happen to you.
The size of the generator you need is determined by what you need to supply power to. For instance, if you are just needing to power an outdoor barbeque with a video system and maybe some warming trays, then your generator size could be around 1,000 watts. If you were needing to power your entire home, however, you would need quite a bit more current. There are generator size calculators online if you are curious! Whole house generators vary in pricing, but are absolutely great to have around if you are suddenly facing a long-term outage.