There is nothing worse than being left out in the dark, literally! Power outages can be dangerous and inconvenient and with today's modern appliances and technology, dependency on electricity is even more critical than it was years ago. Without a generator, power outages can cause pipes to freeze, food spoilage, heat loss, cause mold to grow, and plastic to crack. This is especially applicable if you live in the southern United States, where tropical storms or hurricanes are frequent. Gas generators and diesel generators are advanced in design, and housing and permanent household generators are much smaller, smarter, and quieter than the older models. If you live in an area where storms are common, power outages with their grim regularity are certainly worth the price of a standby power system. Power grids are shared in such states as New England, the Carolinas and Florida. Therefore, if you live in North Carolina, a power outage in Florida would affect you, as well.

With portable generators, such as the diesel generator or gas generator, these devices can be loud, run on gasoline or diesel fuel and are hard to move. They can replace part of your household load if an electrical outage occurs, but you're only able to run a limited number of appliances at any one time. There are some remarkable manufacturers on the market that produce excellent portable generators such as the Honda generator or Generac generator. A permanent backup system can run off your home's propane or natural gas supply and can be directly wired into the household circuit panel. In the event of an outage, they will provide a seamless switch from the utility service to backup power. You can purchase residential standby generators systems such as Kohler that will monitor your home's utility power for interruption. If a power outage occurs, a switch automatically starts the generator and transfers the electrical load bringing your power back again. Such companies as Generac generators market fully- integrated systems that feature switching devices and distribution panels. The generator is usually in addition to these systems. There is usually only a 7 to 10 second outage with most built-in generating systems when a power outage occurs.

You can also direct where you want the emergency power diverted to, such as the essentials like the furnace, various appliances, and security systems of course, if you want the whole house run by generating your own power, you're going to need a powerful generator and a transfer switch that carries the same rating as your home's main distribution panel. A transfer switch is essentially the same as a glorified electrical panel and comes in manual and automatic models. You're going to pay more for the automatic system, which is also going to give you ongoing protection and reassurance for the future. If you decide on the manual transfer switch, you will have to power up the generator yourself and manually switch the load to the backup system. In neighborhoods that enforce noise restrictions, permanent generators are preferred. Manufacturers are constantly trying to reduce noise output from their units. Many popular portable generator manufacturers such as Yamaha generators and Coleman generators are starting to introduce permanent power generating systems into their product lines. Generators that are considered to be permanent are rated by their maximum electrical output measured in kilowatts. The best way to determine what size of generator to purchase is to list all of your appliances and items that will be run during a power outage and calculate the total wattage that these consume. Remember, when an appliance starts up there are surge requirements, which is usually higher than the normal running wattage needs and this needs to be calculated in your figure. The best way to determine what wattage you are going to need for your backup power system is to call an electrician.