Having your power go out is a huge hassle. Whether it’s ice and snow, a summer electrical storm, or a utility pole taken out by a car accident, power outages can happen at any time. Being prepared for this means having a backup generator. While many people use portable generators, we’d like to offer three reasons to consider a whole-house generator instead.
1: Fuel Considerations
When you have a portable generator, you must have fuel on hand when the power goes out. Otherwise, you’ll be out in whatever weather caused the outage, trying to get fuel while everyone else scrambles to get fuel, too. It’s not convenient and defeats the purpose of the generator–to make dealing with a power outage easier.
Whole-house generators don’t require you to purchase tanks of fuel or keep them on hand. They run on natural gas, and like any natural gas appliance in the home, they are connected to your local provider with gas lines. This means the fuel will always be there when you need it.
2: Safety Considerations
Whole-house generators provide a much higher degree of safety than portable generators. There are several ways that you will avoid risks and hazards by having a whole-house generator in Coeur d’Alene, ID.
- Ventilation: Portable generators create a lot of exhaust, and if they’re not safely vented far enough away from your home, they can contaminate your air with carbon monoxide. Whole-house generators are installed with safe and effective ventilation systems.
- Outdoor Risks: When you have a portable generator, you need to go outdoors in whatever unsafe weather conditions may have caused the outage just to get the generator started up. And if you’re out of fuel, you may need to drive in hazardous weather to purchase more.
- Fuel Risks: Keeping containers of highly-flammable fuel in your home, garage, or shed in order to be prepared to use your portable generator poses a fire hazard. With a whole-house generator, you won’t need to keep hazardous materials on hand.
3: Convenience-Related Considerations
Not only will a whole-house generator save you from trekking outdoors to procure fuel or turn your generator on, you won’t have to turn it on at all. It is integrated into your home’s systems so that it comes on automatically as soon as the power goes out.
That means you won’t have to wake up cold in the morning to discover that the power has been out all night. If you have a sump pump to prevent flooding, you won’t have to worry that if a storm takes out the power when you’re not there to turn on the generator, your basement will flood with stormwater.
And it has the capacity to power your entire home. With a portable generator’s limited capacity, you may be forced to choose between keeping your refrigerator running and keeping your home heated. A whole-house generator is just that: it generates power for your whole house.
ACI Northwest is here to help with your home comfort needs or concerns. Please do not hesitate to contact us for helpful advice. Contact us today.