Paul Hope of Consumer Reports shares how a power generator can help people maintain power in regions prone to severe weather events like hurricanes and blizzards.
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00:00A home generator could be a money saver and even a lifesaver in an emergency.
00:05Paul Hope is Senior Home and Appliance Writer with Consumer Reports.
00:09Paul, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
00:12Happy to be here.
00:13All right. Extreme weather is causing more power outages across the U.S.
00:18Who do you think should consider buying a generator?
00:21You know, increasingly, that answer is almost everybody,
00:25or at least anybody who lives in an area where you are prone to severe weather events knocking out the power.
00:31So obviously, we all know that that can come in the form of a hurricane,
00:34but people in the Northeast or the upper Midwest are every bit as much at risk
00:39because of things like heavier storms in winter.
00:42So it really is something that increasingly a lot of people, if not everyone, should be considering.
00:48Well, as we can see in some of the video, there's different size generators.
00:51So how do you determine what would be the right size for you?
00:53For example, if you would just need it for your refrigerator versus maybe needing it for medical devices?
00:59Absolutely. So the easiest way to figure that out is really just to go around the house,
01:03think about those essentials that you would want to power in an emergency, and add up the wattages on them.
01:08You can usually find the wattage on either the back or the bottom of a typical device,
01:13like a toaster or a space heater, things like that.
01:16So just add up all the wattages of the things you'd like to be able to power at the same time
01:20and make sure that you buy a generator that is rated to run at at least that wattage,
01:24if not a little bit higher, so that you have a little bit of leeway.
01:27Wow, that's some excellent advice.
01:28It probably only takes a couple minutes around your house to calculate that up.
01:32All right. Obviously, the price can be something that maybe people are interested about.
01:37So what is the price range kind of roughly?
01:40And what do people need to know when they're looking for a generator?
01:44Sure. So the gold standard in generators is what's called a whole home generator or a home standby generator.
01:49Those are those big ones that we sort of associate with hospitals, municipal buildings.
01:53They're designed to run on natural gas or propane.
01:56They kick on automatically in the event of an outage.
01:59And they typically run indefinitely, as long as you have access to one of those fuel sources.
02:04They also power pretty much everything in your house.
02:06Those will typically set you back anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 for the generator itself.
02:11And you could easily spend that much or more on the installation.
02:14Most people will be better served by a portable generator and find them far more affordable.
02:19That's the good news.
02:20A portable generator is priced anywhere from about $5,000 to $1,500, depending on the output and the features.
02:26And then you might spend about that much again to have an electrician install what's called a transfer switch or an interlock device,
02:32which lets you hook your generator up to your house and run things without having to use a million extension cords.
02:38I have learned so much, which is excellent, because I was the one asking all these questions when I pitched the idea.
02:42So thank you so much, Paul Hope, for bringing us all that excellent information.
02:46Again, with Senior Home & Appliance, the writer for Consumer Reports, we appreciate all of your wonderful information.