When a storm knocks out power, you want to know your family and pets will be safe and warm. Severe weather can shut off power for several days at a time, and a whole-house standby generator is one of the best ways to protect your home during a long outage. Here is how standby generators differ from portable ones, and the main reasons homeowners choose them.
Portable vs. Whole-House Generators: What’s the Difference?
Portable generators are small and light enough to move around. They are handy for camping, job sites, or powering a few tools or appliances, but they aren’t designed to power an entire house. They need to be refueled often and can only run for a limited time, so an outage lasting more than a few hours can be beyond what a portable unit can handle. Running cords to appliances is also inconvenient.
Whole-house standby generators are permanently installed outside your home and connected to your electrical panel. Many use an automatic transfer switch that turns on backup power by itself as soon as utility power goes out, whether or not you’re home. Depending on its size, a standby generator can run your home’s major systems, including heating and cooling, water heater, refrigerator, sump pump, and alarm system.
Reasons to Install a Whole-House Generator
- Stay warm in winter outages. Most heating systems won’t run without electricity. Even most gas furnaces and boilers need power for ignition and controls. Many big outages happen during extreme cold, exactly when you need heat most.
- Keep medical equipment running. If someone in your home depends on electrically powered medical equipment, such as an oxygen concentrator, a standby generator can keep that equipment running through an outage.
- Keep your home running. Lights, appliances, a home office, and internet service can keep working, so daily life goes on.
- Reduce property loss. Long outages can lead to spoiled food and damage to plumbing, such as frozen pipes or a flooded basement when the sump pump stops. Those losses add up, and insurance may not cover all of them.
- Convenience. There’s no gas can to refill and no extension cords to run. An automatic system takes care of itself.
- Peace of mind. Even if you never face a major outage, you’ll know your home is prepared for one.
Why Professional Installation Matters
A standby generator has to be sized correctly for your home and installed properly to work when you need it. A generator that is too small or poorly installed may overload your electrical panel or fail to provide enough power. A professional can help you choose the right generator for your needs and install it correctly. Once it’s installed, regular maintenance keeps it ready.
Talk to Celco About a Whole-House Generator
Celco Heating & Air Conditioning has served Fairfield County homeowners for 50 years. To find out whether a whole-house generator is right for your home, call us at 203-371-0055 or schedule a service online. Learn more about our generator installation and service.
