Yes. I have a big house and a generator that runs on the natural gas that my house has. When the power goes out, the generator turns on automatically. It's great. Sometimes we get a minute of darkness before the generator turns on, but that's the max. The installer looked at our electrice panel and asked about our appliances and told us how big a generator we needed. You can get ones that power less, for example, not running your dryer (a big use of electricity). I'm sure you can get quotes over the phone.

Simple answer, Yes. Are you looking to buy/rent a portable one until power is returned? Or purchase one for future power outages? A WHG, installed, can cost from $6,000 up. Lots of variables here.

Yes, we don't usually lose power so looking for a stop gap solution until it is restored.

I am in CA, am waiting for the local utility company to approve and schedule the installation. An electrical contractor will do the installation. The utility company has to shutdown the connection and reconnect after installation.

My estimate is $16,000-$20,000.

A hardware store generator will not power your A/C. A battery is 6kwh, how long will that run your A/C? A battery is ~$8k.

We live on Cape Cod. A generator is a must. We always buy Generac. We don't have natural gas on our street so the generator runs on propane. The tank is behind the pool shed (pump and heater run on propane as well) so it isn't seen from the house or the street. We have solar panels, but I wouldn't buy a solar generator because it depends on the weather and might not be able to keep up in the gloomy days of winter. The cost of a generator depends on the size of the house and what you want powered when lights go out. I have furnace and ac on it, 'fridge, stove, dishwasher, a t v, most electrical outlets and the garage door. That's important.

We just had a new one installed (the old one was from previous owner...1967. Great life span.)

You want one that tests every week (meaning it automatically kicks on and runs for about 15 minutes). You want to have it serviced regularly. Where we live having one is considered a plus when selling a house.

We have a Generac, too. That said, people around here sometimes have gas-powered generators. You need to run them in your garage or outside and run a very long extension cord to the house because you can't run a gas or diesel generator in your house. If you want a gas-powered generator that's cheaper and smaller than a whole-house wired-in generator, you probably want to limit your A/C to one or two rooms. Figure out the minimum power your must-have appliances (fridge, sump pump if you need one, one burner of your stove, etc) take, then decide what room or two *has* to have A/C and how much that takes.

Don't plant to rent your generator, as when you need it, everyone else in your neighborhood is likely to need one, too.

Power going out is no fun. We're in an area where the power goes out more often than we'd like (never for longer than a day but still a pain) so we have a duel fuel generator but it isn't a whole house one. My husband put in a electrical sub panel and moved the necessary things to it, ie. fridges, freezers, well pump, few outlets and lights, ect. It sits outback and plugs into the house with a RV connection/plug. He looks longingly at bigger generators but the one we have is good enough and we'd do the same over again.

You're not going to be able to get a stopgap generator set up that runs your AC system. You could get a generator and run extension cords for the refrigerator and some lights.

Not sure why people are saying you can't get a portable generator to run your AC. Plenty of options for a 20 kVA portable, which should be enough for any normal size house. If you would want to is another question, of course. It won't save you any money vs a similar sized permanent unit so unless you need to provide power in multiple locations (or take it with you when you move) there's not much advantage. You'll still need to do a fair amount of wiring for transfer switches and such.

For most people a natural gas powered permanently installed unit that provides either critical circuit or whole house coverage is a good choice, if NG is available. It's about the most likely thing to still be working after a serious event, but even it can go down. Getting propane or diesel deliveries in a big winter storm or after a hurricane can be problematic.

Batteries can work for short outages, but only Uncle Elon could afford enough capacity to keep you running for a couple of weeks when your solar panels are buried in snow and not generating new power. We thought about that, but I don't start to really worry about power loss until after the first day or two of outage, Our neighbors were out for 11 days in mid-February (10 degree weather) a couple years ago and had to re-plumb their entire house due to broken pipes. That's when we installed out generator,.

Thank you for your responses everyone, this information if really helpful! Our power was restored the next day, and this was the only time in 7 years that we've lost power for more than 30 sec. Given the prices you all have shared, it probably doesn't make sense to get a generator.