OK. ;-) Just remember that your furnace light the burner w/o electric power to run the blower. Running the blower means you have a transfer circuit, cuz you can't 'plug' in your furnace to a generator via an extension cord.
Here's an alternative to look at.
http://www.woodstove.com/pdffiles/Woodstock%20Wood%20Brch.pdf
THIS is the woodstove we have, installed as a fireplace insert. The hardest part of doing this is getting the 580 lb stove into the house! A competent handyman (or chimney sweep) can help you with the chimney conversion (simpler than it looks, once you see it done).
This wood stove is called a 'fireview' because you can see the fire like a regular fireplace.
It has added benefits I can attest to.
(1) It warms your house better than a fireplace
(2) It produces more heat in your home per lb of wood burned.
(3) It burns very cleanly (if you care about that) if you employ the built in catalyst
(4) You can control how much heat the stove puts out by adjusting the damper -- much like the throttle on a car.
(5) With good hardwood like oak and hickory, it WILL stay lit and warm ALL NIGHT long. Poplar requires a 4 o'clock check.
(6) It is completely safe - you can stoke a roaring fire in the stove and leave the house with no worries
(7) no electricity required at all.
(8) put a cast iron kettle w/ water on the top and it'll add a good deal of humidity to the house, making it feel warmer.
I could go on and on. We love having a woodstove instead of a traditional fireplace. Didn't think that would be the case, but we instantly loved the difference.
These 'wood' stoves come is natural gas models as well. So, you have options.
We have acres of firewood, and I still love to split it, so we went with wood.
There are many brands of woodstoves. We picked 'Woodstock'. Woodstock stoves are pricey compared to what you can buy at your local hardware store. BUT -- they don't smoke, they're very sturdy, easily emptied -- on and on. There's reasons to spend the money on a good wood stove, regardless of whether it is a Woodstock stove or not.
IF you choose not to power your furnace in emergencies, you CAN get by with an 8500 continuous/10,000 W peak-start gas generator. We do it frequently, use common sense, and get by just fine.
IF long duration outages are frequent and troublesome, go ahead and price a true back-up generator with a transfer.
Portables are noisy in comparison and require more intervention from you (power cords, managing loads, adding fuel).
A 'built-in' with auto start will get you up and running in less than a minute just like nothing happened (except restting digital clocks).
Like most things, it comes down to $$$. $1,000 vs. $10,000.
Thanks AGAIN!
A woodstove where you can see the fire! I printed out the link you gave me, and it's a good-looking stove, too.
I talked it over with my husband, and we probably will go with a generator, because it's less costly, and maybe save for a wood stove for later on. Also, since it gets so cold in these parts, we're concerned about our pipes freezing.
I think we'll look for a propane generator, because of the "shelf life" of propane. This winter we lost power for days once and several hours a couple of other times. But we have gone as long as two years without an outage, except for very brief outages.
All of your posts were VERY helpfu, and I printed out the entire thread.