She would need it broken gently to her that there may be some things that would be like "camping" if they lost electricity. It's more a matter of what she would be willing to do without that just saying she wants everything. I have a 2750 sq ft house with a 200 amp service. I'm sure a 4k sq ft house would mean she would have to do without some things during an outage. He even mentioned a shop. I would think putting off welding would wait till the storm has passed. I have a 6kw generator for my house and we can't run anything other than the refer, freezer, and a bedroom window unit with a few bulbs thrown in. That has a 30 amp 220 breaker so doing simple math I come up with 7 times 30 = 210 amps so I would figure 7 times 6kw would be about 42kw generator for a 200 amp output. That is huge! I know businesses that don't have generators that big.
I would set it up with Nat gas because diesel will spoil over time and takes some maintenance. Propane is good but follows the price of gasoline pretty much.
I would have a family meeting and make a list of absolute "have to haves", and figure the amperage. besides the freezers, they need a way to cook and keep warm or cool. I would block off a rooom for sleeping and use a window unit for that. 20kw would go a long way for a large house, but it would seem primative for some. I went for 31 days after Rita with no juice. I got a window unit, and a generator and was glad for it. It cost me up to $20 a day for gas that I had to drive 40 miles to buy. Just keeping the generator going was a full time job. We let it run for a few hours and then cut it off for a few hours to save gas. It kept the freezer frozen but the other people in the house were constantly griping that they wanted the TV on or were tired of this or that being off. A nat gas conversion would be a great touch for this type situation. You need to remember that if your juice is off, there may be a chance the service station is off also. Wal Mart was closed and food had to come from the Nat Gaurd or a town 40 miles away that was always out of food when you got there.
Sounds to me like “wifey” would be complaining that her foot massager wasn’t working while the poor dude was fighting off the zombies with a pitchfork trying to keep them from coming in the front door!
“Wifey” needs a talkin to. Seriously!