So practically speaking, a whole house generator is a very very expensive proposition that will likely never be used to a great extent. So what are you trying to power? The whole house for a couple of weeks until utilities are completely restored? Or do you just want to show the neighbors who will all come over that you have power when nobody else does? We are in Central FL but we wen through Hugo in ‘89 and brother was an FPL Engineer at Turkey Point when Andrew hit. He was about to close on a house in Cutler Ridge the following week.
I have a couple of Generators and they are purposed specifically for their intended use. Let me say up front, all of my generators are dual fuel: Propane and gasoline for a couple of reasons.
Propane can be stored almost indefinitely. Gasoline cannot. I keep about 15 gallons on hand for a riding mower since I cut about 1.5 acres a week so I usually have a bit of fresh gas on hand and another 60 or so in the tanks of 4 cars. We keep everything topped off in hurricane season. We also have a 500 gallon propane tank with the capability to fill 20#, 30# and 100# tanks which can be moved around. We also have the ability to fill the small camping bottles for lanterns and such (along with gasoline and oil lanterns).
The largest generator is a 9000W/8000W that we keep in the pump house because we are on well. We put a 220V connection in that 30 amp line. Frankly on well and septic, as long as you can keep the well running you can survive just fine. Two others are for fridge/freezer and a portable AC unit for the bedroom. Here’s the really interesting part, my two smaller units can be connected together to essentially replace the larger unit. Also, when power goes down, I trip the main, then open 220V/30A breakers: hot water, oven, dryer, AC and well. Then all of the 15A/110V breakers. Start the big generator to pressurize the tank. Once that kicks off I add back the fridge and freezer loops and manage the loads. Typically the well starting surge is about is about 5500W.
Once toilets are flushed, freezer is cold, phones charged, showers done, dishes washed, pressure tank full...we shut it back down.
The small and much more energy wise generators are used at night if needed, usually or a portable AC.
No big investment. Everything is modular and can be changed out.
Ha.....we were living in Miami Springs when Andrew came through. Concrete block house built in 1947 with concrete tile roof, built like a pillbox, before building codes.
You couldn't sell me a 1970's-1980's house in Florida at any price. Lots of $1 million plus homes where the sheetrock is the strongest thing in the wall structure.
A lot of the neighbors already have generators, some small, some larger.
The main driving reason is to keep one A/C unit going. Down here, in the summer, it can get unbearable after just a couple hours of A/C. The humidity would damage our large collection of valuable lithographs, and after a while the wooden cabinets and other stuff would probably suffer as well.
The calculus seems to boil down to either spending a bunch to put in wiring, propane tank, machine, etc. to power the minimum... or, since I'm going that far, why not spend a bit more and go all the way and power 80% of the house and be very conformable in the end.
I don't want to spend a lot, but I must at least get the A/C going... and keep it going, or the potential loss is very large... not to mention it would be extremely miserable here for an extended outage in the summer.