Generator Guides

The four-step sizing method installers actually use: list must-run loads, separate running from starting watts, size for the biggest surge, then add headroom.

Extension cords, generator inlets, interlock kits, and transfer switches compared — with costs — and why backfeeding through a dryer outlet can kill a lineworker.

A $1,100 portable covers most outages; a $12,000 standby covers all of them without you touching anything. Where each one actually makes sense.

Gasoline is everywhere but goes stale in months. Propane keeps for decades but costs you ~10% of output. Why dual fuel wins for outage kits.

Portable generators kill roughly 70 to 100+ people in the US each year, almost all by carbon monoxide. Every one of those deaths is preventable with placement rules.

Why a 52 dBA inverter sounds one-quarter as loud as a 68 dBA open frame, what campgrounds allow, and how to quiet the generator you already own.

Generators don't wear out — they rot from sitting. The break-in procedure, the oil schedule, and the 10-minute storage ritual that keeps yours starting.

Net metering credits you for solar power your panels send back to the grid — but the credit rate, rollover rules, and even the basic mechanism vary enormously by state and utility. Here's the actual mechanics, plus what's changed since California's NEM 3.0.