Home standby generators monitor the power 24 hours a day and detect outages within seconds. They then disconnect your building from the power lines, turn on the generator engine, and supply electricity.
Unlike portable generators, a Briggs & Stratton standby generator is permanently installed, which must be wheeled out of storage and connected to your circuit-breaker panel before they start working. It automatically starts when the power goes out and operates with natural gas or propane.
Save Money on Utility Bills
Pro: Home standby generators provide backup power for appliances and equipment you may not be able to afford to lose during a power outage. These include a home’s HVAC system, water pump, sump pumps, refrigerators or freezers, central air conditioning units, security systems, and more.
Con: While the initial investment in a home standby generator is high, so are the potential costs associated with losing food, damaging expensive equipment, and living without essential services like home internet and wifi. Also, many life-saving medical devices require electricity and are left unpowered during a power outage.
A generator sized correctly to your household can automatically supply power during outages and transition back to utility lines as soon as the power returns. This saves you time and prevents costly inconveniences.
Protect Your Refrigerator or Freezer
A generator can power refrigerators and freezers so food stays cold or frozen during a power outage. This saves you money on grocery store bills and prevents spoilage of valuable food items.
It also protects specialty items like breast milk, which will thaw and go bad in a few hours if left without power. A generator can save you time and money from having to drive out to purchase more milk or waste months of precious work.
A whole-house standby generator connects directly to the breaker box, making it easier to keep important appliances like sump pumps, central air heat, and security systems working during a power outage. This can also help you avoid costly damage to your property from flooding or burst pipes caused by the loss of power to your sump pump.
Protect Specialty Items
A standby generator delivers steady power that prevents spoiled food and iced-over pipes. In addition, it can keep medical equipment operating and a host of other important items running.
A more complex but cost-effective approach is using N+1 isolated redundant generators. This allows generators to back up each other, eliminating a common point of failure within the standby power distribution system.
Installing surge protectors on appliances connected to generators is also a good idea. Generators produce large spikes of energy when they turn on, which can damage some devices. Surge protectors can help minimize the potential for such spikes and protect sensitive electronics.
Protect Your Medical Equipment
Medical equipment requiring electricity to function can become a life-or-death situation during a power outage. Backup generators can help ensure that these types of medical devices stay running.
Home standby generators protect specialty items like newborn babies’ milk supplies and other breastmilk storage products. These supplies would go bad if they thawed during a power outage, wasting months of work and costing parents hundreds of dollars.
Hospitals and healthcare facilities rely on backup generators to keep their essential equipment functioning during utility power failures. They also keep heating & cooling systems working, security & detection systems active, and powering operating rooms. Many of these units also include automatic transfer switches with a power management strategy. This helps determine how much power the generator can supply before it overloads.
Protect Your Internet Connection
Home and business owners working from home must stay connected during power outages. A generator can keep a home or business’s Internet connection up and running, which can help you avoid losing work, important documents, and other critical information.
Portable generators have a limited lifespan and must be manually refueled several times a day during power outages. On the other hand, a standby generator automatically monitors utility voltage 24/7 and turns itself on within seconds of a power outage.
Investing in a residential or commercial standby generator is an investment that can save you money in the long run. Talk to a trusted home energy expert about how a generator can fit your home or business needs.