Like Starryskies, I don't want to lose my freezers and fridge. Up to this past year we worked from home and needed the assurance for connectivity. As CooknThyme says, the outages generally aren't that long these days, but they always seemed to occur about the time one of us would be working on a tight deadline and couldn't afford to be dead in the water for who knows how long!

There are alternatives to gas-powered generators that require periodic maintenance. We have a solar-powered inverter, which are a lot less maintenance than gas powered generators. Yes, there are downsides to them as well, primarily the increased initial expense, but for us it has worked quite well. We also put a hand-pump on our well, which is relatively cheap peace of mind.

Bottom line is that we wouldn't be without one!

We are interested in putting a hand-pump on our well. Can you give any advice? Recommend a company?

How deep is your well and what is the static water level? A shallow 25-30 foot well would be pretty cheap, installing a hand pump that works at 300 feet would be over $1000. Then you're talking more than a generator would cost.

Well, I really don't know how deep our well is or what the static water level is. We have documentation on our well from when we bought our house 31 years ago. However, about 25 years ago we had to have our well fracked. The frack worked well, but the gentleman who did it said the documentation for our well was incorrect. So I guess we would have to pay someone to determine the depth and static water level. Based on where we live, I am confident the depth is a few hundred feet.

We used Living Water (the one by IMHS) and are very happy with the results. We installed a Simple Pump. We also looked at a Bison Pump. You can get a lot of information on line for each one. They were able to pull the info they needed from our permit as our place is relatively new, but there are ways to measure the depth of your well on your own. Bison has some good videos on that.

Highly recommend these guys. Family business that have been here forever. Honest and reliable (two adjectives that are not used lightly)

Sky Country Pump CO., Inc.
Pumping equipment and service in Jefferson County, Colorado
Address: 8495 US Hwy 285, Morrison, CO 80465
Phone: (303) 697-5013

Thank you all for your responses. Absent a storm like 2003, I feel like I am kind of in between. I feel I can plan for a 1-2 day outage but there are a few things that I would like to be connected to like my modem, computer, a space heater, etc.

Which leads me to my next question since I am electronically challenged. Would it be possible for me to purchase a 3000/4000 generator and using appropriate rated extension cords could I plug directly into the generator and run these small type appliances? Pro's. con's?

That's what we do. My husband puts the generator out on the deck, just outside the door opening. And then plugs an electrical cord with several outlets into the generator and through the door into the house. We do stuff something in the door crack so we don't get all that cold air coming in.

And then we run long electrical cords to our TV, WiFi, one or two lights, and computers/iPhone as needed.

One thing we've noticed here in Shaffers Crossing, when there is a wide area power outage, our CenturyLink internet DSL goes down also. So we must use our iPhone to get to the internet. But, the WiFi with Plex on our TV and iMac let's us watch movies.

We can run our microwave but I don't know about a space heater, however. We have a wood stove that does nicely for us.

for us it came down to convenience and having the entire home operational. we purchased a Kohler 14kw through Costco. i am not electric savvy but understand the basics and completed all work by myself. as far as we are concerned it has paid for itself considering when power does fail. thought of portable generator, which we also have, but did not want to deal with inconvenience given past experiences and we considered future sale of home...

You could do that if the appliances are completely independent of the IREA or EXEL system. You would then need to total up the watts that each appliance needs and figure out which ones might run at the same time and get that total. Then probably size the generator to about 20% more watts than your total that might run at the same time. Most individual electric heaters are 1500 watts so if you want to run two heaters, computer and modem you're already looking at over 4Kw needed. But you'll still need to store water then with no well.

Further comment. I have horses that need to access water...and a frozen water tank is detrimental to the health of horses. Working from home, also makes a generator a requirement. Just saying.

something to consider, if you have a gas fueled central heating system, it might use less electricity than a space heater.