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if you are tired of being powerless
every time a storm hits your
neighborhood then you need to listen to
this a few weeks ago hurricane
ida that became tornado ida in my town
really wreaked havoc in my community the
f2 tornado
went through a four mile stretch of
neighborhoods destroying homes and roofs
flooding backyards and basements
stranding homeowners
and we were without power for four days
just in our neighborhood and
after many many years of having that
happen we invested in a generator so i
want to talk to you about the three ways
that you can use a generator in your
home so that you can start to think
about how you want to prepare for future
storms so make sure you subscribe
because what i do here at hipchicks is
bringing you very practical and useful
information as homeowners
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you stay in touch now this generator
topic maybe a little more complex but
you really need to consider a generator
if you have power outages in your home
so let's talk about the three options
for powering up your house when the
power fails
the most popular way to use a generator
is to buy a portable generator and run
it outside in the driveway and hook an
extension cord from the generator into
the house where you can plug in a sump
pump your refrigerator your hot water
heater you know the essentials that you
need to keep the home
at a bare minimum of safety and function
and it's very affordable in that you
know you might spend anywhere from maybe
four hundred to eight hundred dollars
depending on the size generator that you
use it's a little bit inconvenient
because you end up having a sea of
extension cords
running through the home so that can be
a trip hazard and it can be a little bit
inconvenient because you have to run
these cords and move from one appliance
to another to keep everything going so
you have to be prepared to invest that
time and manage all of that while the
power is out but that is the
basic entry level generator and
easiest way to get started
the second option i want to tell you
about is the one that i have at my home
and that is where we use a portable
generator just like in the first option
but this one is actually wired into my
house using a 30 amp cord
and this is not something you can diy
this is something that you would have an
electrician come to your house they
install a special outlet on the outside
of your house and the power from the
generator
is fed to your circuit breaker
so that the generator can then power
most of your home in my case i can run
about 75 to 80 percent of my home and
the reason this is not a diy project is
that you need to have a special
interlock
attachment added to your circuit breaker
and have this 30 amp line run through
your house so it is definitely worth
hiring in this case we spent about eight
hundred dollars on a rather high power
generator so it would run most of the
home and then we also spent about eight
hundred dollars on the electrical work
making sure that our house was wired
properly and that our circuit breaker
panel was installed correctly and the
reason being if you were to try to
hook a generator up to your house to
back feed your
circuit breaker without the proper steps
you can actually send electrical current
down the power lines and you can injure
or kill one of the linesmen so it's
important that you are using the 30 amp
system properly now both option one and
option two are using
this portable generator it needs to be
brought outside and you need gasoline
for it so it's important to make sure
that you have gas on hand even if you
don't mow your own lawn anymore and you
have a service it's important to have at
least one or two gallons of gas on hand
in case the power fails
the third option is not portable and it
does not require gasoline it is when you
have a whole house generator and that is
a permanent unit that is planted outside
the home it is tied into natural gas or
to propane it is super convenient
because it will automatically turn on
when the power outage is detected so
it's a very convenient system but it is
also very expensive
typically anywhere from about eight to
ten thousand dollars for say you know a
twenty five hundred to three thousand
square foot home so you have to decide
which of these options is right for you
if you have a family member that maybe
is dependent on electricity for medical
care or medical devices then maybe the
whole house system is the right option
but the portable options are ideal for
people that don't want to make that
large investment and you can still power
the essentials so it's important that
you figure out what is the right system
for your family's needs based on what
goes on in your home and how often you
tend to lose power so i hope that you
subscribe and hit that notification bell
my next video is going to be all about
generator safety
during this last storm i saw a whole lot
of people in my community doing some
really dangerous and careless things
with their generators so we will review
how to use one safely so that you can
maximize the power and the safety at the
same time
you
