When the power goes out, every house ends up asking the same handful of questions — usually at midnight, by flashlight. This page collects the ones people actually ask in homeowner and preparedness forums, in the words they asked them, and answers each one with our research: manufacturer specs, prices we check and date, and the math worked out in the open. The short answer sits under every question. Where a question deserves the full treatment, the full answer lives on its own page, linked below it.
Nothing here assumes you own a generator or a wall of batteries. Some of the most-asked questions below come from houses with neither — and they have real answers too.
The generator questions
Sizing, fuel, hookups, and the station-plus-generator setup — collected on What People Are Asking About Home Generators. The two that lead the whole harvest:
How big a generator do I need for a 1,000 sq ft house?
Square footage is the wrong unit — the load list is the right one. A typical 1,000 sq ft house’s essentials (fridge, furnace blower, sump pump, lights, phones) run about 1,500–2,000 watts, with worst-minute starting peaks around 2,600 watts — higher with a well pump — which lands most houses in the 3,500–5,000 watt inverter-generator band.
Automatic backup without solar: a power station the generator recharges
The station carries the house silently and switches on instantly; the generator is demoted to a battery charger that runs a few loud hours a day instead of all day. For a house burning 4–6 kilowatt-hours a day — furnace blower, sump pumps, fridge, lights — that works out to roughly 3–4 hours of generator time daily.
How big for 1,000 sq ft? Square footage is the wrong unit — the load list is right: essentials about 1,500–2,000 W running, peaks around 2,600 W, landing most houses in the 3,500–5,000 W inverter band.
Automatic backup, no solar: The station carries the house silently; the generator is demoted to a charger running roughly 3–4 hours a day for a house using 4–6 kWh a day.
The medical questions
CPAPs, oxygen concentrators, and fridge medicines — collected on What People Are Asking About Medical Backup Power. The most urgent of them:
How long will a power station run an oxygen concentrator?
A home concentrator draws roughly 300–600 watts depending on its flow setting, so a 2 kilowatt-hour station runs one about 3–5 hours — a bridge that buys time to arrange tanks, a generator, or a move, not a full night at high flow. The honest plan is built around that number, not around hoping it’s bigger.
The freezer questions
Holdover hours, refreeze rules, and what size to buy — collected on What People Are Asking About Freezers.
Chest freezer or upright — and what size for a family of four, or half a cow?
Plan on 25–35 pounds of food per cubic foot: a family of four usually lands at 10–14 cubic feet, and half a cow (roughly 200–250 pounds of wrapped meat) needs 8–10. A chest wins the outage test — about 590 watt-hours a day and a 48-hour holdover when full, against roughly 1,080 watt-hours a day for an upright.
Staying warm, staying cool
The seasonal questions — heat pumps, furnace blowers, mini-splits, and summer outages with no AC — are collected on What People Are Asking About Outage Living.
Can a generator run my heat pump in a winter outage?
Only the big class can, and only with help: a 3-ton heat pump runs around 3,500 watts but can surge past 15,000 watts starting, so it takes a roughly 9,000–12,500 watt generator plus a soft starter — and the electric heat strips have to stay off. If the house also has a gas furnace, running just its blower (about 500 watts) on a modest station is the cheaper winter answer.
Water in the basement, water in the tank
Sump pumps, well pressure, and septic ejectors are on What People Are Asking About Basement Water; the solar questions — including why rooftop panels go dark in a blackout — are on What People Are Asking About Solar in an Outage.
How long will a sump pump battery backup run — and do you need one with a generator?
A typical battery backup system pumps for days of ordinary rain because the pump only runs minutes per hour — what drains it is a storm that keeps it cycling. And yes, it still earns its place next to a generator: it covers the hours the generator is off, out of fuel, or not yet started.
The no-generator questions
Five days, no generator: how does a house get through?
By solving the same six problems in a deliberate order — food before it warms, water stored and stretched, one warm room, light that isn’t candles, information from a battery radio, and a toilet plan that isn’t a bucket of regrets. Almost all of it costs nothing; what it costs is deciding before the outage, not during it.
I work from home — what backup keeps a laptop and internet up through an outage?
Less than you’d think: a laptop and router together draw roughly 60–100 watts, so a mid-size station (about 1,000 watt-hours) covers a full workday with room to spare. This is the one outage problem a small battery genuinely solves outright.
Five days, no generator: Solve the six problems in order: food before it warms, water, one warm room, light that is not candles, information from a battery radio, and a toilet plan. Deciding beforehand is the cost.
Working from home: A laptop and router draw roughly 60–100 W together, so a station of about 1,000 Wh covers a full workday — the one outage problem a small battery solves outright.
The communication questions
What to listen to, how the family talks, and the satellite layer — collected with the outage-living questions on What People Are Asking About Outage Living.
What radio station or channel do you listen to in a blackout?
NOAA Weather Radio for warnings (seven channels, 162.400–162.550 MHz, SAME county codes), your local AM/FM stations for Emergency Alert System news and local detail, and FRS channels 1–22 for talking to family nearby — no licence needed to listen to any of it, and none needed to talk on FRS.
How does a family reach each other when cell service is down?
Text one out-of-area contact instead of calling each other through the jam, fall back on two meeting places, and keep FRS radios on one agreed channel. The full one-card plan is on its own page.
What to listen to: NOAA Weather Radio, seven channels 162.400–162.550 MHz with SAME county codes; local AM/FM for alert news and detail; FRS channels 1–22 for family nearby. No licence to listen.
Family out of contact? Text one out-of-area contact instead of calling through the jam, fall back on two meeting places, and keep FRS radios on one agreed channel.
How we answer
Ordinary Prepper is a research desk, not a test lab: we do not claim hands-on testing, here or anywhere. Answers come from manufacturer specifications, prices checked on the date shown, standards and agency guidance where it exists (USDA food-safety timelines, ENERGY STAR averages), and owner feedback counted in the open — how many owners, averaging what. When a number is our estimate, the page says so.