I lost power 8 times last year for more than 3 hours each time. the first time was late evening and only things were walmart and the truck stop. walmart didnt have any generators in stock so i went to the truck stop and got a power inverter that runs off of the car battery and used that to keep my uth's going. I know have a 6000 watt gas powered generator that powers the whole house. I am getting ready to move and have a building built for my animals and there is a standby automatic generator in the plans! 8 second delay and it kicks in automaticly! some sort of emergency power source is a must for me as i live in ohio and the winters can be unforgiving.