Power Outages

To prepare for a week without power, store 7 days of water, food and medicine, then plan power for the fridge, phones and CPAP. US and Canada rules inside.

The best small solar generator for home use is the EcoFlow DELTA 3: 1kWh, a sub-10ms UPS and room for an extra battery for about $599. Five 1kWh picks compared.

What not to plug into a power station: loads over its rating, heaters via a power strip, its own charger, backfeed cords, and panels over its input voltage.

You can run a generator overnight outdoors, 20+ feet from the house, with CO alarms and fuel for the night. The 20-20-20 rule, fuel math and the battery option.

Powerwall vs generator: a standby generator ($8,000-$16,000) suits long outages, a Powerwall 3 (~$13,500) silent solar backup, a power station short ones.

To connect a solar generator to your house, use a transfer switch or interlock installed by an electrician, never a backfeed cord. Four options compared.

The biggest solar generator downside is limited stored energy: a 1kWh unit runs a full-size fridge about 14 hours. Seven drawbacks, their costs and fixes.

Yes, if you size it right: the average US home uses about 29kWh a day, while essentials need 4-6kWh. Square-footage sizing table, 240V units and costs.

EcoFlow Smart Generator 4000 review: 3,200W gas or 2,900W propane, 3,200W DC charging, auto-start with the DELTA Pro 3, $1,259. Not sold in California.

Solar generators for home use: most homes need 2-4 kWh and 1,800W+. Runtime math for fridges, sump pumps and AC, plus 8 picks from 1 to 6 kWh.

Best solar generators for sump pumps: the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus (3,000W, 6,000W surge) leads. Surge, runtime math and picks for every pump size.

Best solar generator for a refrigerator: the BLUETTI AC200PL runs a full-size fridge about 13 hours at 150W. Five picks, runtime math and panel sizing.

Best solar generators for power outages: the EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 (4,096Wh, 10 ms UPS) leads; the DELTA 3, Jackery 2000 Plus and Elite 200 V2 cost less.

Best solar generators for emergency preparedness: the EcoFlow DELTA Pro leads, with picks sized by outage length from 8 hours to a 7-day hurricane outage.