Home Standby Generator
“We need a home standby generator,” my wife told me for the tenth time after the power had yet again gone out of the farm and we were reduced to candlelight and if she could have my wife would have been on the phone abusing the power company – lucky for the power company her phone was flat and there was no power to charge it. For some reason the power company just could not keep us supplied with power and we had suffered from regular blackouts for a long time and my wife had had enough. But this time I agreed with her and promised to organize a home standby generator the very next day.
Now I didn’t know a lot about home standby generators but I knew that you needed one that generates enough wattage for the appliances that you need to power. I talked with my wife and we decided the minimum things that we needed power for in a blackout and when we had done this I calculated what sort of wattage we would need for a home standby generator by looking at our fuse box. We had already decided that we wanted an inverter home standby generator that would prevent electrical surges and provide consistent power so as not to damage any of our belongings.
Now I had heard that a multi fuel home standby generator is a good idea so that you can switch between gas and propane in case you need to and my wife reminded me that we wanted a home standby generator that didn’t make too much noise. We would be installing it in a specially made box to reduce sound but it was always helpful to have a low noise home standby generator to start with.
The very next day I went out and bought us a large home standby generator and while I was watching the electrician install it, my wife spent the time writing a very heated and abusive letter to the power company. While the electrician was instructing me on how to use the home standby generator my wife finished writing her letter and walked down to the post box to send it.
Right, now we thought, no more worrying about blackouts we were prepared for them and we would only use candles from then on for romantic dinners. But we didn’t have a blackout for a month, we looked at each other my wife and I and thought how ironic, here we were finally prepared and no blackout. I tested the home standby generator every week to keep it in good working order and we even used it one night just for fun to make sure. Another month went by and still no blackout, we had been having them regularly every couple of days before we installed the home standby generator but now not at all it was rather strange.
I remarked to my wife that she had been encouraging them to get their act together for so long that maybe they had. I didn’t say anything more after that because she glared at me with such anger in her eyes that I thought it best to shut up. I kept checking the home standby generator every week to make sure that it was in good running order, I even changed the oil and checked the fuses. This went on for five months with no blackout, my wife became silent and I didn’t mention the power company or the home standby generator sitting silently, waiting for its moment to shine.
Then one night it happened. We had a huge thunderstorm, with lightening, torrential rain and gale force winds. My wife looked hopefully at me as we listened to the storm raging outside and then it all went dark. I grabbed a torch and went to start the home standby generator. It worked perfectly, it worked like a dream and we were the only ones with power in the area. Now the storm was so bad that power poles were ripped out of the ground and it was almost a week before mains power could be restored to the district. We brought in extra fuel to keep the home standby generator working and a couple of the local farmers families moved in for the week because they were living in the dark and didn’t have a home standby generator. My wife was magnificent. She didn’t mention the power company, she didn’t write any letters of complaint she baked, cleaned and helped the other families that were struggling and conducted sing-along’s at night to keep everyone busy. She cooked for the people staying with us and sent out food to farms that didn’t have power to cook for themselves, she was a regular hero and this reminded me of why I love her. Me, I kept that home standby generator going, it didn’t miss a beat and kept our farm powered through the week with even the large demands that we placed upon it. Once the power came on and the families had gone home we had a rest but not before. We looked around the house which was a bit of a mess but it didn’t matter. The home standby generator had been there for us when we needed and if we never needed it again it didn’t matter it had already justified its own existence.
