Today, a step forward into reality. Our new Duro Max generator will be hooked up to the house and ready for you. Our amazing man of all trades, Mike Conklin, is overseeing the installation, along with Jimmy, a certified electrician. We have installed a safety switch box to ensure the electricity and the generator don’t collide or run into one another.

Today, they are turning the power off for one hour beginning at one p.m. to test the generator and make sure it can handle powering the farmhouse during an outage, which Mike is confident it can do.

The model is a dual felt XP 13,000 w generator. Mike will turn it on and off a couple of times to ensure it can do what we believe it can do. There was a sound test yesterday, and the generator is almost shockingly quiet, unlike most of the generators I hear from miles away when the power goes out.

The DuroMas can be powered either on high octane gasoline or propane gas. We’re going with the gasoline, at least for now. The generator will be stored in the barn. When we want to use it, it rolls out just like a wheelbarrow, and we can plug it into a new and special outlet at the back of the house.

We have all kinds of safety mechanisms to make sure the power is off when we turn the generator on. I think this is a first-rate generator and first-rate planning. I did a record-breaking amount of research for this system. It was wise to hire someone who has worked with generators and knew what he was doing.

We added up the wattage of all the utilities we might want to use if the power goes out – water heater, water pump, computers, refrigerator, baseboard heating, and lights, and we come in way under 13,000 watts – it’s a small farmhouse – but we’ll test it thoroughly today to make sure.

Mike is experienced and careful; we trust him completely. He is also very safety conscious. We made sure to get safeguards built into our system. The Duro Max costs about $1,500 and can be started by pushing a button. It is very easy to use.

Unlike the full-house systems, we have to take it in and out of the barn each time we need it. To us, that’s a minor inconvenience, the entire house systems cost between eight and ten thousand dollars.

We can’t afford that, even if we wanted to. We used to laugh at the idea of a generator – we can handle power outages – but we stopped laughing a couple of years ago and started planning.

We will spend another $1,500 on installation, safety, and wiring. Mike will take responsibility for maintenance – he also plows snow for us and is a landscaper. He’ll run it several times in the summer and make sure it’s in working order. I bought a heavy cover to put over it when it’s not in use.

Up here, the power usually goes out two or three times in the summer – lightning storms – and once or twice in the winter. Usually, the outages are brief; we live on a state highway the crews get here quickly. But with climate change, they are becoming more frequent and lasting longer. One of those superstorms I keep seeing in the news could knock us out of power for days, even weeks.

I have medicine and food that needs refrigeration, pipes that need warmth, and blogging that needs to be done. The cable stays in operation most of the time if the power lines go down. My significant contribution was researching generators and choosing the right one.

Mike and Jimmy have both said I made a great choice. I’m kind of proud of that. So if all goes well, around 2 p.m., the power will be back on, and the generator will be operational, snug in its cover and waiting in the barn. I’ll go and get an eight-gallon jug for the gasoline and have it ready. Mike and Jimmy will give Maria a lesson; she knows machines a lot better than I do.

We feel good about this. I’m not sure what else we can do to remain safe without going over the top. It’s a good start for 2022 and will help us feel – and be – safer.  We can’t do much about most climate change effects, but we can do this.

Up here, it is not fun to lose power in the winter.