When it comes to power outages, you really don’t want to take too many risks.

It’s easy to forget how much we rely on electricity in our daily lives. When the power goes down there’s no hot water, no heat, no light and even no phones or Internet.

To make things worse, winter snow, summer hurricanes and tropical storms in northern VA can (and do) cause the power to go down regularly, and for extended periods of time.

In the winter, rather than being just inconvenient, it can be downright dangerous.

The trouble with portable generators

Portable generators are cheap and convenient, and we recommend keeping one in the basement as a standby, but they are not a solution when the power is out for extended periods.

Having limited ability, they can only power a few things in the house at once. No good if you’re trying to feed the kids, get everyone a hot shower and finish off the reports for work in the morning.

Particularly no good if you have old and young people you need to keep warm and safe over night.

They also guzzle fuel, and leave you constantly worrying about keeping stocked up on gas for the duration of the black out.

Whole house generators are the answer

A whole house generator does exactly what the name suggests. When your power goes down, a whole house generator will flip on automatically, and power the whole house.

Grandma stays warm, the kids get their dinner and the reports get done in time. Everyone gets a hot shower, like there’s not even a power outage at all.

In fact, the benefits of a whole house generator are many:

1) Self-fuelling: No more dealing with messy fuel cans and dealing with the anxiety of keeping your gas supply topped up. A whole house generator from SSI hooks up to your natural gas or LP fuel supply, meaning constant and smooth operation, with no maintenance.

2) Automatic: No need to drag the little fuel generator outside and try to fire her up in the dark. A Generac generator will know exactly when the power has gone down and will fire up immediately. You don’t even need to move. In fact, you don’t even need to be at home!

3) Smooth: Our generators are smooth and won’t endanger your sensitive electronics. There’s no need to worry about power surges or blowing out your TV or computer. Everything will run just as normal.

4) Safe: Lastly, and most importantly, whole house generators keep every body safe. From the obvious dangers of protecting vulnerable people, older and younger family members and those in poor health, to the less obvious hazards such as running extension cables throughout your poorly lit home, and having gas-guzzling portable generators chugging away a little too close for comfort.

Nothing says “I’m prepared” like installing a whole house generator, particularly in the northern VA area where weather is temperamental. While keeping a backup generator is always a sensible choice, we highly advise that you consider installing a whole house generator today.