About Backup Power Home

The first outage lasted four days. The second lasted six. Both happened the same year, both after storms hit the Houston area. By the second one we had a better plan — slightly. Mostly we'd figured out that the first plan hadn't accounted for what actually matters when a house goes dark for six days. Not the WiFi. Not the dead fridge. The cooler in the kitchen that had to stay cold for our youngest's insulin.

We're Lauren and Mike. She's a freelance graphic designer who works from home — that first blackout cost her three days of client deadlines she had to explain to clients while sitting in the dark. He coaches little league. The insulin situation during the second outage is what turned "we should have a backup plan" into something we actually built.

The year after, we tested things. A portable power station — roughly 1,000Wh — rated for eight hours of essential appliances and lasting four during a Houston August, because what "essential appliances" means in marketing copy and what it means running a fridge, a CPAP, and two phone chargers are different things. Solar panels that performed better than expected when we finally pointed them south and stopped guessing. A gas generator that worked exactly as advertised until we read the manual and discovered you can't run it inside. We tracked runtimes against our actual load, kept a cost log, wrote it down.

We're not electricians. Not preppers. Just a family in hurricane country that got serious after two storms: one insulin-dependent kid, one home office, one anxious dad who sleeps better now. What we write about is what we've run in our actual house against our actual situation. For generator installation, transfer switches, or anything permanent, please consult a licensed electrician — carbon monoxide and back-feed risks are real and serious.

More on Lauren and how the reviews work: author page.

Some links on this site are affiliate links — we earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend backup power solutions our family has actually tested during real outages or extended simulations.