I bought my generator on October 10, 1988 while living in the boonies outside of Albany, NY after one of those "fun" storms where the trees make a mess of the power systems. We were without power for ~10 days and my sump pump wouldn't run - can you say a basement swimming pool until I got it up and running?? Luckily I had a walkout basement so it really was only an ankle deep wading pool - but of course it flooded the furnace to the tune of $150