I've got a 12kw unit similar to what Gary described, nat. gas fired (if your power is out, likely the neighboring fuel stations are down too.......depending on the nature of the outage, how far do you have to go to get fuel. Also doesn't go stale, gum up the carb, dilute the oil, just stuff to think about), auto transfer switch, yada yada. My last two insurance companies weren't impressed enough to lower premiums, probably because their exposure is fairly minimal in most power failures. None the less, it's very reassuring to have. Before I put it in we'd have winter storm outages that lasted an average 6 days about every other winter. Since installing it we've only had two less than hour long outages of any kind............good ol' Murphy. I've tried to take up a collection from my neighbors to help pay for it since it's obvious that my installing the generator is what's protected all of them from failures...................................cheap bastards aren't buyin' my story!