"The last few weeks". We had our housekeeper and house sitter either eat what they could and throw away the rest. But, it makes one wonder exactly how much food was lost the last few weeks in California and around the country? I counted 50 places north of San Luis Obispo about a week ago without power (different cities and areas) and about 30 or more places south of San Luis Obispo. Because Southern California Edison is mostly south from Santa Barbara and Pacific Gas and Electric are north of there in the state mostly. This doesn't include people who are totally or partially self sufficient with solar arrays on their roofs either who might have Tesla batteries that last a week or more from their solar arrays when there is enough sun in California.
The 400 dollar loss in food (if you are there when it happens) (the power outage) pays for a gasoline generator up to 400 to 500 dollars in one day by the way. So, if you can afford it buying a gasoline or diesel Generator is cost effective looking at it in this way too.
So, a few years ago I realized this and bought a gasoline powered generator big enough to power everything in my house that has two wheels and a handle so I can set it up anywhere I want to to generate power to my house from about 8 AM to 9 pm whenever power is out now and I'm actually here at my northern California home.
But, if you are doing this make sure someone knows that you cannot run this through your main power panel. You have to unplug your refrigerator (and everything else) and put the power from the generator directly to all appliances in your home through usually a 100 foot orange outdoor cord with a surge protector for you to plug other items into.
Never run this through your main power panels or any sub panels in your home. Because when the power comes on (usually unexpectedly) it could blow up your Generator and burn down your home if you have run the power through the walls and panels in your home. But, as long as you know this ahead of time you are ahead of the game.
So, as soon as the power comes on you run out and turn off your generator and unplug your refrigerator and everything else from it and plug everything back into the walls of your home then.
Many people don't understand this and if you don't you have no business having a generator unless you understand this fully. Unless you want your generator to blow up and your house to burn down.
There is another option by the way but I don't do this because I consider it to be too dangerous to do because if you forget anything you could also burn your home down this way too.
Some people: Only Daredevil experts at this: shut off their main breaker to their main panel and then run from the generator through that main panel with the main breaker shut in the off position.
The main problem with this from my point of view is that many homes have main panels and then one or more sub panels. Unless you built this house yourself, you don't know how people wired this main panel or how the sub panels were wired in the first place. It might not have even been a real electrical contractor who did this but a do it yourselfer. You don't know.
So, I consider this last way too dangerous to attempt for all these reasons. Because unless a professional installed all these panels (and what if they made some mistake that was never caught?)
you just don't know you aren't going to burn your home down anyway when the power comes on because of all these unknown variables.
Another problem with this might be that unless your generator has a really huge capacity it might not be able to carry all the power needs of everything that would go on in the house too. So, even if there are no problems with how the house was wired you might harm your generator anyway and have to repair it or even buy a new one anyway. So, this is why I won't do any of this.
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