Let's imagine the unimaginable. You are at your home, quietly enjoying the newest installment of Hollywood magic on your big screen TV. Why, of course, you also have a home theater system and the sound is just out of this world. Well, I guess it has all been rather imaginable up to this point. Now, let's throw in the unexpected. Nothing catastrophic, but simply something unpleasant. A hurricane, a small tornado or perhaps a human error has caused the lights to go out. Yep, no power for your power-packed home theater! But nobody is hurt and there is absolutely no need for you go run about the neighborhood saving puppies out of burning houses and perform other heroic deeds that you are undoubtedly totally capable of. Now, why not finish watching the movie? Or do you have to spent several boring hours listening to the radio or the iPod until the battery dies? Well, all you need is an electric generator. Let's look at some numbers.
A typical house needs a 5-kilowatt portable generator. This should be enough to power a heating system and a few other essential pieces of equipment. The cost of such a generator is no less than $700. It will consume close to a gallon of gas per hour when running at full capacity. If you consider today's gas prices you are probably better off using the electric company for your daily needs. But a few gallons of gas to feel human in the most inhuman conditions of an electrical outage? To some folks this could be worth it! But then again, you could just use a portable DVD player...
No comments:
Post a Comment