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By Jeff Kelley, Laclede Gas Company

Power outages have become much more frequent recently. Hundreds of thousands of metro St. Louis area residents have lost power in just the past few years. Outages have ranged from an inconvenient hour or two, to a devastating several weeks. Not content to put up with it next time, many of you in the metro area have expressed an interest in backup generators. Who knows when the next outage will occur? Outages are as unpredictable as the St. Louis weather.

Simply put, living without power is a pain. You worry about spoiled food. If no friends or family can take you in, it’s off to the hotel. If it’s cold your pipes might freeze. Your property is at risk. In the summer nights are long, hot and humid.

So what kinds of generators are available? The most basic generators are portable and are designed for activities like camping and other outdoor events. Normally, portables have a gasoline engine similar to a lawn mower and are very noisy. To use this type of generator you need to run an extension chords outside. If the power is out for very long, the fuel tank will need to be refilled repeatedly. Sensitive electronics may not work properly, but you can keep on a few lights and run a refrigerator. Items that are hard-wired like furnaces can be powered by portable generators, but it’s not recommended. A lot of expertise is required to safely break in to your home’s wiring setup. It can be extremely dangerous to back feed your system without disconnecting the main breaker. You could fatally injure the very linemen who are out trying to make repairs.

Portable generators should never be operated indoors. There have been fatalities in the St. Louis area from carbon monoxide produced by a portable generator. The best reason to go with a portable is the price. Portables start as low at $500 and a typical unit is around $1,000.

You can achieve a lot of convenience and peace of mind by moving up to an automatic standby generator. If you lose power, an automatic generator disconnects the service from the utility and transfers the circuits you have backed up in about a minute. You don’t have to be home or do anything to start the generator, it comes on independently. If you are out of town, the refrigerator keeps working, the heat stays on and your alarm system is energized.

The system has an outdoor and an indoor component. The outdoor unit contains the motor and the generator itself. The indoor part is the automatic transfer switch and distribution panel for the circuits that are backed up. During an outage, the transfer switch automatically disconnects the feed from the utility company and transfers the power load on to the generator. When the power comes back on, it does the opposite. The generator is disconnected and all the power flows from the utility, just like normal. It’s all automatic.

Automatic systems vary in price according to the circuits you want to back up. A bare bones system will back up a refrigerator, a gas furnace, and a few lights. A complete professional installation, including the generator, wiring modifications, and gas connection will start at about $5,000. Adding the central air conditioner will increase the price to about $8,000. The fuel supply can be propane or natural gas. Natural gas is the most convenient fuel source, since the supply is continuous. A critical circuits system usually has air-cooled engine similar to a motorcycle. The noise produced is higher pitched than larger liquid-cooled units. Some circuits will be left off during an outage.

The ultimate is a complete home backup system using a liquid-cooled, natural gas-fired system. With this type of system, all the circuits in your home are backed up. If you lose utility power the engine fires up and you have the same electricity availability as normal. These types of systems can require extensive site preparation and heavy equipment to lift the unit into place. Prices can be $20,000 and up. When the liquid-cooled unit is in operation the sound is similar to a car idling.

If you visit the St. Louis Home Show and are interested in an automatic backup generator, visit the Laclede Gas booth, or attend a generator basics seminar by Laclede Gas at the posted times.

Jeff Kelley is a manager in charge of Laclede Gas Company’s generator sales operation. He has been with the company for 27 years and has a background in service, utilization engineering, and sales and marketing. He is a graduate of St. Louis University. Visit www.lacledeappliances.com.

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