Our small gen is 9000 watts and runs pretty much all the vital things. If we are careful, we can stay in touch with the world with it running. A good friend wired it to the house. It was $150 worth of wiring. He made his own wiring for it. I can only imagine what an electrician would have charge?! We turn off the main, plug it in, start the generator and voila! Power! During H. Alicia we were without power in August for 10 days, H. Rita, 5 days, again in August. So we were ready for H. Ike with the generator. Good thing, because we were without power for 8 days. We did the cord thing back then, too. Since wiring it, we haven't had to use it for long periods of time. BUT, the season is not over with yet!
