Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:
Last year, when Hurricane Sandy shut down our power for 3 days,
and friends in the surrounding area were without power for as
much as 3 weeks, I knew we could no longer rely on the grid
alone.
And so last month, I bit the bullet, spent around $13,000, and
installed a new GE Home Generator System.
This is a full-house generator capable of powering our entire
home -- including my home office -- for as long as the grid is
offline.
The backup generator comes online automatically, in about 20
seconds, should the power go out.
Therefore, if you have a surge protector and uninterruptible
power supply (UPS) for your PC, it is almost impossible for you
to experience an interruption in PC service.
I believe every work-at-home white collar professional who
relies on a PC -- and most of us do -- should get a full-house
generator immediately. And here's why:
Our clients expect us to be available and ready to serve them
when they need us. With the widespread availability of
full-house generators, they will no longer accept a
storm-related power outage as an excuse for you not being up and
running.
Clients rightly expect us to take the steps, on our own, to
minimize our down-time, be always available to them, and meet
deadlines. If we fail in this, we risk their displeasure to the
point of them switching to other vendors who are disaster-ready.
My GE full-house generator runs on natural gas supplied by the
utility which never ceases to flow. This is a better choice than
propane which can run out. And during a hurricane-size storm and
its aftermath, propane refills may be difficult to come by.
Importantly, the GE Home Generator System and comparable models
provide "clean" power equivalent to the quality of the grid, so
that PCs and other sensitive electronics can run on it without
harm.
Gasoline-powered portable generators provide "dirty"
electricity. Never hook your computer up to one directly. It can
damage your PC and destroy your hard drive and the data on it. I
was lucky -- this did not happen when I tried it during Sandy.
But it usually does fry the electronics.
The other problem with portable generators is they run on
gasoline. During Sandy, in northern NJ you had to wait 2-3 hours
on a line at a gas station to fill a container with gasoline --
when you could get it at all.
A can or two of gas don't keep a portable generating running all
that long. So you have to repeat the process over and over. A
nightmare you want to avoid.
Sincerely,
Bob Bly
P.S. If you rent, and your building does not have a back-up
generator, you put yourself at risk. It may be time to buy a
place of your own and properly outfit it against disaster. When
renting a new place, look for a building with a whole-building
generator. More big storms are coming, and you want to be ready
now; do not wait until the next one hits.
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