Portable or standby generator?

Side by side

Portable and upkeep figures from HomeGuide (2026); standby price from our cost guide; start time from Generac.

The carbon monoxide problem

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says an average of nearly 100 people die each year from carbon monoxide from portable generators, and tells owners to run them outside only, at least 20 ft from the house, with battery CO alarms on every level (CPSC, Jan 2024).

Louisiana has its own numbers. Of the 26 Hurricane Ida deaths the state health department had confirmed by September 8, 2021, six were carbon monoxide poisoning and nine were blamed on excessive heat during the long outage (Louisiana Department of Health). Both point to the same thing: in a long summer outage, how you make power matters as much as having it.

Connecting a portable safely

Running extension cords to a fridge and a fan works but leaves the AC off. To power house circuits, an electrician installs an outdoor inlet plus either an interlock kit (about $400–850 installed) or a manual transfer switch (about $400–1,300) (HomeGuide). An interlock is a sliding plate that keeps the main breaker and the generator breaker from being on together; it has to be made for your panel. Never back-feed through a dryer outlet: it can energize the street lines and kill a lineworker. The transfer switch guide explains the standby side.

Fuel in a long outage

A portable on gasoline needs refilling every day or so, from cans you filled before the storm. After Ida, about 250,000 Baton Rouge homes lost power, some for weeks (The Advocate),. A standby unit on piped gas skips that entirely; on propane, a 500-gallon tank lasts about 6½ days at half load (our estimate on the gas vs propane page).

Which one fits your household

A portable is usually enough if you're home during storms, can move and refuel it safely, have a spot at least 20 ft from doors and windows, and can live with a few circuits for a few days.

Standby is worth pricing if anyone in the house uses oxygen, a CPAP or other powered medical equipment; you travel and want the house cooled and the freezer cold while you're gone; you have infants or older relatives in the heat; or the person who would refuel can't lift cans.

Common questions