Does Having a Generator Improve the Value of a Home?

Does Having a Generator

Improve the Value of a Home?

or

What It Means To Be Without Power

When buying a new home, you might be looking for a super gourmet kitchen, a luxury bathroom, extra bedrooms, great outdoor living space, a pool or tennis court, but does one ever seek out a home with a generator? Probably not too frequently, unless of course, you had lived without power for any length of time. One year, for us it was eight painful days!

As soon as we moved to the area, my husband started talking about buying a generator. But why? ... was the natural question, we never needed one before. Safety and peace of mind, was the natural response. Since hubby travels a lot for work, he wanted the family to be protected in case of a power outage.

Not having electricity for an evening may sound romantic (at first): eating by candlelight, family time without TV, or cozying up by the fireplace. If you are living in a sparsely populated area with private wells and septic systems, where snow, ice or winds might knock out your power supply for longer than a few hours, the “fun” aspect of a power outage goes out the window very quickly.

No power in a home with a well means NO WATER as the well pump is run by electricity. That in turn means no flushing and no showers. If you have an electric stove, it means no cooking, no morning coffee (horrors!). In winter, there is no heat, even if oil is your fuel as the furnace turns on with electric power as well. Of course, no phones and no internet. Our cell service is spotty; we have a Microcell (sort of a mini cell tower in our home) and yes, it’s plugged into an electric outlet. Forget about charging your phone.  Get the picture?

After quite a few relatively quiet years, we were hit with serious power outages two years in a row, first by a rogue end-of-October snow storm, then by superstorm Sandy that devastated a good part of the New York City area and included us in CT. The first outage lasted four days, the second eight days.

Living conditions became trying very quickly. Bottled water vanished from all the nearby stores. We had time to fill bathtubs with washing water and were fortunate to be able to resort to pool water for flushing. With our propane gas stove, we were able to function minimally by preparing modest meals; fireplace was a good source for some heat, but not for the entire house. Luckily our tennis club had electricity and was a good place for showers. Our local supermarket was running on commercial generators, so frozen and perishable items were off limits. Some people moved to hotels in neighboring towns that had power, others chose to spend a few days in places like Florida (if they could get gasoline to drive away - gas stations need electric power too!).

With the above scenario in mind, a generator became an enviable commodity. After those lengthy power outages, it was a popular item to be mentioned on a listing sheet of a home for sale in our area.

Clearly, a generator could be added after purchasing a home, but the array of choices is almost dizzying, requiring good research. Installation of a larger size generator unit is not instantaneous and some of the smaller ones may either not do the job to the desired extent, or be downright dangerous if mishandled.

So, I would conclude that the presence of a generator should definitely make any homeowner feel more secure, but only if they have the proper unit for their home and know how to handle it properly. With the hurricane season upon us (Hermine on its way up the coast) and winter approaching, a generator is a serious consideration for your home.