I never lost power or cable during the four hurricanes in 2004 in Santiago, nor during the tornado in 2007 in Poinciana, even though my neighborhood was decimated, never lost power when my house was struck by lightning in 2006.

That's a perfect description, Cantwaittoarrive.

This reminds me of the story about the 75 year old man who was on his deathbed in the hospital with 2nd/3rd degree burns over most of his body after a gas pump explosion; he had been fueling his pickup truck while smoking a cigarette. He said "I've been smoking while gasing up my truck for 55 years; I can't believe this happened." (By the way, this was a Grampaw Pettibone story from a LONG time ago, so I don't have a link to it.)

wrong you don,t need approval, its underground!

Chelly is correct. All you need is a permit from the county.

backup generator
 

I had a whole house generator installed when i lived in Michigan. It ran about 7000.00, ran on natural gas. It requires upkeep every year. (tuneup, oil change, filter).
and ebout every 4-5 years a new battery. Having it done is about 200.00 per year. In mich. i was concerned about freezing in the winter. Here in the villages,
that is no concern. If you want it to run your AC, it will cost about 10,000.00.
A portable requires to much gas, or bottles of propane. If you add the cost of a underground tank, i believe the cost is to high. I have a extra freezer, and if i threw away everything i am out only around 500.00 or so. I just keep battery lights, candles, and a portable stove with fuel. and of course my bbq, with extra tank of fuel. :wave:

As a sort of middle measure for short outages, we have a couple of UPS units that will keep the router, computer, TV, and lamps going for 2-3 hours, or let us charge the phones if we need to. Prices are around $100-$200.

I would love to know more about your UPS units. Mine will only power the computer for a few minutes.

Wow, that doesn't seem right. Are they very old? We have two of the models I linked, one for the TV and satellite receiver and the other for the router. We've never run them completely down, but the display estimates how long you have left and they start at 2.5 to 3 hours. We've only had two outages that I remember, but I guess we did unplug the laptops and let them run on their own batteries.

I mostly like that they kick in for those transient outage blips that would otherwise cause the satellite receiver to restart. Heaven forbid The Good Wife is recording and we lose 5 minutes in the middle of a trial. :)

I am going to have a stand-by backup generator installed and would like to here from anyone else who has. I'm looking for a good company to install and maintain it. Coming from New England I am all to familiar with power loss due Mother Nature. I hope I never have to use it but isn't that the way house insurance also, we buy but hope to never use it.