So, we lost power today. Trees are down in the area and supposedly some areas lost power yesterday and into today. Either a new issue knocked out our power, or lines in the area were shut down to allow for repairs. Regardless of the how, power was down for around 8 hours.
We lost power for a couple of days a few years ago, when back to back heavy snowstorms took down a lot of trees and power lines. There have been a few pinpoint outages since then, mostly transformer issues I’m told.
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8 hours without power is no fun. Refrigerators are said to be able to go around 4 hours before food spoils, and after that you’re taking chances.
After around 3 hours, and when it was clear the power wasn’t coming back so quickly, I connected one battery-powered generator to the basement fridge (which has been serving as an overflow and homemade pickle fridge) – after giving the sump pump some juice – and then I connected another to the main fridge.
My wife was really impressed with the EGO Nexus I connected to the main fridge, and I appreciated its performance, user control, and the real-time runtime information it provided.
If need-be, I could have routed an extension fan and cooling fan or two to the EGO Nexus as well, and the USB ports would have quickly charged up everyone’s devices with power to spare.
I’ve been yo-yoing about the idea of a whole house natural gas generator, and that’s a debate for another time. I’m not too keen on the idea of portable gasoline generators. What I like about battery-powered generators is that 1) they can be used indoors without issue, and 2) they can be used for other outdoors activities.
There are two types – ones that work with replaceable batteries, such as the portable power stations from Dewalt, EGO, and others, and ones that have built-in batteries.
So far, it seems that the power stations with built-in batteries are smaller and more aimed at powering small electronic appliances or charging small devices.
We’ve posted about a number of portable battery station-type products over the years.
Bosch came out with a portable battery bank in Europe a few years ago, and I was surprised that nothing similar came out here.
Dewalt’s portable power station is fairly economical, and works with 20V Max and FlexVolt batteries. My experiences with it have been superb so far. It’s convenient – but slow – to be able to use this as a battery charger as well.
The EGO Nexus is nicely designed and while it’s not inexpensive (note: I didn’t pay for mine, it’s a review sample), it’s fully featured and I’m at a loss trying to think of ways it could be better.
A Ryobi 40V portable power station appeared online last year, but for reasons unknown to us, it never made it to launch.
There’s a new Milwaukee MX Fuel portable power station, and I am very optimistic about it. This seems like a must-have for anyone who buys into the MX Fuel line of cordless power equipment.
I wrote about the Anker Powerhouse a while back, and it seems like a good example of a personal device-type battery power station. The way it’s described, it can power smaller appliances. If it weren’t so pricey, I’d buy one its 12V DC port.
Your Recommendations?
There’s got to be more products like these out there. Or, maybe you’ve tried one of these and can share your experiences?
While the pricing of these types of products aren’t much lower than portable gasoline generators, they’re often much smaller, lighter, quieter, and often useful in other types of situations, plus you can use them indoors and without the hassle of gas cans and such.
Do you have a battery-powered generator or cordless power station? Which would you recommend?
So far, I can sing praises for Dewalt and EGO. Dewalt’s form factor could be a little better, but it’s not bad, and being ToughSystem-compatible is a nice touch. EGO’s has been marketed as a gas engine alternative, and I think it’s fairly accurate in that regard.
