The best whole-house generators, according to Consumer Reports

Outages disable furnaces, pumps, and medical devices. Consumer Reports tested six standby generators on output, efficiency, and noise to find the best

Zendure Power Station / Unsplash

Severe weather knocked out power to millions of American homes last year, and grid reliability has continued to decline in many regions. Whole-house standby generators fill that gap automatically, starting within seconds of an outage and running on natural gas or propane without the manual setup a portable unit requires. Installation costs range from $2,000 to $20,000 or more, and the units themselves run $3,400 to nearly $7,000, so the stakes on choosing correctly are high.

Consumer Reports put six home standby generators through lab tests covering power delivery, power quality, fuel efficiency, noise, and ease of use. Continue reading to see which made the list.

At 22,000........

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