To run a heater or ac, you need a significant generator. I have been looking at battery systems and to run an existing residential ac, its like 10k and you need two inverters. Where I am, the power failures have been minimal and manageable (30 minute intervals every couple months) The exception was Hurricane Beryl and we were out of power for 3 days. I intermittently ran a generator for our fridge and the neighbors to charge stuff but even running a window unit was not an option on our 5000w generator. It burned maybe 2 gallons of gas?

Running an electric central air heater is also essentially out of the question. With a gas heater, you just need to run the fan and not heat the elements.

Despite the health risks, that is why we still use. Gas water heaters, gas furnaces, gas dryers, and a gas stove in our house. I want the fallback of running stuff without power. The grid is also shitty to the point (in some areas) that it fried my uncles induction stove, fridge, and ovens even living in a major city.

That also wouldn’t have helped during the winter storm in Austin because the gas supply basically froze and lost pressure so those folks were really hurting.

I think the big built in generators run 15k plus and run off natural gas. I did learn that they also require a maintenance subscription (because of course they do) and thats like 2k a year iirc.