The 10-Day Blackout Power Bible

What Guessing Costs

The Generator Didn't Fail. The Plan Did.

A full freezer is $400 to $1,000 of food. It holds about 48 hours packed, 24 half-empty. Anything perishable above 40°F for two hours goes in the trash — and most people find that out after they've already eaten some of it.

A $399 transfer switch, quoted at $1,600 installed. That's roughly $1,200 of labor for two hours of work — and the reason most people never connect the generator they already own.

$6,897 average installed cost for a home standby — before the unit. Add $5,389 for a 14kW Generac and another $5,000–$8,000 if you need a propane tank. Most people who spend it never needed that machine.

A $150 battery that kills a $12,000 machine. The starting battery is the number one no-start cause on a standby generator — and it passes its weekly self-test right up until the night it has to crank.

Gasoline goes off in about 30 days and varnishes a carburetor in 60. The can in your garage from last hurricane season is not fuel any more. A $23 maintenance kit and one habit prevents the whole thing.

More than 100 Americans die every year from generator carbon monoxide. It is the leading cause of post-storm CO deaths, and nearly all of it comes from one machine placed a few feet too close to the house.

The Whole Idea, In One Line

You're Not Running A House. You're Running Three Things, For A Long Time.

Almost everybody buys the machine first and works out what it has to do afterwards. That's backwards, and it's why people end up with something too small to matter or big enough to feed a house they don't live in. Start from the other end — the refrigerator, the medical machine, and a working modem — and the whole problem gets cheaper, quieter and far more likely to work.

Anybody can survive four hours. What separates the people who come out of a long outage calm from the ones who come out angry and out of pocket is almost never the size of the generator. It's whether they could stretch it. A short list doesn't just cost less to buy — it costs less to feed, and length is what actually beats a bad outage.

What $27 Actually Buys You

210 pages, 73 illustrations and diagrams, and a system you can start tonight — organized in the order you'd actually do the job, not the order a catalog would list the parts.

The $400 Kit That Works Tonight

One battery, one inverter, one fuse. Exactly what to buy, what it costs, and the honest runtime — about 20 hours on a modern fridge. No wiring, no electrician.

Your House's Number, On One Page

Running watts, starting watts and watt-hours in plain words — then you walk your own house with a notepad and come out with one figure. This is the thing nobody explains.

The Surge Nobody Warns You About

Why a half-horsepower well pump runs on 1,000 watts but demands 2,100 to start, and why that one fact decides whether your generator is big enough or useless.

Into The Panel, Safely

Transfer switch, interlock kit, or neither — what each costs, which one your inspector will accept, and the cord that kills linemen. Said plainly, with the places to hire out marked.

The Day Two Fuel Plan

Gasoline, propane and natural gas compared honestly — including how much charge each dollar actually buys, and how to not be the man in the gas station line with an empty can.

The Ten-Minute Monthly Drill

Why running a generator with no load doesn't count, what to check on the battery every three months, and the maintenance calendar that decides whether it starts at all.

See It Before You Buy It

Real pages from the book — not mockups. Large type, honest photographs, and a full-page reference plate whenever the numbers matter.

A page from the book showing a photograph of a battery and inverter alongside the explanation of pure sine wave power — Real photographs, large type, and the reason before the instruction

A full-page reference plate from the book listing the four-hundred-dollar kit with its wattage, amperage and prices — A full-page reference plate whenever the numbers matter

Everything In It, Part By Part

Part 1

The First Night

Keep the refrigerator cold tonight. The three things that must stay on, the one-battery setup that does it, what every appliance really costs you, and the five mistakes that ruin it on the first night.

Part 2

Getting It Right

Find your number. Choose between a generator, a battery or both. Then get the power into the house — cords, transfer switches, interlocks, and what each one really costs installed.

Part 3

Living On It

Fuel and the day two plan. Then ten days without the grid: the burn schedule, why the generator sleeps at night, carbon monoxide, and heat, water and food when it runs long.

Part 4

Keeping It

Making it last ten years — keeping a battery alive, the generator's maintenance calendar, the monthly drill, and what to try, in order, when it won't start. Plus the one-page checklist for the refrigerator door.

Before You Decide

No. It was written for somebody who can re-gap a spark plug but has never been told what a watt-hour is — and it explains that in plain words before it uses it. The type is large, the pictures are real, and every chapter tells you why before it tells you how. If you've ever watched a video about this and given up halfway, that's exactly who it's for.

That's the main reader, honestly. Most people who get caught out already owned the machine — it ran fine and the plan around it was a day and a half deep. The book is about sizing it to your actual house, getting it into the panel safely, feeding it past day two, and keeping it starting. The machine is the easy part.

It will teach you what the options are, what each costs, what your inspector is likely to accept and what the real risks are — so you can have an informed conversation and not get quoted $1,600 for two hours of work. But there are three or four places where the book tells you plainly to hire a licensed electrician, and it means it. Backfeeding a panel can kill a lineman working down the road. We'd rather say so than sell you the idea that everything is a weekend project.

No, and we won't pretend otherwise. Ten days is what a properly sized and properly fed system can do — it's the length people actually faced after Ian, Irma and the Derecho. Your result depends on your house, your loads, your fuel and your climate. What the book reliably gives you is a system matched to your own numbers instead of a guess, and a plan that doesn't collapse on the second morning.

Both, and the honest comparison between them. Portable power stations, lithium batteries, solar recharging, conventional generators, dual-fuel and home standby units are all in there — including where each one genuinely beats the others and where it doesn't. It also tells you which battery chemistry to avoid and why refurbished units can't really be assessed before you buy.

It's a digital PDF, 210 pages. The moment your payment clears, the download link is emailed to you — usually within a minute. Read it on a phone, tablet or computer, or print the one-page checklist for the refrigerator door.

Because it's an instant digital download, all sales are final. If you hit a technical problem with your file or your download, email contact@liibro.com and we'll make sure you get your copy. See our Refund Policy for details.

Two Choices, And One Of Them Has A Comma In It

Option 1: Find out on the second morning. Stand in your own driveway with an empty can, throw away a freezer full of food, and pay somebody $1,600 in December to connect the generator you already owned.

Option 2: Spend $27 and one afternoon. Get your house's real number, the $400 setup that works tonight, the safe way into the panel, the fuel plan that survives day two, and the ten-minute check that means it starts.

$27

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210 pages · 73 photographs, diagrams and full-page reference plates · the $400 first-night kit · your house's wattage worksheet · transfer switch, interlock and inlet costs compared · the day-two fuel plan · the burn schedule · carbon monoxide distances · the battery storage rule · the generator maintenance calendar · the won't-start order · the one-page refrigerator checklist

Secure Stripe Checkout Instant Email Delivery PDF — Read on Any Device