The Start Jasper H. and Phyllis Wyman have lost power dozens of times during the 31 years they've lived in their restored farmhouse in Pittsfield, Maine. But after the ice storm of 1998, which left the Wymans without electricity for more than four days, they decided they'd had enough of living by the light of kerosene lanterns, huddled around a wood stove, with no running water because the well pump was dead. (They saved the food from their refrigerator by burying it in a snowbank.) So Jasper plunked down $7,000 for a standby generator. Sitting in the garage, its exhaust vented via a pipe through the wall, this diesel-fueled mini power plant produces enough electricity to run their lights, refrigerator, well pump, furnace, and water heater—pretty much everything the Wymans need to weather a power outage. "If we get another storm like that, it's more than adequate to do everything we need it to do," Jas...
