alt Hacker NewsYeah, this is where I landed, too. Except propane bottles only get me about 3-4 hours per bottle and it's pricey. It ran $50 for one day of AC during the last outage.
I just bought a kit to convert to natural gas though. Most people who've done it are happy to not change bottles all the time. It won't help after an earthquake but the regular PSPS outages I get make natural gas a better fit for the moment.
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alt227 • today at 4:33 PM
Im not sure AC is the sort of thing most people are thinking about needing power for in an emergency or disaster scenario, its one of the most power hungry things you can use.
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Not everyone lives somewhere with natural gas service, and gas service could also go out in some types of disasters.
It’s possible to get larger propane tanks and refill them more cheaply (rather than exchanging expensive grill tanks at the store). Some hardware stores will refill tanks directly. You can even get very large tanks (refilled by a truck that comes to your house) if you want weeks of power on tap. But this is probably overkill for most, unless you’re very remote.