I live in a subdivision that has underground utilities, but they come to the surface someplace, which makes the houses vulnerable during any season. And it did happen a few times when I wasn't on the road. I figured that I could come home from even a summer trip to blinking digital clocks without knowing how long the power was off. That meant that I could come home to a perfectly frozen upright freezer full of rotten but re-frozen food. And it did happen. Broke my heart and pocketbook to toss most of a side of beef.
I chose to have a whole house generator installed, powered by natural gas which isn't affected by electric outages. Mine is a Generac, but several companies make them. It detects a power outage and fires up automatically. It just did last week, for a couple of hours. Mine cost around $5,000 installed, but prices depend on the number of circuits you want to protect.
I forgot the original question - I don't winterize.
