Plan your outage power in one sitting

What the checklist covers

No hype and no shopping list of specific brands — just the planning steps that decide whether a backup setup works, in the order you should do them.

• How to build a critical-load list, room by room
• Where real wattage numbers come from — labels, spec sheets, and watt meters
• Sizing targets for two-hour, all-day, and multi-day outages
• When a UPS beats a power station — and when a power bank is enough
• A recharge plan that covers wall, car, and solar
• The cable-and-connector audit most plans skip
• A quarterly test routine that keeps the plan honest

The full checklist — free on this page

You don't need to hand over an email address to use this. The complete checklist is below; the emailed copy, once it's live, will simply be this list in your inbox.

1. List every device you'd actually want running

   Walk through a normal evening and write down what you'd genuinely miss in an outage: router and modem, phones, a laptop, lights, a fan, any medical device, maybe the fridge. A plan sized from a real list beats a guess every time.

2. Split the list into must-run and nice-to-have

   Must-run is usually smaller than people expect — often just internet gear, phones, and any medical device. Size your purchase around must-run and treat everything else as bonus capacity, not a requirement.

3. Find each device's real wattage

   Power adapter labels show a worst-case maximum; real draw is often half that or less. Start with typical ranges in the device wattage library, then use a plug-in watt meter for the loads that matter most — it's the single most useful purchase in this whole process.

4. Pick the outage window you're planning for

   A two-hour flicker, a full workday, and a multi-day storm call for very different batteries. Choose one primary scenario. Many households do well planning for 8–12 hours and treating anything longer as a recharge problem instead of a bigger-battery problem.

5. Size the battery with real math, not the marketing number

   Watts × hours gives the energy you need; then allow for conversion losses and a reserve you never plan to touch. The power station sizing calculator does this in seconds, and the battery runtime calculator works in the other direction if you already own a battery.

6. Choose the type of backup, not just the size

   A UPS switches over instantly for always-plugged-in gear, a power bank covers USB devices for a fraction of the cost, and a power station runs AC loads for hours. The comparison hub lays out the trade-offs. Batteries and UPS units are safe to use indoors; fuel generators never are.

7. Check surge ratings before planning around a fridge

   Compressor appliances briefly pull far more at startup than their running watts suggest. If a refrigerator is on your must-run list, verify the battery's surge rating comfortably exceeds the compressor's start-up draw — otherwise the plan fails at the exact moment it's needed.

8. Plan the recharge path before you need it

   Decide now how you'd refill the battery mid-outage: a car's 12V port, a second battery, or a solar panel. The solar recharge calculator shows what a panel realistically delivers per day — usually well under what the label implies.

9. Audit your cables, adapters, and connectors

   The most common plan-killer is a missing cable: the 12V cable for the router, an extension cord that reaches, a USB-C cable rated for your laptop's wattage. Test-fit every connection once, end to end, before you call the kit done.

10. Cover lighting separately and cheaply

    A couple of LED lanterns or headlamps cost little, sip power, and save your main battery for the loads that matter. Keep their spare batteries or charging cables in the same place as the rest of the kit.

11. Stage everything in one place someone else could find

    Store the battery at the manufacturer's recommended charge level, keep every cable and adapter with it, and make sure another adult in the household knows where the kit lives and how it connects.

12. Test the whole plan quarterly — and write down the result

    Run your must-run loads from the battery for an hour and note how much capacity that used. Batteries age and gear changes, so recheck the math occasionally. A plan you've never tested is a hope, not a plan.