The Home Battery Backup Guide: Sizing, Selecting, and Surviving the Next Grid Outage

Almost every battery pitch you will hear is built on vendor marketing, not your house's actual numbers. Learn the math before any salesperson sizes a system for you.

This plain-language sizing guide teaches you the watts times hours method, works three households end to end, and gives you the honest battery-vs-generator trade-offs. The federal tax credit that used to soften the price expired on December 31, 2025, so in 2026 every dollar has to be justified by resilience, not a tax form. No brand paid to be in this book.

Inside:

- Watts vs. watt-hours explained simply, plus the surge number that decides whether your AC starts

- The step-by-step sizing method: list your loads, adjust for depth of discharge and efficiency

- Three households worked end to end: an apartment, a typical house, and a medical-device household

- LiFePO4 vs. NMC chemistry in plain language, and what the warranty really promises

- Portable power stations vs. whole-home systems vs. the hybrid, inverters and transfer switches, and battery vs. generator, honestly

Size it yourself first, then shop with your own worksheet in hand.