Good morning!

"The advice I got seemed good- you can’t heat your house on a generator if the furnace or electricity goes out in the winter."

That's why I'll never have an all-electric house. Natural gas or propane is the only way to go for heating, cooking, and heating water. We bought a wood stove 35 years ago and have heated our house with it ever since. But with propane for cooking and water heating, we can maintain a normal level of comfort in winter power outages.

Yep. Refrigerators, freezers, A/C, and one clothes dryer are electric. I have nat. gas furnace, range, one clothes dryer, and a gas log fireplace. I think I could run the fireplace on gas alone as it’s just a millivolt thermostat and has a pilot- I don’t think there’s a 120v connection to it at all.

I considered getting a generator and a ‘jumper’ circuit to run the furnace if the electricity goes out, but most people say generator power is too dirty and will burn out the boards on a furnace, so better to get an indoor-rated propane heater (that’s why I got the propane heater). You can’t afford to run electric space heaters on a generator.