About 5 years ago my father began grumbling about the number of power outages that they were suffering through up in Michigan and he began to take some steps to purchasing a portable gas generator. Realizing that my parents were not getting any younger I was able to persuade them into installing a natural gas unit. The installation went like clockwork and the unit self-tested itself each week like clockwork. Where the problem began was when they realized that whatever was causing the frequent power losses was somehow fixed because they stopped losing their power almost immediately after the generator was installed. I spent the next 2 years feeling horrible that I had talked them into spending all of that extra money on this generator that was now not needed and then, gratefully, it happened. It was a very cold, very ugly evening in January when the ice storm hit, my parents were not concerned about anything due to the last 2 years of not losing any power so they just ignored the storm. As they sat on the couch relaxing and watching their favorite program on T.V. everything suddenly went pitch black. Not being sure of what to do next partly because they couldn't see 2" in front of themselves they just remained where they were and, just as it was designed to work, within 27 seconds they heard their generator start up and then, exactly 27 seconds after that, all of their lights came back on. They were(due to never having experienced this before) not familiar with what was going on and they had just assumed that the power had been restored, right up until they looked out the front window. To what brought tears of joy to my eyes when they told me, their house sat like a beacon prominently in a vast sea of blackness, shining like a diamond in a tin pan full of mud. It was not until they talked to their neighbors days after the power was fully restored did they find out the real value of their unit. Everyone around them(even the ones with the portable gas units) were to such the point of envy that they all wanted to kick my parents right out of the neighborhood(all in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way). I have been recommending and installing them ever since.