Guides
Backup power guides, by category
Everything on WattReady, organized into 10 categories — from sizing a power station to what to do the moment the power goes out, plus residential solar sizing, costs and incentives.
Portable Power Stations & Solar Generators
Portable power stations — sealed lithium battery packs with a built-in inverter — have replaced the noisy gas …
12 guides →Home Standby & Whole-House Generators
When a battery-based power station isn't enough — central air conditioning, an electric water heater, a well p…
11 guides →Solar Panels & Off-Grid / DIY Solar
Solar panels turn a portable power station or a home battery from a one-charge backup into a renewable, self-s…
16 guides →Emergency Preparedness & Power Outage Survival
The evergreen backbone of the site: what to actually do before, during and after a power outage. Checklists, f…
12 guides →RV, Camping, Van Life & Overlanding Power
Power on the road is a different problem from power at home: weight, space and solar charging while driving al…
10 guides →Costs, Sizing Calculators & ROI Guides
The numbers behind backup power: what things really cost, how to size a system correctly, and whether the inve…
11 guides →Maintenance, Safety, Troubleshooting & How-To
Backup power intersects with real safety risk — carbon monoxide from generators, electrical load, and battery …
10 guides →News, Trends & Guides (Explainers)
Beginner-friendly explainers and the bigger picture: why outages are becoming more common, the vocabulary of w…
15 guides →Solar Cost, ROI & Incentives
The federal 30% residential clean energy credit ended on December 31, 2025, and it changed the math on every r…
10 guides →Solar Sizing & System Calculators
How many panels, how many watts, how many kilowatt-hours — the sizing math behind every solar system, worked o…
8 guides →Off-Grid Solar Use Cases
Solar sizing changes completely depending on what you are powering. A shed, a homestead well pump, a rented ap…
10 guides →DIY Solar Installation & Permits
Installing solar yourself saves $10,000-15,000 on a typical system, and the money you save is mostly labour, s…
10 guides →Solar Inverters
The inverter is the component most often undersized, because it is the one sized by power rather than by energ…
6 guides →Solar Electrical Components & Safety
Charge controllers, cabling, fuses, disconnects and grounding — the parts of a solar system nobody photographs…
7 guides →