I recently paid an electrician to do the exact work discussed in the article on my home in Austin, TX. Total cost for installation of the inlet, 50 amp breaker, and interlock kit as well as a 25 foot heavy duty cable with 6-50P that hooked my generator up to the inlet was about $1K.<p>A 8500W sustained 11000W surge generator from Northern Tool that’s enough to power my whole house for 3 days or so with two 5 gallon jerry cans was another $1300.<p>If you do go generator shopping, sizing is important, but it’s also important to look for a generator with low Total Harmonic Distortion (<5%) if you plan to use it in your house else your sensitive electronic devices may be damaged. Surprisingly, a large majority of generators on the market, including the ones sold by Costco, don’t have low THD. GeneratorBible website is a good resource for comparison shopping and education.<p>We mainly made the purchase for peace of mind after last year’s “incident” (even knowing that it was a once in 30 year storm).<p>Transfer switches are another alternative, but are more expensive and can only handle the 4-6 breakers you assign to them. Interlock kits can use any breaker. So at higher expense you get less functionality in exchange for a solution that is slightly more foolproof.