Transfer switch was about $200, bought wholesale, Grainger has them. The generator was $75. We lose power here all the time and it's out for several hours most of the time. About 3 winters ago we lost power all day and the temp. in my house was about 50 degrees. It was a bad ice storm and I was out all day hooking up generators for customers directly to their furnace...I came home and power came on at about 10pm. Then about 12 midnight I lost my gas pressure, regulator got iced over, lesson learned. So by that summer I had it all installed. I paid my brother in law to put the transfer switch in, but it's easy. I would look for a cheap, used generator, save your money on all that back up stuff, apc and stuff. I'll bet you can get a used gen for a great price, even new they start at like $400, but I don't know what your budget is. But like I said, I'm not runnig without power agian if I can help it! Just keep a lot of gas on hand, like 10 gal, and I run my generator twice a year just to test it.....I have a customer that right now I'm bidding on installing a 100kw generator, nat gas, for his business, totally redundant.
