Country Living Must Haves

Our new generator is now installed along side the air conditioner. In the country there are two issues that are uppermost in everyone's minds, plumbing and power. Since moving here four years ago we've had to suffer through fairly frequent power outages. In most cases they are 'planned maintenance' outages courtesy of Hydro One. These planned outages are usually Sunday mornings from 5:00 am to 9:00am, although they never manage to keep to their schedule. In most cases we are without power until noon. Now when you have no power in the country, you also have no water (the pump for the well runs on electricity) and no sump pump, so things can move from inconvenient to emergency pretty quickly. And, in a region that remembers the Ice Storm and Big Blackout of 2002, it's really tempting fate not to have any sort of backup power source. All this is to say that after four years of living recklessly, we finally invested in a natural gas-powered generator that kicks in as soon as the electricity cuts out. Murray says with our luck, this pretty much ensures that Navan will never have another power outage again.