About Lights On Labs

Why the site exists

Before you can pick backup power, you need to know how much your fridge, well pump or furnace draws. Many of the pages that answer that question come from companies that sell the equipment, and they usually give one number per appliance with no source.

So we built the tools first. The runtime calculator adds up what you want to keep running and shows how long each battery size lasts. The appliance wattage pages pull from ENERGY STAR test data on thousands of models and from manufacturer spec sheets. The guides cover outages and generator safety, and every safety rule links to the CPSC, NFPA or manufacturer page it comes from.

Who runs it

Lights On Labs is edited by Alex Rowan, a pen name. Alex Rowan reads the sources, runs the numbers and writes the pages.

Alex Rowan isn’t an electrician or an engineer, and we don’t test equipment ourselves. That shapes how the site works. Every figure links to the public source it came from, and a safety page that a licensed electrician hasn’t reviewed yet says so at the top. How we test explains where the numbers come from, and the editorial policy covers how we pick sources and fix mistakes.

What we cover

Backup power for homes in the US: portable power stations, portable generators, standby generators, home batteries, and the transfer switches and interlock kits that connect them to a house. We don’t cover RV, van or camping setups.

How the site pays for itself

The site earns affiliate commissions: when you buy through some of our links, the seller pays us a share. So far that’s only Amazon, through Amazon Associates. Links to makers’ stores pay us nothing. A commission will never change how we rank products. The affiliate disclosure has the details. There are no ads on the site, and we don’t sell sponsored posts.

Get in touch

Spotted a wrong number or a better source? Email hello@lightsonlabs.com. More on the contact page.