What a battery actually runs

Backup hours depend on what you keep on. A short guide to sizing storage without paying for capacity you will never use.

Battery size is about hours of outage and the loads you keep on, not the size of your house.

Start with the loads you cannot lose

A fridge, lights, a router and phone chargers draw a few hundred watts. Running them for four hours needs a battery of a few kilowatt-hours. Adding an air conditioner multiplies that several times over.