Batteries are Cheap, Backup power is expensive

What about a generator that comes on automatically if your power goes off? Or is the lag time too slow? 

@erik_squires I like the idea of the generac, being all electric at our place as well. I don't have one either and we live in tornado alley of MO, not the worst part of MO but NE MO. I'd like to have the generac but it is expensive. I think they do offer some kind of payment plans though, just haven't looked into it. We've lived here for the last 12 years and have only lost power for a few hours, once. Another time or two, off for less than an hour. Not bad considering all the above ground power lines and trees. Seems like a recipe for disaster. We also get a lot of ice storms but have yet to lose power in one. 

Anyway, I hope you find the solution to your problem. It's not a simple or inexpensive one. Seems like you can solve the short term one easily enough but the long term one gets trickier. There are a lot of smallish gas and diesel powered generators that might serve you there. Might be cheaper than modding your SUV, not sure. Good luck. Post what you find. 

I do like the solar solutions but they are not cheap and the same lag time would apply.

@erik_squires 

You're right, there are a lot of ways to utilize solar and I don't understand half of them. There are a few places around who bought into it to run their whole house. I'm not sure it's the way to go here in MO just yet. It costs a lot to set up. I'd never live long enough to get it back. My wife has a cousin in TX who says he got his money back in 5 years or so. I don't think that would happen here. I was talking with a friend who got his going and it didn't sound good to me at all. It did not provide enough to run his A/C in summer and when he produced more than he needed, the electric COOP paid him about 10 cents on the dollar for what they bought back. I don't think he saved any money at all by doing it. I think he lost money. The numbers were not good.

My wife is always saying we should go solar or even wind. Either proposition is outrageously expensive. We have a pretty good sized house, all electric. I can burn wood but I found it to be a lot more work than it was worth. I might have saved $200 a year on the electric bill. In the big picture, that is not enough to warrant all the work or the mess created by the wood. When we first moved here, I added a wood furnace, cost over 4k by the time I had it installed. It accomplished nothing, was poorly installed and could not keep up with our duct work. I would have had to have a whole separate system of duct work installed. I sold it after a couple winters and lost over 2k. Only benefit was getting in better shape at 60 years old cutting a lot of firewood and hand splitting it all with an axe. A lot of work and I did manage to tear my rotator cuff in the process. So much for getting in shape. :)

I'm afraid we'll be stuck with terrible electric bills for the duration. We considered downsizing to a smaller home but I decided that I'm too dang old to do that again. Decided to make the best of what we have here. Things could be worse I suppose. Hope you find what you need.