Disclaimer
Failsafe Home publishes general information about home resilience: power, water, heat, food storage, sanitation and the things that go wrong with a house when the grid, the road or the weather stops cooperating. It is written carefully and it is checked, but it is general information, not professional advice for your property, your equipment or your body. This page explains where that line falls, because on these subjects the line matters.
General information, not a substitute for a professional
We cannot see your panel, your well, your furnace or your soil. Articles here describe how systems work, what typical numbers look like, and what questions to ask. They cannot account for the condition of your equipment, the age of your wiring, the capacity of your service, the water table under your land, or the amendments your jurisdiction has made to the codes it enforces. Any figure on this site is a starting point for a conversation with someone qualified, not a design.
Electrical, gas and plumbing work
Electrical work, gas work and plumbing work should be done by a licensed professional, permitted where a permit is required, and completed to the code in force where you live. That is not a formality we recite to protect ourselves. Panel work, transfer switches, generator connections, propane and natural gas lines, and anything that touches a potable water supply or a septic system all have failure modes that hurt people or destroy property, and most of them are also the subject of specific legal requirements.
One case is worth stating on its own. Connecting a portable generator to your house wiring without a properly installed transfer switch or interlock can send power back onto the utility lines. That can kill a utility worker who believes the line is dead, and it can destroy your equipment when the utility comes back. There is no clever workaround and no situation in which we would suggest otherwise.
Nothing here is medical advice
We are not physicians, nurses or paramedics, and no article on this site is medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Where we write about health, we stay on prevention, on recognizing symptoms, and on knowing when a situation needs professional care. We do not tell readers to stockpile prescription medication, obtain drugs outside the medical system, or manage a serious condition at home instead of seeking help.
In an emergency, stop reading and call your local emergency number. Do not delay care because of anything you read here, and do not use this site to decide whether a symptom is serious enough to bother someone about. That decision belongs to a clinician.
Carbon monoxide
Safety: Generators, gas and propane heaters, charcoal, camp stoves and any other combustion appliance produce carbon monoxide. It has no color and no smell, it kills people every winter in the United States, and the early symptoms — headache, nausea, dizziness, confusion — are easy to mistake for flu or fatigue. Never run a generator or a fuel-burning heater indoors, in a garage, in a crawlspace, or near a window or vent, and fit working CO alarms on every level of the house.
If a CO alarm sounds, or if several people or animals in a house feel unwell at the same time and improve when they go outside, treat it as carbon monoxide until proven otherwise. Get everyone out into fresh air, then call emergency services from outside. Do not go back in to open windows, hunt for the source or fetch belongings. Anyone who is confused, drowsy, unsteady or unconscious needs an ambulance.
Home canning and stored food
Safety: Improperly canned, preserved or stored food can cause botulism, a rare but potentially fatal illness. Low-acid foods such as vegetables, meats and soups require pressure canning, not a boiling water bath. Follow a tested, current process from a reliable source such as the USDA or your state extension service, and do not improvise recipes, jar sizes or processing times.
Our food storage articles describe methods and their limits; they are not a substitute for a tested canning process. When in doubt about a jar, throw it out. Botulinum toxin does not reliably announce itself with a smell or an obvious bulge, and no amount of stored food is worth the risk of eating a questionable one.
Cold, heat and other hazards
Hypothermia impairs the judgment of the person who has it, which is what makes it dangerous in a house that has lost heat: confusion, slurred speech, clumsiness and stopping shivering are late signs that need medical help. Heat illness can progress just as fast in the other direction. Fuel storage, lithium batteries, storm cleanup and contaminated water carry their own risks, flagged in the articles where they belong. Read the warning boxes.
Accuracy, prices and results
Prices on this site are approximate and tied to the time of writing. Specifications change, models are discontinued, and codes and standards are revised. We correct errors when we find them or when a reader reports one, and material corrections are dated on the page, as described in our editorial policy. Even so, verify anything critical against the manufacturer’s current documentation and your local authority before you spend money or start work.
No outcome is guaranteed. Some pages carry affiliate links, explained on our affiliate disclosure page; that arrangement never changes what we recommend or what we warn you about, and our health and safety coverage carries no affiliate links at all. Your use of this site is also subject to our terms of use. If you find something here that is wrong or dangerous, please tell us through the contact page.