Blackout Checklist: Keep the Fridge and Freezer Cold

One scenario from the household checklist, pulled out on its own: the power is out, and the job is the cold food you already paid for. The power and freezer items come from the household emergency checklist; the generator discipline — placement, carbon monoxide, fuel storage, and the run-it-the-day-it-arrives rule — comes from our fridge and freezer generator comparison.

Version 1.0 — October 30, 2026. Tick each item as you confirm it is in place. The full list this variant was drawn from is the Household Emergency Checklist: What Your Shelf Needs for the First 72 Hours — also printable as a PDF (v1.0).

Before the outage

• A thermometer in the fridge and in the freezer — So the call on the food is made by numbers, not hope.
• Freezer discipline, decided in advance — A full freezer holds its cold about 48 hours closed; a half-full one, about 24. The door stays shut either way.
• A power station sized for the fridge — Big enough to run the refrigerator in bursts through a day and a night. Ours is the Bluetti Elite 200 V2; size any station with the Power Station Size Calculator before buying on a guess.
• A way to refill the station — A station is a bucket; solar panels are the faucet. Pair them before the outage, not during it.
• Generator watts figured against the compressor start — A modern fridge needs roughly 800–1,200 starting watts for the second its compressor kicks on, against 150–400 running watts. Every generator in our fridge-and-freezer comparison clears a single modern fridge’s start with room to spare; the Champion 4250 dual-fuel is the pick with watts for a fridge and a separate freezer together.
• The generator run under load the day it arrives — The recurring failure in owner reviews is a generator shelved untested and found dead months later. Run it, load it, the week it lands.

While the power is out

• Eat in order: fridge food first, then the freezer — And day one runs on meals that need no cooking and no water, so the cold food stretches.
• Generator outdoors only — at least 20 feet from any door, window, or vent — Exhaust pointed away. Never in a garage, not even with the door open. Carbon monoxide drifts into the house from an attached garage.
• Battery carbon-monoxide alarms on every floor — Whichever machine you run — and especially with any indoor-rated heater in the house plan.
• Runtime figured, not guessed — Know your honest hours per tank before the outage. The Generator Fuel & Runtime Calculator and the Propane Runtime Calculator turn tank size into real hours per appliance.
• A light for every person, spare batteries in the same drawer — A house hunting for one flashlight in the dark is a house that needed four.
• Phone charging sorted — A charged power bank and a car charger. The phone is your radio, your map, and your phone book; feed it.

Fuel discipline — the part that actually fails

• Propane stored as the fuel that is always ready — Propane in a sealed tank does not go stale and burns cleaner, so the carburetor stays clean through years of sitting. The trade is about 10% less power than gasoline.
• Treated gasoline kept for the days you need every watt — Gasoline sits as a rotation chore, with stabilizer in it. A gummed carburetor is the number-one reason a stored generator will not start.
• Run the carburetor dry before storage — Use the fuel shutoff where the machine has one — the single best defense against the gummed-carb no-start.
• Oil and a spark plug on the maker’s schedule — An early first oil change, then the maker’s schedule. When a generator dies it is usually fuel neglect, not age — and fuel neglect is free to prevent.

Recheck twice a year — the weekends the clocks change are the usual anchor — because batteries fade, food ages out, and seasons turn.

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