Is the demand for generators in Houston going to be crazy for a while? When’s the sweet spot for buying, between now and hurricane season?

Pretty sure I'm among a pretty big crowd planning to avoid being without electricity during upcoming blackouts.

I've been looking at options and can't quite justify a whole-house, automatic starting system. But I could run my fridge, my A/C and or furnace (I have natural gas) and lights, fans, etc., with a 5,000 watt propane-fueled generator.

A licensed electrician will install the manual transfer switch for me. I could do it myself but I'll probably sell this house in a few years and it's always good to be able to show that a "real" electrician did that kind of work.

Yeah, June 1st is a ways off, but they're forecasting a busy season. I'm near Willowbrook Mall (far northwest) so I'm not terribly worried about hurricanes, but we know it doesn't take too much of a storm to bring power failures.

Anyway, I'm just curious whether anyone here has been out looking at generators, and if they're seeing inflated pricing or are having a hard time finding the generator that would be ideal…

TL;DR – Is it dumb to look at backup power generators in Houston right now? If yes, when will it be smarter?