Allison Walker, Your Home

Zach Andry said he would like to buy a stand-by automatic generator, if he could afford it.

"Nothing that you actually have to manually switch on or off? It's a no-brainer," Andry said.

Wiring up a Lennox Residential Generator Andry was looking at would cost between $7,000 and $9,000.

"Actually, that seems very high for a generator," Andry said, but he would like to know that if a hurricane knocked out his power, he could get it back in a matter of seconds.

"You don't even have to be home, and the generator will automatically turn on," said Kevin Lyons, product manager with Lennox.

Lyons recently showed off the generator at the International Builders Show in Orlando.

Unlike a portable generator, Lyons said, "The homeowner doesn't need to fuel the generator. The homeowner doesn't need to turn on or off the generator."

"If you were out of your home for a week or so, and you didn't have air conditioning, then suddenly, you could be talking about having mold problems pop up," Lyons said.

If you are thinking about building a new home, installing a generator while building it rather than waiting until later on could cut the cost in half.

Lyons says that is because getting the generator to work in an existing home means experts have to hook up what you already have -- your natural gas or fuel line, and the circuit panel -- with a new automatic transfer system.

So during Andry's next move he said he would definitely consider getting a generator.

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