How Do I Prepare My Home's Systems for a Hurricane?

• Service the generator now. Standby units need a current service (oil, battery, transfer-switch test) to be trusted for a week of runtime; portables need a test start and fresh, stabilized fuel. Installers and service calendars fill within days of the first named storm — see running a generator safely in a storm for what the unit will be asked to do.
• Check surge protection. Restoration after an outage is a surge event; a whole-home surge protector at the panel is the cheap insurance layer. Our surge protection guide explains the layered approach.
• Walk the yard like the wind will. Trim limbs over the outdoor AC unit and service drop, and note everything loose — patio furniture, trampolines, trash cans — that becomes debris at 100 mph.
• Confirm your insurance paperwork. Know your wind and flood deductibles (they're usually separate policies) and where the policy documents live if you have to leave.

• Fuel everything: propane tanks, treated gasoline cans stored safely outside living space, and the cars. Gas stations empty fast once the forecast cone firms up.
• Test-run the portable generator in daylight, outdoors — not by flashlight mid-storm. Verify cords and where it will sit (20+ feet from the house, per the CPSC).
• Pre-cool the house a couple of degrees and set the refrigerator and freezer to their coldest settings. Freeze water bottles to pack empty freezer space — thermal mass buys hours of food safety later.
• Charge everything — phones, battery banks, rechargeable fans and lanterns — and locate medications that need refrigeration.
• Photograph before, not after. Your electrical panel (cover on), equipment nameplates, and each room. Pre-storm photos are the baseline every insurance claim wishes it had — details in the recovery guide.

Air conditioning: run it hard early, then shut it off at the thermostat before conditions arrive. A compressor that's running when the grid starts flickering eats brownout voltage and restoration surges — the two things that quietly kill AC equipment in storms. The house will warm up; the equipment will survive.

Electronics: unplug what you value — TVs, computers, garage door openers — because a surge protector strip is not a hurricane plan. If you're evacuating, switch off individual breakers for everything except the refrigerator circuit, or the main breaker if flooding is forecast for your street.

Refrigerator: stays on, doors closed. That's the one circuit worth keeping live as long as the grid holds.

Strapped, yes — wrapped, mostly no. Condensers should already be anchored to their pad with hurricane straps or tie-down hardware; coastal building practice assumes it, and a unit that walks off its pad in the wind tears its own refrigerant lines. If yours just sits on a pad by gravity, that's a quick pre-season fix worth asking about at any service visit.

Full plastic wraps trap moisture and do little against wind-driven debris. A fitted top cover or a sheet of plywood secured over the fan guard protects the most vulnerable part (the fan and coil fins) from falling limbs — just remove any cover before the system runs again. And if storm surge is forecast for your area, no cover matters: see what floodwater does to AC equipment for why elevation is the real defense.

• The electrical panel with the door open (breakers labeled, cover on — never remove the interior cover).
• Nameplates and serial numbers: outdoor condenser, air handler or furnace, water heater, generator.
• Wide shots of each room and the exterior on all four sides.
• Receipts or install paperwork for recent equipment, if you have them.

Store copies off-site — cloud storage or a relative's email. After a storm, adjusters and contractors both move faster when you can prove what existed and what condition it was in. The post-storm electrical guide covers what happens if the panel itself takes water.