The March 2025 ice storm left parts of Simcoe County without power for days, and it won't be the last. Here's a clear, practical guide to getting your home ready before the next one, and the safe, legal way to keep the lights on when the grid goes down.
Much of the county runs on overhead Hydro One feeders that cross open country and woodland, where ice loading and falling trees take lines down. Georgian Bay lake-effect weather piles on snow and ice, and rural feeders can take days to restore while towns are back in hours.
A few hours is an inconvenience. A few days in winter is a different story. These are the things Simcoe County homeowners lose first.
Even gas, oil, and propane furnaces need electricity to run. In a winter outage a home can drop below freezing within about a day.
Rural homes on a well lose running and drinking water the moment the power fails, since the well pump is electric.
Storms are exactly when you need the sump pump, and exactly when it stops working, risking a flooded basement.
A full fridge and freezer of food starts to spoil within a day, turning an outage into a real expense.
CPAP machines, oxygen concentrators, and mobility equipment all depend on power that can't simply stop.
Internet, Wi-Fi, and devices go down, which matters more than ever for anyone who works from home.
The best time to prepare is before the forecast turns. Here's a practical starting point.
A flashlight gets you through an evening. For a multi-day outage in winter, you need a real way to power the essentials. Here's how the options compare.
Extension cords are a stopgap, not a solution. Running cords from a generator through a window can only reach a few plug-in items, never your furnace, well pump, or sump pump, which are hardwired. Worse, a generator placed too close to the house is a serious carbon monoxide risk. Always run a generator outdoors, well away from windows, doors, and vents.
Plugging a generator into a dryer outlet to "backfeed" the panel, sometimes called a suicide cord, is illegal in Ontario and genuinely dangerous. It can send power back onto the grid and electrocute the utility crews working to restore your power, and it can damage your home's wiring. Don't do it.
A portable generator plus a GenerLink is the safe, legal, permanent answer. A GenerLink is a transfer switch installed behind your hydro meter. You plug your portable generator into it, and it safely feeds power to your entire breaker panel, so you can run the furnace, well pump, sump pump, fridge, and lights by simply flipping breakers, up to your generator's capacity. It automatically disconnects your home from the grid first, so there's no backfeed risk to line crews. In Ontario it's installed by a licensed electrician, and the whole job usually takes under an hour.
We install GenerLink across Barrie and Simcoe County. We'll confirm your generator and utility, handle the ESA paperwork, and get you set up. Learn how it works, see transparent pricing, or read about the Ontario rules.
GET A FREE QUOTECommon questions Simcoe County homeowners ask about getting through an outage.
Always run it outdoors, well away from windows, doors, and vents, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. The safest way to power the house is through a permanently installed transfer switch like a GenerLink, fitted by a licensed electrician, rather than extension cords or plugging into a dryer outlet, which is illegal and dangerous.
Not on its own. Even gas, oil, and propane furnaces need electricity for their controls, fans, and ignition, so they stop when the power does. In a winter outage an unheated home can drop below freezing within about a day, which is why backup power for the furnace matters most.
It varies. Towns are often restored within hours, but rural homes on overhead Hydro One feeders can be without power for days after a major ice storm or windstorm, because the lines are spread out and these events cause widespread tree damage.
You can power your whole panel, up to the generator's capacity, when it's connected through a GenerLink transfer switch. You choose which circuits to run by flipping breakers. The size of generator you need depends on what you want running at once.
Yes. In Ontario a permanent connection like a GenerLink must be installed by a Licensed Electrical Contractor to be legal and code-compliant. Backfeeding through a dryer outlet is illegal and can electrocute utility line crews.
Ready to get prepared? Talk to a licensed installer.
Tell us a bit about your home and we'll walk you through your backup power options and get you an all-in quote. No pressure, no obligation.