Apartment refrigerator backup for renters

Use a portable battery, not a generator in the apartment. A smaller top-freezer estimate needs about 751.4 Wh for 12 hours.

A rental kitchen usually cannot take a transfer switch or a new circuit. This page does not change a lease, and it does not give installation steps. The portable option is a battery power station from the catalog, used the way its manual allows.

Do not run a fuel generator in the apartment, in a garage, or on a balcony that breathes into a window or door. The generator page quotes the CPSC warning: never indoors, and not beside openings.

Many rentals have a top-freezer refrigerator rather than a large French door. In the certified snapshot, top-freezers under 18 cubic feet have a median of 332 kWh a year (356 rows). A 12-hour plan at that median needs about 751.4 Wh. That group is not your apartment’s model. If the unit is larger, older, or a side-by-side, the number can be low. The link below leaves brand unused, because a brand name does not change the estimate.

Open the 12-hour apartment estimate

If the building loses power for more than a few hours, food rules are still the thermometer and the multi-day food-safety page, not the battery’s runtime.