title: "Home Battery Buying Checklist" updated: 2026-01-01 difficulty: Intermediate tags: ["Batteries", "Resilience", "Sizing"] summary: "A practical checklist for comparing batteries: usable kWh, inverter limits, backup loads, and warranty terms."
Home Battery Buying Checklist
A battery is both an energy tank (kWh) and a power device (kW). You need enough of both.
Checklist
- Usable capacity (kWh) vs nameplate
- Continuous power (kW) for your essential loads
- Backup circuits plan (what stays on)
- Warranty (cycles, years, throughput)
Tools
Try the Battery Runtime Calculator to estimate runtime from kWh and kW.