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Thread: Ice storm. High winds and power outage

  1. #21
    Boolit Man d4xycrq's Avatar
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    Oct 2011
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    My experience follows:

    I have two generators. Two is one, one is none. One propane, one gasoline.

    Longest we've been without power is 60 hours. That won't impress folks in the hurricane zone, but around here, SE PA, that's worse than many.

    One generator is a GENERAC on propane, 500 gallon buried tank. Wisht I had gone 1,000 gallon, but haven't needed even the 500. Just wished I had gone bigger.

    Edited to add: consider buying your own propane tank. YOU control who you can buy propane from. Otherwise, propane is locked in to the one company that supplied your tank.

    Reduce electrical loads, if you can. I mean long term; have a electric water heater? Go natural gas or propane. Other big electrical loads? Have a backup that is non-electric, if possible. Lord help you if your house is all-electric.

    If you go GENERAC whole house, get the automatic switch set up that does your whole breaker panel, not just select breakers.

    Cheers!

    Ray

  2. #22
    Boolit Buddy

    WheelgunConvert's Avatar
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    If you are going to be without heat or power for more than a day, don’t forget about the water in the plumbing and water heater (if electric). It can make a bad day get worse really fast in freezing conditions.
    Stronger, Prouder and Greater!

  3. #23
    Boolit Master Thumbcocker's Avatar
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    Oct 2007
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    In 1979 my family was without power for 11 days due to an ice storm. We had a wood stove, a coleman lantern and kerosene lamps. We had home canned food and put some dry ice in the freezer. We would make a list of what we were going to get out of the freezer and opened it every other day. We put hot coals out of the stove in a bucket in our pump house and kept food in the bath tub under blankets with ice I cut out of the road ditch with an ax. We had a battery radio and lots of books. I went to community college every day. Not that big a deal to get by with no generator.
    Paper targets aren't your friends. They won't lie for you and they don't care if your feelings get hurt.

  4. #24
    Boolit Master

    firefly1957's Avatar
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    I have been lucky this winter only a few minutes has the power been down the big wind storms in August had my power off 58 hours I had a OLDER Coleman 6259 watt generator .It only gave power to half the house since it was older i went and got a new generator I got a 4275 watt /3500 watt continuous harbor freight . My Coleman was so load it drove the dog nuts and used much more fuel i rand it about an hour every six hours . The smaller Harbor freight is well muffled you can talk next to it and it used 9.5 gallons of gas in 21 hours use . Overnight i run my boiler on a inverter and battery during cold weather next biggest use is 1440 watt 220V well and a freezer & 2 fridges . I should be good to go for a while again I did find the problem with the Coleman it was the cord had a bad wire frankly i was tired of it and should have looked at that first!
    Not sure how many of you heard what happened in South East Michigan with the Natural gas pumping station these green idea are causing problems ! There was a fire at a pumping facility that limited natural gas availability in itself no big deal but with record cold same time and then the wind stopped so the natural gas fired electric plants needed to be fired up , they came close to both grids going down!
    A friend down their just put in a Generac backup generator it would not have done him a bit of good if things lasted longer!
    When I think back on all the **** I learned in high school it's a wonder I can think at all ! And then my lack of education hasn't hurt me none I can read the writing on the wall.

  5. #25
    Boolit Master
    Mal Paso's Avatar
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    Jun 2010
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    Here on the outskirts of Carmel we are 300% of normal rainfall in the middle of the 3rd and strongest gale of the season. Power went out around midnight. We are running on generator with internet by satellite, we'll see if get this out. At 1900' I'm getting some wind right now. Windows are new dual glaze but I'm not sitting in front of them. 24 more hours of wind predicted.

    I bought LED lanterns yesterday at Costco and got gas and Diesel last week. I calked and repainted the south wall, the first storm stripped paint in places.

    Just had some big gusts, whole lotta shakin goin on. LOL
    Mal

    Mal Paso means Bad Pass, just so you know.

  6. #26
    Moderator Emeritus

    MaryB's Avatar
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    I average a dozen outages a year, most last under 24 hours but some have been 2-3 days. I went to solar, batteries, and 3 inverters. I can cycle power to the freezers/fridge, the pellet stove is 12 volt and will run direct off the battery bank. Even on a cloudy/snowy day I get enough charge to top the batteries off to last the night for heat(pellet stove draws about an amp so a 48 amp hour battery would run it for 24 hours without charging). I have a smaller generator but no longer have the shoulder strength to start it when it is below zero...

  7. #27
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
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    I went with a PTO generator, that I keep in the shop, on a little Bobcat tractor. I also have a 10k electric start diesel generator. I keep a 300 gallon tank of diesel, for the tractors pretty full, all the time. I have installed the Generac home units, and if you are in cold weather, make sure whoever is installing in, puts on the cold weather kit( battery and oil filter heaters), make sure to change the oil and filter, the first year, as that is break in oil, thats in there, and remember, they use alot of LP, watch your tank gauge closely. Best to have them tuned up every year, change the spark plug every 3 years min., and watch the battery, as some have went bad. If so, have your battery charger check, as it's running down your battery, on the weekly cycling.

  8. #28
    Boolit Master Moleman-'s Avatar
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    Jul 2016
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    SW Michigan next to a corn field
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    Mary, if you remove the recoil start cover, can you spin the flywheel with a cordless drill on the flywheel nut?

  9. #29
    Boolit Master
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    Mar 2005
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    Westmanland, Maine
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    Fourteen years ago we moved from a home just outside of town to our current place on a dead end road in the woods. Power outages in the former house lasted no more than a few hours but now we are in a zone where we are the first to loose power and the last to get it back. The second year we were here we went three days without power after a bad windstorm so we purchased a 9,000 watt gasoline powered generator and got rid of the electric range and clothes dryer and went to propane. Now, though inconvenient, power outages are bearable.
    Maineboy

  10. #30
    Boolit Master
    labradigger1's Avatar
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    Apr 2013
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    west virginia
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    I bought a onan electric plant a few years ago off of Craigslist, the man purchased it from a school auction and bought new plugs, wires, distributed cap, rotor button and new filters but never installed them or tried to start it.
    I bought it for $300 (his price), took it home and had it running in about an hour with the new parts. It’s a 15kw, 67.5 amp genset. 4 cylinder liquid cooled and operates at 1800 rpm instead of the normal and loud screaming 3600rpm sets. It has over 9000 hours on it now and no signs of slowing down. Runs on gasoline or lpg. It’s amazing how clean oil stays and no carbon on engines ran on lpg has.
    For me power outages are not much of an issue. Wife, not so much. Now she’s happy.
    Life is so much better with dogs!

  11. #31
    Moderator Emeritus

    MaryB's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Moleman- View Post
    Mary, if you remove the recoil start cover, can you spin the flywheel with a cordless drill on the flywheel nut?
    Yes, in fact I am building an electric starter to mount there using parts from a cordless drill that the battery packs went bad on. But just flipping the inverter switches on is a heck of a lot easier. I use one of these to monitor freezer/fridge temps https://www.amazon.com/Ambient-Weath.../dp/B00EYIEDOI and turn the inverter on as needed. I have enough battery capacity to run for 24 hours no power...

  12. #32
    Boolit Master
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    Dec 2017
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    Farmerville,Louisiana
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    I agree with purchasing your own tank, we rented a tank from different LP companies, and your locked in to there price and delivery system, price never goes down. Found old used tank 150 gallon, and a 250 gallon now can shop around and cut price down to $1.45. Price changes in summer about August its way down. If you got a place to put it. Now have a 1000 gallon tank empty and waiting for summer prices. That will feed a LPG gen for a while. Since co-op has been aggressively cut right of ways very few outage. Always be prepared.

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