The sound of a generator

[pc farmer]

Hope you're back on by now , if not soon . That's brutal .

We got power at 5:30 yesterday.

 

[Fueling Around]

Happy you worked through it Adam

It sucks trying to deal with outages at home while work says we have power so get your tail in here. I dealt with that many times while living in the Seattle area.

Backup power is a complicated issue that is more than just adding up all your loads and calculating that you need a big buck 25 kW power plant.

A good analysis takes maybe 30 minutes and does not come from a sales person

Fuel source is another consideration. As you noted gasoline was a small miracle that local station had backup power. What would happen without the backup power or if they ran out of gasoline and the tanker didn't arrive on time?
If you go LP generator the tank you share with the house has to be up sized.
Natural gas is surprisingly immune to power outages as the pump stations use NG for fuel.

 

[sandyut]

The sound of our generator makes me smile. Whether its the weekly self test/battery charge or when it kicks in for necessity. It comfortable to know we have that issue covered.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Harbor Freight 3500 inverter generators are 15% off this weekend.
Super quiet, clean sine wave power.
Change the oil & clean the spark arrestor every 100 hours, replace the spark plug every 1000 hrs.

 

[chef k-dude]

The sound of our generator makes me smile. Whether its the weekly self test/battery charge or when it kicks in for necessity. It comfortable to know we have that issue covered.

Same here. Not a whole house auto, but a decent setup with crossover breaker panel and a 230V plug on the side of the house with cable from the genny to it. I can have the house back up and running, with safety breaker protecting the linesmen from backfeed within minutes.

Long story but when I had the crossover breaker panel put in, at the last minute while the snow was starting to fall, my electrician wired in the final breaker and I was up and running. The power was out within a couple hours and we proceeded to get two back to back snows totaling 18” (a big deal in central Virginia). We were without power for 8-1/2 days but I was good!

I keep upwards of 55 gallons of ethanol free gas on hand so I had plenty of time to dig out before I needed to get out and get more gas.

This reminds me I need to break her out and exercise her. I’ve also become a carb switchout expert on it (not exactly easy, especially the first time) and keep two backup carbs on hand! She has both battery start and pull start in case that fails.

 

[jcam222]

Having close to 3 freezers full of meat I know I need to buy a generator at least to run them. I have a small Sportsman generator but it won't run all of those let alone other things in the house. tallbm my Colorado has a power outlet in the ved with a small built in generator under the back seat. No idea what it will run comfortably though.

 

[yankee2bbq]

Sorry to hear that. Two generators I have are the Westinghouse 12500 Watt Dual Fuel Home Backup Portable Generator, Remote Electric Start, Transfer Switch Ready, Gas and Propane Powered and also a Predator 3500 watt inverter generator. Both units are solid. Got the Westinghouse from Amazon and the Predator from Harbor Freight. Wishing you the best in your situation, we have been there also.

HT

Got the same Westinghouse 12500 Watt Generator!

 

[philpom]

We used to live in on a small property in rural wisconsin. When the power went out it either came back on in 2-3 minutes or 2-3 days. Being on a well, septic with a pump and needing to keep my sump pumps running, I finally got sick of running a small generator with cords everywhere, I finally broke down and installed a whole house Generator after losing power twice in a week.

We moved to Texas and I kept the small generator, after moving it around my garage for 7 years I sold it. The next year we had Snowmageddon and I had no back up power source... house dropped to 42 degrees in the Master bedroom and 51 in the warmest interior room on the 2nd floor. Lost power off and on over 4 days, ran out of firewood on day 2.... never again!

I now have a back up generator and small portable A/C unit (could not afford/justify a large enough Generator to run the air conditioning) and keep enough firewood stocked up to get us through 7 days without heat.

- Jason

Snowmmageddon.... lol. We call it Snowpocalypse. We woke up Monday morning to a cold house but after the first day power would come on for about 20 minutes every 90 or so minutes for the rest of the week. Thankfully we have a natural gas fireplace and I used a deep cycle battery and inverter to run the fireplace hot air fan. That kept the den warm. We had no damage or frozen pipes but many not so lucky. I had an interlock kit installed after that and bought a 12,000 watt dual fuel generator after that. I picked up a WEN from Amazon. Electric start etc. The interlock means I can power the entire house though I would need to carefully consider what is run together at the same time. I have tested the central AC and it will run it even on propane (lower generator output than using gasoline) but it does struggle to start it. I plan to have a soft start kit installed on the AC unit to help. We have a 5 ton unit, that's as big as residential units get without adding multiple units. You might investigate your situation and see.

Our other house is remote and on a well. I installed a transfer switch at the pole and a dedicated 300 gallon propane tank for backup. Since the switch is at the pole it powers the entire property though typically a transfer switch means a sub panel with limited breakers. I have a smaller generator up there but the cooling requirement is much less. My main concern is water because we are up on a ridge and our well is very deep. Not getting the water up without some power. Eventually I'll put in a generator shack to muffle noise and provide a permanent home for the generator.