Forum Discussion
Power failures
I've been reading here about a some peoples problems with power failures, so I thought I'd post the method I used during the many power failures I had before I got a whole house generator. I ...
My nieghbor, who's a retired electrician has an extension cord hooked up to a sub panel in his garage looks a little hokey but I guess it works. Me and another nieghbor went over and dug his car out, helped him start his generator, i had to wade through waist deep snow from the street to the side of his house to shut off his main. He's disabled and on oxygen. he left for warmer climates until this latest storm blows over.
alfresco wrote:My nieghbor, who's a retired electrician has an extension cord hooked up to a sub panel in his garage looks a little hokey but I guess it works.
I did the same thing, until a friend of mine suggested that I hook a dryer receptacle to the subpanel out in the pole barn where the generator was located. I didn't have enough spare breakers to leave the generator hooked up all of the time, and I didn't like the idea of the generator being connected with the flick of a switch anyway, IMO the dryer receptacle made everything a lot easier and safer.
Waist deep snow? Our problem has been the heat. We just had over a week of near or over 90 degree temperatures. In the middle of February!
90? yikes, and high humidity no doubt. I prefer the cold.
I'm going to look in to getting a whole house generator, it looks like this summer we're going to have a lot of blackouts.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article225626075.html
alfresco wrote:90? yikes, and high humidity no doubt. I prefer the cold.
I'm going to look in to getting a whole house generator, it looks like this summer we're going to have a lot of blackouts.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article225626075.html
Over the last couple of weeks I must have seen this one Generac commercial a dozen times. I hadn't seen one in months, but this must be the time when people are starting to think about them more.
My brother has one at his house and loves it. I get free natural gas where I live due to a deal that was made with the gas company for running a main across the property. We have two gas wells within a very short distance of here (about 300 feet and 1500 feet), and the more distant one has the main running right under my front lawn. If I had one of those generators in natural gas I'd be doing just dandy if the power went out. Plus, with my house being very small and only needing a 10MBH window AC, I'd have no problem running everything off of a smaller one.
One of these days, perhaps. Until then I'll be roughing it. :p
Free gas that's awesome. My wifes uncle has the same deal with the water company.
I'll probably be roughing it for quite a while it's hard to get service people to even come out here also the cost may be to rich for my blood ;).
alfresco wrote:
I'm going to look in to getting a whole house generator, it looks like this summer we're going to have a lot of blackouts.
They are expensive, especially if you do as I did, and get one big enough to run your central AC. I contacted Generac and they reccomended a local contractor. The final bill was $11,243.00, including the generator, installation, and a 250 gal propane containing 200 gal of propane.
Good info; I've bookmarked the post for future reference.
gaines_wright wrote:
They are expensive, especially if you do as I did, and get one big enough to run your central AC. I contacted Generac and they reccomended a local contractor. The final bill was $11,243.00, including the generator, installation, and a 250 gal propane containing 200 gal of propane.
