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 ...
Forum Discussion
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 ;).
..."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."....
Wow! Free natural gas! If I had that I'd convert everything in my house to run on gas: heat, stove, water heater, and even a few lights. I wonder if someone makes a gas powered AC? If your AC is only 10kbtu, you wouldn't need a very large generator and transfer switch.
Following this with the interest of eventually getting a generator.
Also because aside from Y and Δ circuits (and Pw=IE), the majority of my power engineering knowledge (from... 1978-ish) is in a book somewhere in my attic.
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.
