Power outage

Power went out about 1:00 AM, still out at 7:30! It's the first extended outage we've had at this house, been here 7 years. So, I have the generator running and cords strung all over in the house, getting along fine! I'm not going to do anything more permanent when it only happens once in 7 years, and we would have to buy a bigger generator for that. We have a noisy little Coleman 2500 that does the trick. The well is artesian so if your not in a hurry we have lots of water, and I carried a couple of pails full from the lake for the toilets. Hope it comes on by noon for the AC, it's going to be hot today!

Heard/ saw there was some rough weather moving through ne of me again in the wee hours. I was on the very edge of the warning, but it all dried up before getting near me, the energy got sucked east.

Been a year, lots of storms this year.

Paul

I had the cords strung all over the house for many, many years. Usually an ice storm would whack us and one time it was 5 days without power. Seems every time we have an electrical storm our power is first out, last on. Then in the summer, Texas decided to have roaming blackouts where they's shut power down for a few hours in a geographical block and move that around to different sites (share the grief) when the demand exceeded supply on really hot summer days. Well 3 hours or so at 100F is not fun and you can get tired of it real fast....so can MOM......get the drift?

In 2014 I sold a bunch of cows at a super price and had a pocket full of money. I decided I was tired of all that and bought a Generac whole house unit with the switch box, disconnects you from the power company when running to keep from killing a lineman ($500 but worth it). The unit was about $2500 and I installed it with the detailed instructions provided. Bought a 250 gallon propane tank that the local dealer installed and hooked up and was ready to go. It automatically kicked in on several occasions since and it's well worth the peace of mind and convenience. Personally, I expect outages to be more common for various reasons these days and at my advancing age convenience is starting to matter over cost. Also last time I filled up my tanks Propane was $1.09 over 150 gallons, delivered (yes it was a special offer and I took advantage of it).

Good you have a generator... it's going to be beastly out there today.

We bought a Kohler for the whole house 4 years ago. It will run on NG or LP. My wife ordered it off the internet and the order was placed in AZ and the generator was shipped by truck to Atlanta GA from TX to our home. There was no cost for shipping. The generator is programed to start and run for 20 minutes once a week. No sales tax was charged. I change the oil & filter once a year. It only holds 2 quarts of oil.

I heard there was some rough stuff up north. Duluth must have got punched in the nose. Hail around Browervile. It just shoved our open bundle wagons around in Albany. I would never have guessed because I slept through it and didn't see any signs of wind on the way in this morning. I'm surprised we didn't lose power in EV. We've lost power from Meeker CO-OP 5 times in the last month. But that's OK because we're paying high rates to make up for it.

Generators are ok, but I am thinking wind turbine as a supplemental power source....

(quoted from post at 12:06:02 07/21/16) Generators are ok, but I am thinking wind turbine as a supplemental power source....

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Not good for storms. Last night we were on the fringe of that storm. Heavy rain and wind gust up to 60 MPH. North of us the winds were supposed to bump 80. Most wind turbines shut down in that kind of wind to prevent damage. Plus the generate nothing when there is no wind. So if you have freezers to keep running and pump your own water a turbine isn't a substitute for a back up genny.

Rick

Much better than cords and no lights.

http://www.generlink.com/about_generlink.cfm

Generators sure do have their place, but you have to be careful with spikes especially with some of the newer solid state equipment. I blew up a refrigerator and a gas hot water heater a couple of years ago using one. Nothing in the rest of the house, but both of them had electronic control boards and they didn't appreciate the generator at all. There are lots of companies that make surge protectors, one company ONEAC makes real good ones, some sizeable. I had a customer get rid of a couple perfectly good ones rated at 25 amp that they didn't need anymore and asked me to get rid of, so I did. Haven't had to use them yet, but have them in case I do. To buy them new though, not cheap at all.

Good luck.

Mark

I looked at wind turbines and a 10 KW kit was $40,000.00 and if you had it put in it was around $48,000.00.

Mark,

I'll agree that electronic devices don't like voltage spikes. I was in Florida when neighbors tree fell on power line. A voltage spike took out one garage door opener brains, the electronic brains to my gen-air range.

I've heard that some electronic controls on furnaces won't on a generator.

My 3500 w champion has yet to damage my 3 year old refrigerator with electronic controls.

I wondering if your generator rally caused your damage or was it like mine, a voltage spike created by your power outage. After my damage, I paid Duke to install a large spike protector behind the meter. It wasn't cheap. My two brain boxes weren't cheap either.

After that, I have surge protectors on all electronic devices I have, computers, garage openers, micro wave, TV, dishwasher.

I have the largest surge protector I could find on my dishwasher, located under the sink. It saved my dishwasher then I had issues with power line. Had to replace it, nothing left of it.

Never thought of it, but might be a good idea to put a surge protector on generator to remove spikes.

geo.

(quoted from post at 13:56:06 07/22/16) I have the largest surge protector I could find on my dishwasher, located under the sink. It saved my dishwasher then I had issues with power line. Had to replace it, nothing left of it.
Never thought of it, but might be a good idea to put a surge protector on generator to remove spikes.

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Surge protectors are tiny joule devices for transients that are rare - maybe one every seven years. If a protector is needed on a generator, then it will expire in maybe hours or days. Best protection at a generator is already inside that generator. Best and many times less expensive. The informed spend less for that internal protection from products such as Honda.

That protector at a dishwasher would be grossly undersized - as you observed. Both dishwasher and protector suffered same current simultaneously. That current (both incoming and outgoing at the same time from that protector) easily destroyed a near zero protector. And did not overwhelm robust protection already inside a dishwasher.

How many other appliances were also destroyed - LED bulbs, refrigerator, GFCIs, clocks, TV, FIOS or cable boxes, air conditioner, smoke detectors. If a surge that destroyed the dishwasher was so large, then everything else was also damaged. Why not? Because a surge was so tiny as to only destroy a near zero protector.

Grossly undersizing a protector gets consumers to wildly speculate, "My protector sacrificed itself to save my dishwasher." Reality, that near zero surge was too tiny to damage a dishwasher and all other appliances.

Protection is always done by an item that harmlessly absorbs hundreds of thousands of joules. Earth ground. Protectors do not do protection. Protectors are connecting device to what absorbs energy. If a protector does not make a low impedance (ie less than 10 foot) connection to single point earth ground, then it does not even claim to protect from destructive transients.

Plug-in protectors either 'block' or 'absorb' that energy. How does its 2 cm part block what three miles of sky could not? It doesn't. How does its hundreds or thousand joules absorb a surge that is hundreds of thousands of joules? It will not even discuss that other and typically destructive surge. Do everything to avoid and ignore relevant numbers.

Best protection is one 'whole house' protector, for about $1 per protected appliance, connected low impedance (ie hardwire has no sharp bends or splices) so that even near zero plug-in protectors are protected. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

What is critical for making that 'whole house' protector effective - even if installed by the utility? A low impedance (ie hardwire not inside any metallic conduit) connection to what does protection - single point earth ground. Only the homeowner is responsible for installing and inspecting that.