4th day with no power

[bdhsfz6]

It's not hard to hook up, the hardest part is backing up the generator trailer.
My wife can do the transfer if needed. When a winter storm is forecast I will often back it up and connect it, then plug in the tractor and let her set ready to go.

I mounted a large caster wheel on the tongue of my genny trailer. I store it in the barn behind the tractor. Instead of backing the tractor, I just roll the trailer up and connect the PTO shaft. That way, I don't have to move the tractor at all.

 

[bigtiller]

Last Thursday afternoon we got hit with 80 mph straight line winds here in Central Illinois. Power went out about 1:30 pm. Reports claim over 1200 poles damaged or destroyed. Power is still out for over 50,000 as of today. This is the first time in 23 years of living here that power has been off for more than 12 hours. We've been given false estimates of restoration twice now. Power was supposed to be restored yesterday at 12:15 pm. That came and went. Then an estimate of 12:15 am for this morning didn't happen as well. Apologies were issued after both failures. Luckily we have a small generator for phone charging, freezer, and fridge. We have no water other than bottled, pool, and rain collected. Fun times! Now it's just a waiting game.

I feel your pain. A derecho is best explained with a few cuss words fore and aft.

Ours was August 10, 2020. No power for 5.5 days. The nights were the roughest. Heat, humidity, no breeze, AUGH.

 

[MossRoad]

Last Thursday afternoon we got hit with 80 mph straight line winds here in Central Illinois. Power went out about 1:30 pm. Reports claim over 1200 poles damaged or destroyed. Power is still out for over 50,000 as of today. This is the first time in 23 years of living here that power has been off for more than 12 hours. We've been given false estimates of restoration twice now. Power was supposed to be restored yesterday at 12:15 pm. That came and went. Then an estimate of 12:15 am for this morning didn't happen as well. Apologies were issued after both failures. Luckily we have a small generator for phone charging, freezer, and fridge. We have no water other than bottled, pool, and rain collected. Fun times! Now it's just a waiting game.

Hope you get power restored soon.

Mother in-law told me yesterday her air conditioning hasn't worked all spring. I looked around and the air conditioner circuit breaker was OFF. Not tripped. OFF. My guess is that when she had a power outage for a few days last fall, the neighbor came over and hooked up her generator for her. I think he turned off all of the circuits in the panel before flipping the transfer switch, and then must have forgotten to turn that one back on when he put everything back to normal. It would have been easy to do, as it's the top breaker in the panel right next to the manual lockout for the main and generator feeds.

Anyway, don't forget to turn things back on after your power outage.

 

[5030]

Cord from the generator transfer breaker to the generator.
It's not hard to hook up, the hardest part is backing up the generator trailer.
My wife can do the transfer if needed. When a winter storm is forecast I will often back it up and connect it, then plug in the tractor and let her set ready to go.
It does not have an auto start, which would be nice but when I got the generator I paid less then $2000 for the 25KW unit.
I can get dressed and go outside for the difference in that and an auto standby unit. I have considered a standby unit but $$$$$
makes me decide to keep the pto unit.
Plus, there have been a couple of times that I loaned out the generator when I didn't need it. And it is a portable 25KW unit.

Least you have a transfer switch. Most people rely on extension cords. Kind of figured you did, you aren't a fly by night person. Way back when I considered a large pto Winco but my wife is really incapable of hooking one up, let alone even starting a tractor so the diesel standby eliminates all of that and gives me peace of mind if I'm not home.

Out here when the power goes out, it's out for days, possibly weeks, depending on the severity of the outage.

We have went in the past over 2 weeks on standby.

 

[dodge man]

The same storm hit here, I live near Macomb Illinois. It was a very long storm in the north south direction. We were driving home at the time and it hit us in Hannibal Missouri and I know it did damage all the way up to Burlington Iowa. We got lucky our power was off about 5 hours. My wife’s nephew lives about 6 miles north of us and he had a lot of tree damage, maybe 20 trees topped out.

The first picture is the only damage I had. The second and third picture are before and after pictures at the nephews. The nephew and his wife are gone on vacation so the wife and I cleaned the place up for them with the help of a neighbor with a skid steer.

 

[workinonit]

I'm a huge proponent of PTO gens as well. I've had mine for 20 or so years. I have a 100 amp Appleton welding receptacle in my shop and on my gen trailer and an extension cable to connect the two. The tractor and gen are both under roof with the 600 gallon fuel tank. In my case I simply open the mains on my 2 - 200 amp panels on the house and I can back feed from my shop where the generator is located. I think I paid $1200 for my 30 KW generator and a couple hundred went into building the trailer. My tractor is always in tip top running condition so I don't have another high dollar diesel to maintain.

 

[dodge man]

A couple more pictures of damage in the area my son took pictures of while out working.

 

[TractorTYMe]

I got myself one of them Generlink power meter connected transfer switches. And a Duramax XP1200EH movable generator, you turn off main breaker and turn on circuits as you deem essential. But it powers my 1000Sq feet home just fine, and you know what? Since getting prepared, not a single outtage the last two years that has lasted more than 4 h since I got it.

 

[grsthegreat]

We had a major wind event here in north idaho back in 2014 and again in 2015. Took out around 3500 power poles due to utilities not keeping treelines cleared. I sold and installed many, many generators those years and again the following years. I ordered so many, i ended up getting my 22 kw for free thru the rebates and special deals they offered. If it wasnt for getting it for free, id have kept my manual onan 5000 watt unit that i had used to back up part of my house since 1996.

but i wanted to make it easy on the wife if i was away. Now you dont do anything except wait 15 seconds for power to be restored. Have 1000 gal propane tank so can last a long time.

its not always during the summer when power is lost here. It usually happens in dead of winter. Snow and -20f plays havoc on animals in barn and people in house. Im always thankful i have the generator back up available. I also have a redundant gas powered 6500 watt portable i can fall back on if necessary… and shelves and truck full of spare generac air cooled parts.

 

[NoTrespassing]

The saga has ended for now. We have power! A lineman from Virginia dropped by and checked out our incoming line about 2 hours ago. He claimed no one have even inspected our circuit yet. He said if his crew didn't find any other major damage we would be up today and 2 hours later we were. I've heard there are about 2000 out of state linemen in Illinois right now. He thought it was closer to 3000.

 

[Jstpssng]

The saga has ended for now. We have power! A lineman from Virginia dropped by and checked out our incoming line about 2 hours ago. He claimed no one have even inspected our circuit yet. He said if his crew didn't find any other major damage we would be up today and 2 hours later we were. I've heard there are about 2000 out of state linemen in Illinois right now. He thought it was closer to 3000.

Good deal!!

 

[Dftodd]

Yep. I know power outages hurt really bad. I feel your pain. I'm not sure which is worse--The record heat of summer or the record cold of winter. For me, the outage occurred during a record low-temp freeze. I was burning candles to keep warm in an all-electric home. We couldn't even buy propane to run a stove or gas for the car since everybody was out. A week of that was grueling. I bet a lot of babies were made during that outage. Ya gotta stay worm somehow.

I always try to have some backup heat source. In our last house we had a fireplace. I installed a wood burning insert in the fireplace to keep the heat in, instead of going up the chimney.

Insert didn't give off much eat unless it was plugged in so the blower fans were running.

I kept a little 3500 watt generator at the house. If power went out, I would fire up the generator. Run an extension cord to the fire place insert and fire it up.

We lost power during a really cold snap. Got home and the house was 50° inside. Teo hours later when my wife got home, the house was 80° in the living room and comfortable in the bedrooms as long as the door was left open.

When we build our new place, I'm planning on a pellet stove for supplemental heat. I'll also have the place wired for a generator hookup. It's cheaper for the wiring to be installed up front then added later.

I've been considering going with a gas stove as well.

 

[5030]

In the last decade we have not burned one cubic foot of propane or NG or used large amounts of electricity either. We heat the house and shop with biomass stoves, running off grade field corn that is free for me.

 

[Thomas]

If had to happen this time of year good time, compare 5 days with no power due from ice storm 11 years ago for us.

 

[Joel/ak]

We have a 12 kw portable. It's loud but it works. Plug it into the house, throw the breaker on the main and we are good.

 

[Semper Paratus]

Hurricane Isabelle. 9/2003, left us without power for 12 + days. None of the immediate neighbors had gennies so we suffered. First few days was stuff out of the freezer on the BBQ grill. After that it was wait in store lines where there was power for some form of protein buy enough to feed 4-6 cook and dispose. Had a Coleman two burner gas stove for eggs or pots. One of the neighbors had a pilot fired gas hot water heater so every 3 or 4 days a 3 minute shower. Fortunately we had water and sewage during the time but boy was it hot. Needless to say by the next hurricane season I had a 5500 watt gas portable generator. By the time Hurricane Irene rolled through in August 2011 I had only run the generator on test runs. But now I had the capacity, with 3-4 hours of run time a day for 7 or 8 days to keep a couple of fridges and a freezer cold enough to not loose any food. I was also able to keep the Colonel's freezer and fridge cold while I cut the 24" diameter red oak off of his house. He had a gas hotwater heater and we were welcome for showers.
The new build is on a well so we will have to have a bit more power capacity, so it will have a transfer switch as a minimum....

 

[i7win7]

Survived my 4 day power outage using ECOFLOW equipment. Delta Pro, Delta Pro extra battery, Smart gas generator (recharges 48v batteries with DC power) and 1200w solar array. This equipment ran a window A/C, TV, Ice Maker and microwave. Used the Delta Pro to recharge smaller Delta 2's to run fridge, another TV and internet equipment. Best thing was only needing 2 gal of gas/day for an almost normal life style.

Lighting used rechargeable LED lights. All delta units could recharge usb gadgets.

Somewhat impressed with this rechargeable solar light, works good, hard to turn off.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BZD3C2FD

 

[oosik]

I've been out here since '82. We had one outage - about twenty years ago - 28 hours. Otherwise there is ALWAYS two planned outages every year. Eight hours each time. Allows the utility to complete maintenance tasks.

Consistent maintenance will result in very few unplanned events.

 

[Oaktree]

The saga has ended for now. We have power! A lineman from Virginia dropped by and checked out our incoming line about 2 hours ago. He claimed no one have even inspected our circuit yet. He said if his crew didn't find any other major damage we would be up today and 2 hours later we were. I've heard there are about 2000 out of state linemen in Illinois right now. He thought it was closer to 3000.

Maybe a dumb question, but how do the out of state linemen, who obviously aren't familiar with the area know how the local grid is laid out? It would seem they'd need to do a lot of scouting around to find where the breakers/fuses or line interrupters are located to de-energize/energize a section of line.

 

[Oaktree]

I've been out here since '82. We had one outage - about twenty years ago - 28 hours. Otherwise there is ALWAYS two planned outages every year. Eight hours each time. Allows the utility to complete maintenance tasks.

Consistent maintenance will result if very few unplanned events.

Planned outages are rare around here, and I don't think ever run as long as the ones you get. The electric company here (Eversource) is quite proactive about tree trimming along the lines. That work is subbed out, but it seems the subcontractor (Asplundt) is always in the area somewhere.
Last time they did a major trim on my road I had them dump a load of chippings that I spread on an area of my property that had erosion problems.