Lights out at Dawn!

[Jstpssng]

The Canadian company supplying electricity to this region is shutting down for maintenance tomorrow. Our electric coop is taking advantage of this to do some work of their own. Power is scheduled to be off from 5:45 AM until 4:00 PM tomorrow. I've lived here since October 2003, and this will be the longest outage I've seen. It'll be interesting to see if I really can be without power for 10 hours.
I know that I didn't intend to be up this late, as I need to get up and make coffee before they go offline. Things need to get done though, so I'm finally cooking supper. Then put the piglets in for the night and off to bed I go.

 

[tacticalturnip]

I'm quite smitten with my generator, given how often we lose power; you'd think living down Augusta way I'd see less outages than you.

 

[5030]

The Canadian company supplying electricity to this region is shutting down for maintenance tomorrow. Our electric coop is taking advantage of this to do some work of their own. Power is scheduled to be off from 5:45 AM until 4:00 PM tomorrow. I've lived here since October 2003, and this will be the longest outage I've seen. It'll be interesting to see if I really can be without power for 10 hours.
I know that I didn't intend to be up this late, as I need to get up and make coffee before they go offline. Things need to get done though, so I'm finally cooking supper. Then put the piglets in for the night and off to bed I go.

I must ask where in Maine are you. reason being, we have good friends that live in Northern Maine

 

[jyoutz]

About twenty years ago, we had over 50” of snow and of course power lines down everywhere. We were without power for a week in the winter. Thankfully, we put the frozen food in chests outside and had wood heat. The gas range could be lit by match and we used camp lanterns for light. At that location, we were on a water company and downhill of the storage tank, so we never ran out of water. I had no generator at that time. Then about 10 years ago at our current place, a tornado took out an electric substation and we were without power for 4 days. This was more difficult because it was in the summer and I had to keep the generator going to keep the refrigerators and freezers going. And we have a well, so I had to fill water jugs in town. Such fun to live with rural electric cooperatives.

 

[DKCDKC]

My cooperative has an outstanding reliability record. I am out for an hour or so every few years - but no big deal. I have a small generator I use around the farm that I use to power some lights and appliances - and a wood stove for heat. (I do have the required switch to allow the generator to hook to the house circuits.) I live a mile from the highway and the main power lines - but, for some unknowable but appreciated reason, the cooperative chose to bury the line all the way in to my house. Nice.

 

[Ken45101]

Wow! I hope they get it back on their scheduled time plan.

Reliability seems to be going down anymore. As far as Long winter outages and water supplies some years back we had a 24 hour outage and there is a utility pumping station across the road and they put a generator on it during daylight hours. Unfortunately the water tank had lines freeze in the cold weather and once the power was back on we had unreliable water for the next week

We have grown to accustomed to reliable power I have a small generator in the garage with a good hook up and for long possible outages I have a tractor PTO driven generator and plenty of diesel fuel in reserve

 

[fatjay]

First time in nearly 20 years, I don't think i'd be jumping on the generator bandwagon just yet. That's some outstanding reliability. Collectively, I lose power for about 2 weeks out of the year across about 5-7 outages. My cheap chinese 10k generator has about 2000 hours on it and it works great, but hopefully some day I'll upgrade to a diesel that makes less racket. I remember it's inaugural run, snow storm about 6 years ago that had us without power for 10 days with highs in the 20's and lows in single digits, and it ran around the clock. That was a big one, and without the generator, life would have been much harder.

 

[RjCorazza]

The first and last planned outage we had never happened. A few utility trucks gathered around a pole on the adjacent farm for an hour, then a guy in a pickup truck arrived with a suspiciously clean hard hat and they all just left.
I had a loud 7kw gas Genset for years for our occasional outages, then after a few longer outages I got a whole house 15kw pto generator 3 years ago. Haven't lost power since.

 

[sandman2234]

I really hate power outages! They mess with my coffee drinking in the morning and what time I get to eat in the evening!
David from jax

 

[oosik]

Our co-op electric utility goes down for two hours - twice a year. Down for ten hours - get what you will need out of the frig & freezer now. Keep those doors closed during the outage.