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.

 

[Oaktree]

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.

About 15 years ago we had a couple-day outage after a bad storm, bought a 4kW generator after that. Haven't lost power for more than an hour or two since. Really only bought it to keep the refrigerator & freezer cold...can get by reasonably well without electricity otherwise....gravity fed well, woodstove, gas stove & HW heater.
Only hours on the generator are from twice-yearly maintenance runs.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

What is "a generator" of which you speak? I have four, though only two are in service. My main is a 6kw electric start propane unit hooked to the transfer switch.

One of the spares is a 1957 4kw electric start that hasn't had enough load to burn the factory paint off the muffler. It's going over by the well house, about 200' from the house, where it will be a dedicated pump set/well house heater. I like that back in '57 they hadn't made up the phony "peak power" number. 4kw is 4 kw. Maybe it will put out more than that temporarily. Not their problem. I'm going to hook it to a DPDT switch. Flip the switch one way and you are on line voltage, flip it the other way and you are on the generator. $50 on Marketplace.

I also have a 4.4kw pull start. The pull start is not that bad, but it's so noisy it gives me a headache 100' away. I use it for construction power out at the barn, and wear muffs any time I use it. Seriously, it's so loud it will drown out my chainsaw. You have to be really desperate for electricity. I bought it on a Harbor Freight closeout in 1997, before the Y2k kerfuffle ran genset prices up. $235. Hey, it works...

One of my favorites is a little 1kw camp generator I paid $149 for at Coastal Farm. It's a 2-cycle interrupter governed, really portable little unit. It will run 4.5 hours on a gallon of mixed gas. I have put a lot of hours on it camping and during snow outages. I feed it through a photographic line stabilizer I picked up at a college surplus auction for $10, which cleans up the power enough to run the router and TV.

The nice thing about multiple gensets is that if one craps out when I really need it, I have options. Even the noisebox will run the house in a pinch. It has done it.

 

[Jstpssng]

They were back online at 4:00, as scheduled. I was able to get the trees pushed back from my service line, which included bouncing a couple off the line on the way down. I have two generators, one hasn't run since I accidently pulled the starter rope out of it in 2017; the other is was my father's, an older Lincoln 150 AC welder generator combo, which I also haven't been able to get running... some type of fuel delivery problem.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

They were back online at 4:00, as scheduled. I was able to get the trees pushed back from my service line, which included bouncing a couple off the line on the way down. I have two generators, one hasn't run since I accidently pulled the starter rope out of it in 2017; the other is was my father's, an older Lincoln 150 AC welder generator combo, which I also haven't been able to get running... some type of fuel delivery problem.

YouTube is a wonderful repair manual. I think this guy is a hoot, and if you watch a few of his vids you will learn how to get just about anything running.

BTW, if you need to boil out a carb and don't want to spring for an ultrasonic cleaner, use a Salvation Army thrift store crock pot and some sudsy stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TarylFixesAll

 

[Bill Guenthner]

What is "a generator" of which you speak? I have four, though only two are in service. My main is a 6kw electric start propane unit hooked to the transfer switch.

One of the spares is a 1957 4kw electric start that hasn't had enough load to burn the factory paint off the muffler. It's going over by the well house, about 200' from the house, where it will be a dedicated pump set/well house heater. I like that back in '57 they hadn't made up the phony "peak power" number. 4kw is 4 kw. Maybe it will put out more than that temporarily. Not their problem. I'm going to hook it to a DPDT switch. Flip the switch one way and you are on line voltage, flip it the other way and you are on the generator. $50 on Marketplace.

I also have a 4.4kw pull start. The pull start is not that bad, but it's so noisy it gives me a headache 100' away. I use it for construction power out at the barn, and wear muffs any time I use it. Seriously, it's so loud it will drown out my chainsaw. You have to be really desperate for electricity. I bought it on a Harbor Freight closeout in 1997, before the Y2k kerfuffle ran genset prices up. $235. Hey, it works...

One of my favorites is a little 1kw camp generator I paid $149 for at Coastal Farm. It's a 2-cycle interrupter governed, really portable little unit. It will run 4.5 hours on a gallon of mixed gas. I have put a lot of hours on it camping and during snow outages. I feed it through a photographic line stabilizer I picked up at a college surplus auction for $10, which cleans up the power enough to run the router and TV.

The nice thing about multiple gensets is that if one craps out when I really need it, I have options. Even the noisebox will run the house in a pinch. It has done it.

I love this generator for camping, tailgating, etc. Easily carried in one hand, very quiet, and will run an air conditioner or freezer, or an electric blanket, for about 4 to 6 hours on a half gallon of gasoline. It puts out absolutely clean power for computers and other fragile electronics and it comes with a 12 volt battery charger.

 

[Doofy]

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

Death would be the only catastrophe that could possibly interfere with my coffee or my feed bag.

 

[RjCorazza]

I love this generator for camping, tailgating, etc. Easily carried in one hand, very quiet, and will run an air conditioner or freezer, or an electric blanket, for about 4 to 6 hours on a half gallon of gasoline. It puts out absolutely clean power for computers and other fragile electronics and it comes with a 12 volt battery charger.

View attachment 743212

That is a very convenient sized generator, and high quality. I have the Yamaha equivalent and love it.

 

[Doofy]

I bought the Honda eu2000i and it is the perfect size for us. I have a 3,000 watt inverter in my plow truck but the power isn't clean enough for the electronics on my heating systems. Honda puts out clean, stable power.

 

[TheMan419]

We had the house wired for generator (portable) bc the prior owners told us the power went out "all the time". Been here 6 years. Used the generator for its intended purpose 3 times I think. Use it around the farm for "portable" power. It is a 7000 kw unit so hardly portable off of a concrete surface. Thankfully easy to strap to the tractor bucket and move where I want it.

 

[Gem99ultra]

I love this generator for camping, tailgating, etc. Easily carried in one hand, very quiet, and will run an air conditioner or freezer, or an electric blanket, for about 4 to 6 hours on a half gallon of gasoline. It puts out absolutely clean power for computers and other fragile electronics and it comes with a 12 volt battery charger.

View attachment 743212

I have a pair of those little guys. Fortunately I had bought them not long before Hurricane Ike hit us back in Texas in '08. We had major damage.

They'd run all night keeping the frig and fans running. We were out of power for 6 weeks due to a big pine knocking our main breaker box off the house. Good thing too since all of the gas stations had no power to pump gas. So gasoline got real scarce real quick.

I still have 'em and have to rely on them for short periods every few years. After each use I run them dry. They never fail to crank right up.
They would run about 12 hours on a gallon of gas!