Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

I can really see where power is paramount if on a well...

The nearly a week without power in Olympia in the middle of winter had just about everyone outside the city on generator power...

As with most things... planning goes a long way.

Never had a genset at the cabin... propane and candles and lantern... never had to worry much about refrigeration... one winter Grandma just wrapped the frozen goods and put them in the snow bank...

As kids... we always hoped the power to go out... we called it Pioneer Living and my Grandmother would tell stories about the root cellar and growing up without electricity or telephone... it's the things that keep life interesting for kids.

To her having hot water on tap was the ultimate in luxury... and with a propane water heater life was good...

Funny you mention that history...... at grs's comment of 5-10 days w/o power, I was thinking "my grandparents wouldn't have had trouble adjusting, as they grew up under those conditions". Many people today, with no camping experience, would be up a certain creek.

Rgds, D.

 

[ultrarunner]

I have to admit we as kids rooted for power outages as well. Even as a newlywed, the roughing it was sort of romantic and exciting. Not any more. I have a 3kW that will power enough appliances/lights etc. to keep the house comfortable. I have considered a larger automatic genset, but it is hard to justify the expense and fuel burn. It would be nice though not to have to monkey with the mechanical interlock on the service panel in the dark and decide what breakers to keep on.

A few weeks ago I swapped out the emergency "Bug Eye" battery lamps at the Hospital... the new ones cost about $25 in qty and generally last at least 5 years before needed a $12 battery...

Maybe something like this that goes on for 90 minutes and stay on until power is restored?

https://www.grainger.com/product/AC...y-Light-13M588?nls=3&ssf=3&searchQuery=13M588

PM if you need more info...

 

[ultrarunner]

Funny you mention that history...... at grs's comment of 5-10 days w/o power, I was thinking "my grandparents wouldn't have had trouble adjusting, as they grew up under those conditions". Many people today, with no camping experience, would be up a certain creek.

Rgds, D.

My grandparents never had a refrigerator... they did have a big old chest freezer... the cellar kept everything else cool on the farm... plus they were in snow country...

I've seen adult women break into tears/panic when the power goes out here in the city and candle caused fires make the news too...

Common sense is not as common as it once was... even if it is as simple as bringing out the camp gear...

 

[3930dave]

I've come to think of it as UnCommon Sense. During a major emergency is not a good time to learn basic skills, esp. survival ones.

Candle fires and CO poisoning cause many deaths.

Back in the '98 Ice Storm, this one family barely survived. It was 40 below, and Dad decides to haul the gas bbq inside the house, fire it up full blast, then go to bed. Fire dept pulled them all out of the house, just in time.

Some people only go glamping these days..... learning can be pretty limited, if all you do is hook up the water, sewer, and cable connections to the 5iver ! :laughing:

No real substitute for direct experience..... in a major catastrophe, chances are your access to google and youtube will be limited to non-existent.

Rgds, D.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

When the power goes out here, we don't jump up to do anything... We have flash lights around the house and a couple batt powered lanterns too, also a kerosene light handy...

After an hour or so, I go out to the garage and get out the Honda 2000, start it up outside and plug in a couple things, like the fridge, (I have a cord running into the basement to plug things into) Normally the power doesn't go off for long, if it does, I can get out the whole house gen set, but I haven't had to do that in years and years... Even with the whole house genset running, I don't run it full time, we just don't feel the need to! We mostly run it for showers...

Water is no problem, I have an artesian well and spring fed ponds, so a pail of water to flush the john is just a short walk away, and the over flow pipe on the artesian well, is the same water that comes into the house that's used for everything else.

In the winter, I use the Honda to run the fan on the wood stove, so "central" heat isn't a problem either, and to tell the truth, we "could" go without the fan, the house would just be cooler...

SR

 

[3930dave]

Water.... drinking, for sanitation, and managing ground water are the biggies.

Nice with that artesian SR, you've got 2 out of 3 covered.

That's one thing I really liked about my last house - it had a basement, but the sump was gravity drained into the ravine behind the house.

Rgds, D.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Yeaaa, the artesian just keeps on keeping on,

And I have three bigger spring fed ponds, here's one of them,

SR

 

[ultrarunner]

I've come to think of it as UnCommon Sense. During a major emergency is not a good time to learn basic skills, esp. survival ones.

Candle fires and CO poisoning cause many deaths.

Back in the '98 Ice Storm, this one family barely survived. It was 40 below, and Dad decides to haul the gas bbq inside the house, fire it up full blast, then go to bed. Fire dept pulled them all out of the house, just in time.

Some people only go glamping these days..... learning can be pretty limited, if all you do is hook up the water, sewer, and cable connections to the 5iver ! :laughing:

No real substitute for direct experience..... in a major catastrophe, chances are your access to google and youtube will be limited to non-existent.

Rgds, D.

It could be generational...

I've come to know a lot of older people and some of the 80+ year old widows know more about home care than 95% of the younger population... and this is in the city.

One of my senior friends would clean all the burners on the Wedgewood gas/wood stove she bought new after the war... she also kept wood on hand to cook... simple things like lighting a pilot are beyond most or knowing how to shut off the water...

 

[check]

The nice thing about a Model T is you can have both... an electric start and an attached crank! Of course you can forgo the battery all together and run off the mag and have gas and oil to power the lamps...

Oh, my, what a beautiful car? How much do you want for it?

 

[check]

I'm seeing a trend in this thread...... changing generator oil seems to correlate with subsequent grid failures ! Cause and Effect ? Nice to have fresh oil in there, esp. for longer runs.... I know Huntsville was down for a while this weekend. We are lucking enough to still have Efree to purchase here. Rgds, D.

Yes, and in fact the power was out for three days, during which time my 17 kW Kohler automatic standby generator was running. Lots of propane used – ouch!