NWI INGO General Post - Part 13

[melensdad]

You can get a smaller one with a subpanel that will run just the stuff on that panel.

I did that with my first generator. That was 20ish years ago so the Generac and similar units were not common back then. I had a tri-fuel generator tied to a sub panel that powered a bit over 1/2 the house.

When power is out, in an emergency situation, you can live without quite a few of your circuits. We powered the microwave but not the double oven, etc. Pretty easy to make some of the choices.

 

[repeter1977]

Quiet?
One rifleman in a building, and you guys Arty the entire city block.

If it saves American lives, I'd say arty a block, sadly we actually don't. Although I have seen us dropping buildings like it was cool. Nothing like a 25mm Bushmaster turning cover into scrapnel. Or an Apache missile run.

 

[lonehoosier]

Anyways, I don't think I need a whole house, but maybe a small managed automatic backup. Time will really tell as we've just moved. At the last house we rarely lost power, but I'm not sure about here. Just thoughts of a bored man coming out.

Have you talked to your neighbors yet? In the 16 years I've lived here the longest time with out power was 8 hours, that just happen last year. Before that we lost power two other times and it was 4 and 2 hours each. With that said I do have a portable gen. First one was only 1000 watts, just big enough to run my fridge or a small window air conditioner. 2nd one I got thanks to a INGO member is 5500 watts. I have 12 5 gallon gas cans that I dump and refill after it becomes 12 months old. I do understand the value of a automatic gen but for me I can't justify the cost.

 

[KLB]

We had a power outage of 24 hours once when some idiot took out a pole near us and took down our section of the grid. When you can't get any water, flush the toilet more than once, can't see in the barn to feed the horses, and are worried about losing a couple of thousand dollars worth of meat it was an easy choice.

I don't think you would have to worry about it getting stolen. Removing the electrical cabling and pas pipes is no easy task. Not to mention, it isn't something you can just take somewhere else and use. It is a task to connect one to a house.

That said, it never crossed my mind to have one before living where I do.

Also, Lake County has had more power outages than we have since we got out generator. Of course since getting it, we haven't had any really long outages.

 

[2A_Tom]

I worked on a job on the other side of the Iron Curtain where they just cut everything and took two of them.

There may have been a gas valve. I was there after the re install, so I do not know. They now have a locked cages around them.

I installed cages around $ large AC unitd that had just been replaced in Dyer a few years back.

 

[melensdad]

We used to have a lot of outages. 8 days during the winter with record colds was the worst one. We've had too many outages lasting over 24 hours for me to count. Its gotten better here, but we still have outages. Last long one we had was about 2 years ago, 5 days, mid-summer.

The best thing about a hardwired system is that its always ready to go. My original system was hardwired, but not auto-start. I had instructions written out on the manual sub-panel and on the generator's air cleaner to start it up ... simple enough that my wife was able to do it when I was out of town.

Generac, Briggs and Kohler all make many sizes of back up systems. Smaller 7,500 and 10,000 watt systems are available that will run most small houses or critical systems of a larger house with auto-start and switchover panels to keep things simple.

 

[Ericpwp]

PSA: Just make sure you open the main breaker if you are feeding your panel. You don't want to backfeed the transformer and kill the guy working on it.

Update: the bricks were not moved this morning! I put down some small animal repellant and bought some pavers to run the perimeter.

 

[actaeon277]

Panel is supposed to be designed so you can't have generator and main on at the same time.

 

[melensdad]

PSA: Just make sure you open the main breaker if you are feeding your panel. You don't want to backfeed the transformer and kill the guy working on it.

1 - Auto panels do this automatically.

2 - Manual panels typically have a bar that flips a cut off to the main to prevent back feeding.

3 - Home made systems or in an extreme emergency where people backed power to their panel though a high amp breaker (like their AC unit's breaker) do require that the main be flipped off to prevent 'extra' power from being fed back up the line.

Panel is supposed to be designed so you can't have generator and main on at the same time.

See points 1 & 2 above. But in emergencies point #3 occurs a lot and the main needs to be flipped.

 

[Ericpwp]

Yes, point 3 bears repeating. Step down transformers turn into step up transformers when they are fed backwards. What are the lines, 400 v?

 

[repeter1977]

Another day down

 

[actaeon277]

Ugh. I hurt everywhere.

 

[jedi]

Ugh. I hurt everywhere.

Sucks..

 

[actaeon277]

Sucks..

Yes.

 

[Ericpwp]

 

[chef larry]

Back up to the top.

 

[Snapdragon]

Need to make coffee.

 

[jedi]

And bring donuts as well.
Ive been up for 3hrs already

 

[Snapdragon]

Me too. Woke up at 3 and couldn't go back to sleep. ****ing fibromyalgia.

 

[CTC B4Z]

Dozen or so squads looking for someone in the field off 9 mile and 153rd