SHTF in Fort Wayne

[Sailor]

I know everyone says backfeeding is safe but the fact my insurance will not cover any damages including if my house burns down is enough to deter me.

I really want to get a transfer switch installed so I can do it to code but for now extension cords work fine.

My post had zero to do with back feeding. Unplug your furnace plug it into your generator. It is 100% isolated. Back feeding is a bad idea risking the lives of the lineman. If your insurance would deny this claim change carriers. Your liability coverage covers stupidity every day.

 

[1946]

Question on running the furnace with the genny. Wife's brother lost power last ice storm.
He hooked the genny up and was running one TV and a few lights. The genny is rated at 5500 continuous and 6800 start up. The furnace would not fire the ignitor when on the genny. Finally he hooked up a small milkhouse heater to the genny. When he did that the gas furnace cycled through and ran as usual.
So in order to get the furnace to run, he would have to plug in the heater long enough to get the furnace going. Then he could unplug the small heater.
Any ideas on what's going on there?

 

[Shibby575]

I was able to pretty much run my whole house including AC with my 8k portable generator. Now i do have one of those start up capacitors on the condensing unit, but it all ran well. When back feeding your panel you have to remember to turn off your main before doing anything else. But it is safe if you understand what is going on. My question is how much fuel are you keeping on hand? I went through 10-15 gal per day. I only keep 15 gal on hand plus what's in the generator. This mess has made me rethink getting a whole house generator that runs off of propane as that's what we use. All of this being said. Does anyone know of a good place to buy (for a good price as I'm cheap and will wait for a steal) a whole house deal lets say 10-15kw?

Thanks

 

[FWShooter]

My post had zero to do with back feeding. Unplug your furnace plug it into your generator. It is 100% isolated. Back feeding is a bad idea risking the lives of the lineman. If your insurance would deny this claim change carriers. Your liability coverage covers stupidity every day.

I know I was just saying I don't backfeed either because you said you did not.

 

[WhitleyStu]

Did some calculations on our generator and fuel use during the power outage. Our generator is a 15,000W GenPro powered by a 25 hp Briggs & Stratton Vanguard two cylinder gasoline engine.

Without power 77 hours
Used generator 48 hours
Used 45 gallons of gasoline (we have a 550 gallon gas tank which was just filled)

I started the generator each day at approximately 12 PM and shut it off at 4 AM. We set the thermostat at 70° and were quite comfortable. We did shut off the A/C several times to run the clothes dryer. We could have run both but did not want to load the generator with both A/C and electric dryer when we could do without the A/C for an hour for the dryer to run each day. All in all things went pretty smooth, but were glad to get our service back on Monday night.

 

[nomadicmutt]

Reminds me of a few summers ago in southern Illinois, there was a huge storm (meteorologists called it an "inland hurricane") that knocked out power for 12 or 13 days.

I was living with my grandparents at the time to help them with their little farm near SIU, and it really wasn't that bad. We didn't have a generator, but we managed fine.

I spent almost every sunlit hour cutting, clearing, and hauling trees from the property, and every night we would grill something else from our ice-packed cooler and listen to the battery radio.

"In town" (inside Carbondale itself) it was a little worse, but even then there were only scattered instances of looting or vandalism or whatever. On the whole, everyone helped each other out.

Now, I have no false ideas that the same would happen in urban areas. I don't trust my neighbors here in Nora any further than I can throw them, but there is still at the very least a sense of "mutual respect" (for lack of a better term) with 99% of the people here.

 

[bman1903]

The biggest thing I learned from this storm and no power is I need more things to do, 15 minuted into it I was bored! No power cuts down on a lot of things to keep occupied, like reading internet forums

 

[bman1903]

I was able to pretty much run my whole house including AC with my 8k portable generator. Now i do have one of those start up capacitors on the condensing unit, but it all ran well. When back feeding your panel you have to remember to turn off your main before doing anything else. But it is safe if you understand what is going on. My question is how much fuel are you keeping on hand? I went through 10-15 gal per day. I only keep 15 gal on hand plus what's in the generator. This mess has made me rethink getting a whole house generator that runs off of propane as that's what we use. All of this being said. Does anyone know of a good place to buy (for a good price as I'm cheap and will wait for a steal) a whole house deal lets say 10-15kw?

Thanks

There are kits that will (kits for most brands) convert your current Gen to run on propane, think they run around $50-150, most whole house gens runa round $5k-8k. Try Lowes for pricing.

 

[bman1903]

Generator Conversion Kits to Propane and Natural Gas.

Found the link I was thinking of, heard decent reviews a few years ago. Should have remembered that link lol

 

[Hookeye]

Blizzard of 78 and the 82 flood, Ft Wayne used to be a cool place w cool people.