Severe Weather Alert - What is your backup?

Boozie said:

mxjamie540 said:

May want to think of buying an [del]dc/ac inverter[/del]. I got a small Black & Decker just to specifically run the blower on my stove if need be...... since you have an insert, the blower is much more crucial.

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Explain please. how does this work?

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mxjamie540 - 01 February 2011 04:04 AM

I bought a marine deep-cycle 12 volt battery at WalMart or BJ's, a battery charger that keeps it charged, and a modified sine wave inverter. Attach the inverter to the battery and plug in your fan/blower to the inverter. The inverter converts the 12 volt DC power from the battery to 110 volt AC.

I am in North St. Louis County.
I think we dodged a bullet. We didn't get the amounts of ice they said. We got a light coating not the .5-1" they thought. Right now it keeps bouncing back between sleet and snow, so we are not out of the woods. But the ice looks to have moved on and 7-10" is knocking at our door.
Maybe with my tax refund I will look into the inventer

Jags said:

raiderfan said:

Beer and gasoline for the snow blower

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You treat your snow blower very well. :lol:

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:lol:

I have candeles, flashlights, camp stove 10 gal. botteled water, t.p. wood stove with plenty of wood in and by house. The shop slab is all charged up and should stay above freezing for about a week. Also have 1000 gallon storage almost charged so the boiler room shouldnt freeze in a long power outage. Have enough food to get by for a week or two depending on what we eat. Lots of caned food. No generater or laptop :grrr:

JUst moved my 525LB wood stove back to my house from another location in case the power goes out thats the only thing that will save me Whew .
Wife says what about the deep freeze,i said hey we will put it outside with the beer. SOme of these ice storms can shut down the power for weeks.

Simple. Power goes out, 30 seconds later my automatic 15kw generator fires up and powers about 90% of my home. Large grocery chain approximately 1 1/2 miles from the house - no problems with food. Still have plenty of firewood, and satellite TV, so no worrying about the cable being out. Since I live in hell (upstate NY) we're used to nightly snowfalls of 18+ inches. Just another day...

It's going to be sunny and dry here for the next week. I plan to get some wood splitting done.

mxjamie540
Just outside Joppa IL


One handy thing to know on generators is which receptacles on the generator are powered by which circuit. You can get a lot more power out of the generator by knowing which receptacle is circuit 1 and circuit 2. During the Ice Storm in 2009 we didn't have a wood stove and we were running electric heaters and closed the house down to 2 rooms. I could run 2 heaters on separate circuits but if I tried to run them on the same circuit it would kick the breaker.




John_M
Thats 6500 is one nice generator. I bought one of those after going through 2 Chinese models.

Natural gas generator! I dont fit in here.

moosetrek said:

my dog's got a serious Sam Adams habit.

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Pictures!!

One other thing I forgot, use good heavy gauge extension cords with no longer length than needed. Small cord plus big load equals fire.

labrador said:

Who needs the long lines at the grocery store. My better half is making a homemade Maple Buttermilk bread (simply delicious) on a bread machine and we have plenty of powdered milk. For all those who own Jotul 550 c inserts when power went out I burned mine with the door wide open and a fireplace screen in front , plenty of heat.

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Recipe please on the Maple Buttermilk Bread.
Regards burning with the door open .... is your insert a catalytic? If so, does it hurt the cat burning it this way?

redhorse said:

Our weather forecasters around here actually measure the severity of a storm using their "bread and millk" meters. Three breads and two milks is a reasonable storm. I think the one forecast for later tonight and tomorrow is a 4/3 storm...

We've got a generator with a transfer switch in the house. Power goes out, generator gets plugged in, flip a switch, power to everything in the house that matters (including fridge, freezer, blower on stove, TV and satellite receiver, computer, and well pump when we need it). We have chickens, so can live on eggs for a couple days if need be.

I wish we had a better supply of wood put in though. We're having problems getting heat from the last cord we bought. Seasoned and dry, just low BTUs.

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Meh, 4 loaves of bread and 3 gallons of milk will only last us 24 hours. With 7 kids, 3 of them teenagers, we go through bread and milk like water. So I was out on Sunday getting bread, eggs and milk for the storm. Because those are things I go get every couple days. That said, I have plenty of bread flour and powdered milk if I didn't make it to the store. (Chain grocery is about 20 mins away.) We are working on emergency preps here. I'd love to have a year stocked, but we probably only have a couple of months. We have a generator, gas, wood stove, all our camping stuff, stored water. We could do just fine if needed. It just wouldn't be as comfy as we would be with power and clear roads.

robertmcw said:

Severe Weather Alert - What is your backup?

The news says over 30 states will freeze in serial days. In Houston, it is 68 degrees but a hard freeze is going to a Severe Weather Alert.

If the ice breaks the electric wires so you can’t use the TV, the heaters or if the water freezes the pipes burst and a people may get stuck in their homes. Have you stocked your food for three days?

I have an Avalon insert and a propane tank and a generator and I have food for over three days and a lot dry wood.

What I missing (beer, wine, drinking water)?

Be warm.

Robert

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We lived in Houston (Clear Lake) for almost 30 years before moving out to the country between Bellville and Brenham. Everytime we had a major winter event in Houston people would rush to the grocery stores to stock up on basic staples, bottled water, milk bread etc. The shelves would empty very quickly.

I learned very early that at times like this I could go into the big drug stores, such as Walgreens. They all have a grocery section and it would be virtually untouched. This works for hurricane season, too.

Ductape said:

Remkel said:

Apparently everyone up here thinks bread and milk will get you through anything.....so I purchased a cow and planted a field of wheat in my basement....

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Are you also growing flashlight batteries??

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Nope, bagging the methane from the cow dung and rigged up a lantern to use that as fuel.....no need to add to the landfill

A couple extension cords run outside to my Honda gen and fire up both stoves. No pipes freezing here. I got enough juice to run the fridge and micro too if needed.

I think I could easily go weeks without needing power. Unless I burn through all my gas for the generator. I also hunt, a lot, so food isn't an issue. Don't need much else other than maybe the neighbor lady down the road stopping over for some sugar or coffee.

And your hot water heater!

You have fresh water in your hot water heater. If you have a 40 or 50 gallon water heater than you have nearly that much fresh drinking water.

Also someone mentioned that they use natural gas to cook with. Let me tell you first hand that just because you have natural gas to run your generator, stove/oven or vent-less heater don't assume you will have it in a power outage. During power outages the gas companies pumping stations might be down. This was case during the East Coast Blackout in Summer 2003.

Back in 1997 we had a bad ice storm and we lost power for 6 days.

Here is what I learned excluding what others have already said.

*have at least 2 gallons of water per person, per day, for cooking and drinking.
*candles, dollar store sells cheap ones

*First aid supplies

*extra blankets & sleeping bags (Have extras for invited/uninvited guests) ;-P

*French press for coffee (hay a guys gotta have his cup of Joe to function)

*Shotgun with #7 bird shot (criminals & zombies love power failures because most alarms won't work. bird shot will not go through the wall into the next room if you miss)

*Hobo pie maker, for homemade hot pockets and pies.

*MRE, meals ready to eat. saves time,less stress, high caloric, very mobile and compact. (I keep at least 72 meals on hand at any given time)

*Extra pet food and extra pet water

*gasoline generator

*gasoline

*Hot chicks in bikinis are huge moral boosters. ;-)

*2 wood stoves Primary & back up.

Speaking of Super Bowl, at this point, widespread power failures could affect one's TV watching ability.

This wind is unbelievable and cold. What a draft tonight. May not be any ashes in the stove by morning all sucked up the chimney.

Outside temp. -9°. Inside temp. 71°.

Preparedness includes plenty of firewood - 'imported' red oak is in full use today....(Due to high cost it is only used on days that register <20°) and fresh sourdough starter for loaves of slow rising sourdough bread. Nothing beats tending the hearth and baking bread when the temps. plummet.

Still shake my head in wonder at those of you who live way up north where these kind of temps are the 'norm' and where -9° is considered a WARM day......Down here the powers-that-be have closed down the schools for the past 2 days because of the cold.....One must remember that I live in a state where one of our chief sources of income comes from out of staters coming here to ski on our slopes where the temps are generally frigid and fresh snow is worshiped. So what is the lesson here???? ....more head shaking in wonder.....

Only way I accept these cold days with anything close to good humor is knowing that in a few days our temps will be back in the 40's.

I must say that the 550 loves the cold. Runs best in temps below 35°.

Oh, yes I do have a back-up generator that I got modified to run on propane 'just in case'. It is sitting in the shed next to a full canister of propane. (Much cheaper and more readily available than gasoline and a whole lot easier to run! )

Sounds like all here are doing well and are more than prepared.

Take care and continue to keep the home fires running hot. :coolsmile: