Power Outage

[dmmoss51]

Well those storms that rolled through yesterday and especially the wind afterwards knocked out the power.

Glad to have my wood stove that requires no electricity!

It's also the first time I've lost power since purchasing a generator... doesn't power everything but I have lights and refridgeration.

Great to be prepared for an emergency... Now lets see if the Power Cos estimate of the power being back on By Saturday is correct.

 

[mellow]

Glad you are OK, must have hit your area hard if they are saying that long of a down time. It would be a good time to break out the saws and help the neighbors, you more than likely will get paid in wood!

 

[JayD]

Good Luck Dmmoss, Lots of wind for sure, we just caught the edge here in metro detriot area. Lots of power out around us. All good here. Jay

 

[bsruther]

I was watching the radar last night when the storm was rolling through here and saw that you guys were getting a double whammy.
Son and his wife live in Ann Arbor. I'd imagine they got hit pretty hard, but haven't heard yet.
There was widespread damage around here, but nothing terrible, lotta rain though.
Basement got some water, but the sump pump I installed a few years back took care of it.

This is one of the reasons I'm changing over from insert to stove. The generator's for keeping food cold, not heating the house.

 

[Augie]

Areas are starting to come back online now in SE Michigan

 

[dmmoss51]

Glad you are OK, must have hit your area hard if they are saying that long of a down time. It would be a good time to break out the saws and help the neighbors, you more than likely will get paid in wood!

I had a knock on the door last night by one of my neighbors looking for people that had chainsaws. A nice RED OAK was completely blocking one of our roads and people couldn't get in our out. Got the road cleared and going back for the wood this weekend. (It's one thing to cut enough to move things and clear the road by headlights, its another thing to do the whole job of cutting into rounds withut good light and I work until after dark monday through friday)

And as another note there were no power lines involved... wouldn't want people thinking I went out and cut a tree that was tangled up with those.

I

 

[Jags]

Some pretty strong stuff going around the midwest. This is down south of me, but it affected quite a few:
(broken link removed to http://news.yahoo.com/photos/midwest-tornadoes-slideshow/)

Gonna slip this over to the Inglenook. Its a better fit.

 

[CenterTree]

Well those storms that rolled through yesterday and especially the wind afterwards knocked out the power.

Glad to have my wood stove that requires no electricity!

It's also the first time I've lost power since purchasing a generator...

Good for you for being prepared. You took the steps to provide for yourself and family. Kudos!

Power outages (with cold winters) was the MAIN REASON that we bought a wood stove.

Bet your are thankful for the new GEN also.

 

[dmmoss51]

Yes.... sitting by a warm fire drinking a cold beer and posting from my cell phone still no power but life's good... feel fortunate to be me much better off than those that had the tornadoes or more severe damages

 

[BrotherBart]

At least it isn't hard to keep the beer cold this time of year. Hang in there. Just sit it outside. Been there many times. Too many times.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to fill the genny gas cans. I usually do it in October.

 

[dmmoss51]

I was low on gas but actually live close to the edge of the circuit... gas station 1 mile away has power and streetlight at end of road on problem is our plat feeds from the opposite end so it's like this everytime. If we lose power its at least 3 days!

 

[BrotherBart]

Two lines into our development. Our leg gets whacked for a day to seven days every year. The guys on the other leg have had two power failures in the last twenty years. They went down for six days in Snowmageddon in 2010 and one of them spent twenty grand for a whole house generator system and a five hundred gallon propane tank. He has lost power for a little over an hour since then.

But gas is usually a problem in the big ones. Why I keep thirty gallons of fresh stuff and then burn it off in the truck and yard and saw gear come May. Of course I was out when the power went down in July when it was 98 degrees outside. New plan. Keep 10 gallons handy for the gennys to run the A/C.

 

[VIBErator]

Hope everybody is ok!

 

[dmmoss51]

It's funny I was "low" on fuel but being that this is the first extened outage we've had since I bought it, I've been actually pleasently suprised on how long I get on a tank of gas. It's a menards knock off brand, nothing too special.

 

[UncleJoe]

Good for you for being prepared. You took the steps to provide for yourself and family. Kudos!

Power outages (with cold winters) was the MAIN REASON that we bought a wood stove.

That was us too. I think it was 2006 around Valentines day the east coast got hammered with 2 major snowstorms in one week. We were without power for 4-5 days. We used kerosene to keep warm but eating was a problem. That spring we started looking for alternatives for heating and cooking. We found a wood stove and I installed it. I then went looking for a propane stove/oven. Found one on craigslist for $200. Over the ensuing years I accumulated 10- 20lb tanks and always have at least 8 full. Picked up a 7500W portable generator from CL also. I keep a 35gal. drum of treated gas on hand to run it. That gets cycled out every spring.

We didn't ever want to be in that helpless position again.

 

[velvetfoot]

How many watts generator is it, if I may ask. Thing is, going to work while still no power, and in my case, getting the water going for a shower, which needs the big genny for the well.
Hang in there.

 

[dmmoss51]

Well the power came on last night about 9:30 to our relief much earlier than anticipated.

The generator is rated at 7KW continuous and slightly above that for startups and non continuous loads.

I did not go the the expense yet of doing the whole house setup with transfer box etc. The only hard wired appliance I needed was my well and here is how I made that work:

I installed a large 2-gang switch box in line with the commercial power supply to the well, attached to a floor joist in the basement above the well.

Then, I installed two heavy duty, 30A rated, 2-pole light switches in the box (two pole so I am switching the both the hot and nuetral), One switch is installed "upside down" in the box and then I rigged a breaker bar (not sure if that is the right term) so that both switches have to switch together.

WIth the one being upside down, and switching together one is always on and one is always off no exceptions. I fed commercail power to one, and the other one connects to a short "pigtail" of 10guage wire with a turnlock connector on it. Both switches feed to the well.

EDIT: By the way the whole setup not counting cable to run from the generator is less than $100 in materials from Menards.

When power goes out, I switch the switch (both switches now singualr because of the breaker bar) and plug in the 10guage extension cord to the generator and the pigtail and on comes the well. The commercial side is protected by a circuit breaker in my box. My generator has a built in circuit breaker and the well is the only thing on that circuit... it's got built in two 120 circuits and 1 240 circuit.

The water heater is Nat Gas with a pilot so with water I have hot water too.

I also run extension cords to chest freezer and upright fridge/freezer. I run a few lights and have been know to plug in the telveision as well.

When I chose my generator I did some calculations and the most continuous watts I really needed was 5KW I went with the larger due to the tendancy of the well to draw more power when the pump starts, which is only realisticlly a problem if the pump happens to start when the freezer and fridge compressors also start but better safe than sorry.

I will have to post some photos later of my switch box in the basement so you can have a better idea.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Dave, we got power back last night also. Really happy with that as most estimates had us not getting power before the weekend. All is well now.

We came home to a cold house so the natural first thing I did was to start a fire in the stove. Got the house up to 70 fairly quick (they tell me this can not be done with a soapstone stove so I'm happy the stove does not know this) then went to bed. Back to normal now.

 

[dmmoss51]

I'm near Kalamazoo how about you?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Near Chesaning.

 

[begreen]

Good to hear that you are back on the grid. I hate coming home to a power outage.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Well those storms that rolled through yesterday and especially the wind afterwards knocked out the power.

Glad to have my wood stove that requires no electricity!

It's also the first time I've lost power since purchasing a generator... doesn't power everything but I have lights and refridgeration.

Great to be prepared for an emergency... Now lets see if the Power Cos estimate of the power being back on By Saturday is correct.

Do you get a discount for the days you don't have power?

 

[bubbasdad]

We finally got our power back Thursday afternoon. Wasn't too bad on us, we have a 15K propane genny with a automatic transfer switch. But I was surprised at how many of my neighbor's didn't have a generator. Most of these folks have pretty nice houses, but don't prepare ?

 

[dmmoss51]

Do you get a discount for the days you don't have power?

Not sure, of course not using power cost $0. What kind of a discount would it be a pro-ration of the customer charge?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Do you get a discount for the days you don't have power?

There are rules as to when they have to give a discount and those can usually be found on their web site. I'm thinking around here (Consumers Energy) it is somewhere around a week before you can file a claim but I have heard of some getting reimbursed for food spoilage in shorter time periods.

For sure it costs around $30 per day when you have to produce your own power with the generator.