As some of you know from the Inglenook, I broke my ankle a few weeks ago. I just got the surgical sutures out yesterday and a walking cast with strict orders to not walk on it for a month. I have a knee scooter to get around my main floor but my wood boiler is in my basement. I have been using the boiler, but if the overnight temps are mild I run a minisplit to save the hassle and ration my easy to accessible wood in my bulkhead.
I get up this morning early and at one point the power goes out. I check the outage map on my phone and my area just went down. This is really rare, outages more than 5 or 10 minutes may happen every year or two but a 2 to 3 hour estimated outage is every decade or more.
I had nothing better to do so I went down to the basement, flipped the main breaker and then put on the rain gear and plastic bag over my cast then headed out to the generator trailer (first trip out in the yard. I have posted photos before but attached it again. I have not fully commissioned it yet but had it up and running enough to backfeed my house before I broke my ankle. I got the generator critical load panel and transfer switch installed but had not yet switched over the circuits. That meant I had to switch off the main breaker on the main panel and backfeed it.
I had equipped my crutches with flip down spikes (it was icy out and raining). So I flipped down the spikes and hobbled over to the generator trailer and started up the inverter. There is an issue that the inverter does not agree with the charge controller on the battery health so I started the standby generator as it was due for a test run. In prior testing the inverter eventually agrees with state of charge. So I went back inside, flipped the generator breaker and the lights went on. The utility claims I should have power back by now but I have no way of easily checking in my rural neighborhood. I got a text that the power should be on so I will let the generator run for another 15 minutes and then head downstairs to flip the breakers back to the utility after isolating the trailer, then head out and shut things down. Luckily, I have about 30 gallons in the bulk tank for the generator so I didnt have to fuel it. The sun is not out so I didnt get to check if the other solar inverters started up but they did when I tested it previously.
I got lots of pieces and part to finish the install delivered as I have been laid up. Eventually it will be auto transfer with 5 minute watch timer so no need to go outside but I will need to go downstairs and play with the breakers until I transfer circuits to the critical loads panel. There is no room for an auto transfer switch on my main power supply or my critical load panel without reworking my incoming utility power feed, so even with a critical load panel ,its not going to be auto transfer. The trailer will run the house without the diesel generator (its there for backup if the batteries go too low) once I get the battery state of charge issue out of the way if I was real worried I could leave it islanded. I dont want to do that as my excess solar production would not be able to go to the utility for net metering.
Neverheless a good test, all I need is a few feet of snow to make it more interesting
![[Hearth.com] Testing my resilience again](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/287/287844-e6848ea5459c55d80fff0f99de4a55af.jpg?hash=Q103bR881B "[Hearth.com] Testing my resilience again")
I get up this morning early and at one point the power goes out. I check the outage map on my phone and my area just went down. This is really rare, outages more than 5 or 10 minutes may happen every year or two but a 2 to 3 hour estimated outage is every decade or more.
I had nothing better to do so I went down to the basement, flipped the main breaker and then put on the rain gear and plastic bag over my cast then headed out to the generator trailer (first trip out in the yard. I have posted photos before but attached it again. I have not fully commissioned it yet but had it up and running enough to backfeed my house before I broke my ankle. I got the generator critical load panel and transfer switch installed but had not yet switched over the circuits. That meant I had to switch off the main breaker on the main panel and backfeed it.
I had equipped my crutches with flip down spikes (it was icy out and raining). So I flipped down the spikes and hobbled over to the generator trailer and started up the inverter. There is an issue that the inverter does not agree with the charge controller on the battery health so I started the standby generator as it was due for a test run. In prior testing the inverter eventually agrees with state of charge. So I went back inside, flipped the generator breaker and the lights went on. The utility claims I should have power back by now but I have no way of easily checking in my rural neighborhood. I got a text that the power should be on so I will let the generator run for another 15 minutes and then head downstairs to flip the breakers back to the utility after isolating the trailer, then head out and shut things down. Luckily, I have about 30 gallons in the bulk tank for the generator so I didnt have to fuel it. The sun is not out so I didnt get to check if the other solar inverters started up but they did when I tested it previously.
I got lots of pieces and part to finish the install delivered as I have been laid up. Eventually it will be auto transfer with 5 minute watch timer so no need to go outside but I will need to go downstairs and play with the breakers until I transfer circuits to the critical loads panel. There is no room for an auto transfer switch on my main power supply or my critical load panel without reworking my incoming utility power feed, so even with a critical load panel ,its not going to be auto transfer. The trailer will run the house without the diesel generator (its there for backup if the batteries go too low) once I get the battery state of charge issue out of the way if I was real worried I could leave it islanded. I dont want to do that as my excess solar production would not be able to go to the utility for net metering.
Neverheless a good test, all I need is a few feet of snow to make it more interesting
