PREP Recent power outage experience

dioptase

Veteran Member
I just wanted to comment on our recent power outage experience, here in the SF Bay Area. (CA haters, please keep your hate to yourselves.) I know that I am nowhere near as prepped as most of you, so please be gentle in your comments there. I am doing what I can. We are in a somewhat semi-rural city here; properties in our neighborhood run from about 0.5 acre - 1 acre or maybe more.

We had another atmospheric river come through on Tuesday, which brought lots of trees down. (A redwood branch fell on our roof, but no damage, we think, other than maybe a pipe that came down in the driveway. Our neighbor's fir tree came down, narrowly missing both our house and our shed (which was trashed by one of OUR oak trees falling on it back on Dec 3, and we FINALLY just got the insurance company to agree with a second contractor's estimate for repairs :mad: ), and we had to call our arborist in to deal with that. The tree took out our property line wrought iron fence, so that will have to be repaired. We also have some other garden area damage, but the tree had to be removed before I could evaluate that (yet to be done).)

So the power went out here around Tuesday 11 am -ish. We checked PGE... "A team has been assigned." We were hoping to get power restored later that night (typical storm outages here are no worse than 5-6 hours on average), but in the meantime we had to resort to preps. (Wed morning, the PGE outage page said not to expect power back til late Friday night (it actually was restored late Thursday night); at that point, we decided to move to a motel for the interim.)

Lesson learned... do NOT store emergency lanterns with batteries in them. Doh. I was down to 3 lanterns (I was sort of, kind of, in the process of replacing older, clunkier fluorescent and krypton lamp lanterns with newer LED ones, but so far only had 1 LED lantern, "to try out"). Of those, 1 we couldn't turn on and couldn't even open to change the batteries - we think corrosion there just glued that shut. A second one had corroded batteries, but those we could remove - yet something is still wrong because with new batteries we couldn't get it to work. (DH thinks we need to do more cleaning of the contacts.) The third lantern was an LLBean LED lantern for camping, and that worked like a champ. On the same set of (previously used) batteries, we used it Tuesday night, then left it on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday night ("someone's in the house"), and it was still working.

(Two more LED lanterns were ordered and delivered yesterday - though not LL Bean ones. Also more batteries.)

I have some solar-chargeable lanterns which weren't charged (actually, I don't recall if they ever even have been), so I have to wonder if those will even work at all, if charged now. I guess I should try charging one.

(An aside... recently I went through all the batteries and we tossed the older ones which tested bad. DH wanted to "donate" all the rest of the (usable) batteries and as far as possible only go to rechargeable devices (including lanterns), but it is my experience (from small external battery packs which I use to power my cell phone on hiking trips) that I am not good about keeping things perpetually charged/recharged, so I vetoed that. (No space to set up a charging station... and most outlets are pretty much fully used anyway.) I hate to think if we had to rely on a charged lantern! (Look at those solar lanterns!) But we have plenty of batteries, and the two LED lanterns that I just received are also battery operated.)

(For those of you about to throw sticks as to why I don't have a solar panel for recharging batteries, and rechargeable batteries... well, I do have the panel, and a few rechargeables. Maybe I should get more. But to be honest I am stupid when it comes to batteries - I just don't understand battery technology, how often batteries must be charged, etc., I know nothing about battery "cycles", and I know that I am not going to be regularly charging batteries all the time, on an everyday basis. I have to go with what works for me. (And it IS me, as DH has little or no interest in managing batteries for small(er) devices.) All of our outages thus far have been short term; for longer outages, I can rely on regular lithium or alkaline batteries in the short term, and then meanwhile charge up rechargeable batteries. That might work for me.)

Light sticks... I have a good stockpile of light sticks of varying purchase dates (which maybe I should have recorded) and manufacturers. I put some of those out Tuesday evening (they are great for hallways and bathrooms, or until you can dig out a lantern or flashlight). When we came back home late last night (Thursday night), some of them were "out", but others were still glowing. So age/manufacturer may make a difference in longevity of the light.... but they all worked.

I have a good stockpile of candles and matches; we used a few candles but barely made a dent in that stockpile.

We were able to cook and heat water on our GAS stove (curses on the politicians who want to ban same :mad:), and with the lantern, light sticks, and candles, we had lighting.

Our big problems were a) heat, b) Internet connectivity, c) fridge/freezer.

When we moved here, I wanted to arrange for an external generator, but there was no place to put one, nor to put a gas tank, so that was out. We have a fireplace of sorts, which seems to have a gas line (it is unclear if it is safe to use), but that has never been used. I think that I have one of those little Lil Buddy heaters (never used) stashed away, but it didn't occur to me until we decided on Wednesday (when we learned that power was expected to be out until late Friday) to move to a motel for the interim. (Judging from comments at check-in, we were not the only power outage refugees.) So that has never been tried.

Re Internet.... We have a large external battery which we keep perpetually charged (because of occasional brief power outages), which we used to charge our laptops and cell phones on Tuesday/Wednesday. (I also dug out a couple of my small external battery packs for the cell phone; they still had charge.) The big problem was that we live in a sort of a hollow, where cell phone receptivity is poor at best. I've been able to hot spot off my cell phone here during past power outages to get the Internet (on the laptop), but Tuesday/Wednesday it was very difficult - the net was up and down like a yo-yo. I'm not sure what the issue was there.

Re the fridge... DH was slow to go get ice, so he didn't even try until Wednesday (!!), and everywhere was sold out. Thursday afternoon he was able to get some. Ultimately, most of the stuff in the freezer stayed frozen (some ice cream and one package of meat were iffy so they were tossed). We ended up tossing some leftover and lunch meat from the fridge, but otherwise most things were okay there too. If DH had hopped to it for ice, or if we had a generator, maybe we would not have lost anything. I'm just relieved that the freezer was so packed that we had few losses there.

The maddening thing about all of this is that we have solar power... but when it was installed, the company doing it said that they could not install it such that we could use it during a power outage! Something about the system would feed charge back into the grid, and power workers could get electrocuted. It seems to me that all that is needed is some sort of cut-off/disconnect from the grid, and then we could run off the solar until power is restored, but we don't have that.

Next house (DH wants to move) we have some pretty clear priorities:

1. Alternate heating
2. Gas stove
3. Decent cell phone connectivity (so we can reliably get the Internet during power outages)
4. DH has plans for future solar systems, but he is waiting (or so he says) until we can get good battery power density, so that we can store power from the solar system. Obviously, we still need to do something about disconnecting the solar system from the grid to begin with!

That's my story. If it weren't so cold (not cold at all compared to what other folks have been/are dealing with, but cold for us with a house with bad insulation), we could (and would) have just stayed in the house, but it wasn't doing my arthritis any good. Easier just to bug out for a bit. (I have to admit that I was also having Internet withdrawals pains!)

Fwiw... When DH was back yesterday afternoon (checking for packages and getting ice for the fridge), he looked around the larger neighborhood. A mile from our house, 4 monstrous eucalyptus trees had all come down at once (they were planted all together) on top of some major/larger power lines. DH talked to the PGE crew working near our house, and was told that they were doing cutting and splicing in order to reroute power around that mess, so that other folks (like us!) could get their power sooner. DH said that they had barely started cutting those eucs yesterday (to get them off the power lines), and he thought that it looked bad for how long that job would take, before those folks could get power restored. (Really, whoever thought it was a great idea to plant eucs... They are notorious for dropping limbs, and are a serious fire hazard. We have several next door, and those are worrisome.)
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Florida. It doesn't just take a hurricane to take out power, internet, and/or phones.

Solar power can get taken out by damage or lack of sunlight for an extended period.
Water can go down whether you own your own well or get municipal services.
Heat/cool need will depend on your location ... I'm not worried about heat at our primary or BOL home because believe it or not they both have a real fire place (not gas dependent) despite the fact we live in Florida. Cooling? Oh yeah, that's a concern but we'll rest during the hottest part of the day and not expect the arctic when it is broiling outside. We have a pool to get in, get out, and enjoy evaporation cooling.
Refrigeration? We are working towards not being frig/freezer dependent ... canning, freeze drying, dehydrating, etc.
Water? Oh yeah. Now there's a biggie. Solar generator is in our future for both primary residence and BOL, but it takes time and resources we are currently using to do some other projects.


The point being is that you need to do what fits your personal needs. Personally I have both the USB charged mini lanterns, some battery operated LED lanterns, a frick ton of flashlights, but my primary go-to are wind up emergency lights. Don't go cheap on those unless you want to waste money because the plastic handles break. I also have lamp fuel and the ability to make and use lamps that take olive oil (that's how I use any opened containers of olive oil I find at estate sales).

Everyone needs to make sure their plan is THEIR plan. Just because someone else has something or does something a certain way doesn't mean it will work for the next person's situation. Personalize, personalize, personalize. You'll get a bigger bang for your buck.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
You did alright for folks in a generally friendly climate who don't experience outages very often.
The corroded batteries are unfortunate, and yes, don't leave 'em in lights, radios, etc. that you don't regularly use, but now you know. Personally, I don't mess around with rechargeables. just keep a really good stock of alkalines around. They date out for a good many years. LED lamps are great...they usually will not go out on you...just get weaker as the batteries fade, they are so much easier on batteries that the difference is huge. One of my hobbies is restoring old oil lamps and kero heaters, so I always have retro-sources and fuel for both ready to go in a few minutes time.

Good on you for having a gas stove in the kitchen for cooking. That's a huge help. It would be well worth it to have someone come out and check the situation with your (possibly) gas fireplace. Squaring away a good heat source is important. Probably more so for me in Minnesota than you in California, but still, I know it got cold down there during these last storms. My "first" backup is a free-standing propane stove/fireplace, and the thing throws off a ton of heat, even in cold, below zero weather.

The fridge thing is a problem if you don't have backup power. I really consider fridge stuff to be mostly sacrifice. Not as important as the freezers. Here I can literally make ice outside six months of the year, and a lot of the year, the outside makes a great freezer. I've had power outages that lasted 4-5 days here in a hot July, and by stacking quilts on the freezer and not opening it, didn't lose a thing.

Internet..I have a good sized UPS (uninterruptible power supply - battery powered) with my desktop that can run my router/modem (house wi-fi) for many days if I conserve carefully. That is if the DSL stays up, which it usually does. Otherwise, my backup is the internet on the cell phone...I don't usually have signal interference problems. Backup for all that is a landline phone and plain old AM radio news.
 

Luddite

Veteran Member
Sounds like you're tweaking YOUR plan.
Nothing wrong with that.

ENELOOP batteries are nice. I charge them once a year. Pick a yearly milestone to charge everything.

Doing it the same time home smoke detector batteries get changed is good.

Let me guess: Duracells leaked. Many here at TB call them "drip o cells".

Don't forget that your car is a great charger. Half tank is the new empty. :)
 

Luddite

Veteran Member
What they told you about feeding back into the system is bull$hit. Modern generators will not do that.
Her system is probably designed to reference the voltage and frequency of the utility. Without it, it no workee.

There are definitely ways to make it work.
Some aren't electric code approved nor novice friendly.

Quite tragic to hear stories of extended outages with lost generation.
 

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
No hate from me! We have to do what we can with where we are.

Suggestion: when things settle down, do a "dry run" with your preps for a day and then a long weekend. That's the only way to really know that your plan(s) will work, plus when you're not stressed, you may develop new ways to tweak the plan.

I live in Iowa where there's tornadoes and blizzards. Each spring, I go through my emergency supplies and make sure everything is working and located in its proper spot (mostly a shelf in the basement). I replace batteries as needed, plus put the weather radio next to my bed. When it gets warmer, I'll swap the winter gear for the summer gear in my vehicle.

In late October, I detail the car and put in the winter survival kit, plus I check my alternative heating, wash wool blankets as needed, etc.

My point: prepping and the checking of preps is an on-going process. Nothing lasts forever! It's good to catch problems before the equipment is needed.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
My good friends are up in N California right now, building/finishing a new house, and have no grid power thanks to PG&E and their bureaucratic, foot-dragging nightmares.

They are doing fine with a propane range in the kitchen, small fridge that runs off solar-charged batteries, a BIG propane portable heater (that takes the 20 lb. tanks), a propane water heater, gravity fed water (so the toilets and shower work!) and a couple of my restored oil lamps.
 

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
What they told you about feeding back into the system is bull$hit. Modern generators will not do that.
In point of fact, it is NOT the GENERATOR that covers this, but WHERE the generator is hooked into the house circuits.

If done incorrectly, you can STILL feed back to the line and kill someone.

FOr instance, if I were to use the stove plug (gas dryer, elec stove) to feed from my genny, anyone working on my line would get a surprise.
 

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
Which is why I use large batteries instead of a generator these days. I'm usually pretty flaked out when power is needed, and plugging a small lamp into a portable battery isn't going to fall over and burn down the house, adding to my problems.
 

Milkweed Host

Veteran Member
Nothing like a storm and loss of power to get the prepping portion of the brain
kicking into high gear.

Right now, the Duracells and Kirkland batteries are the great leakers of batteries.
Rayovac once held that honor, but that was many years ago and I have nothing current
on Rayovac.???

I really like the 18650 rechargeable (the ones not made in China), stored inside 3/4" rigid
conduit, cut to 2 1/2" with end caps for safe storage. Also have the small solar panels for charging
the 18650.
 

TxGal

Day by day
A few years ago we went through a massive ice storm here in Texas. As prepped as everyone thought they were, it was an eye opener. We were lucky we didn't lose power for very long in that storm, about 12 hrs, but we used everyone else's experience as a learning moment.

For heat - we bought several Little Buddy propane heaters, and now have two cases of the 1lb propane bottles on hand. Back then there was literally no propane anywhere - sold out. I know the big tanks can be used with a link, too. I also made fleece inserts for every single window in our house, bought the expanding rods to use with them, and we bought light-blocking thermal curtains for every single window, too. The combination of thermal curtains and the fleece inserts has really helped keep the house warm. We do have a woodstove, just needed to be sure we had dry firewood going forward. We also made sure we had plenty of warm yet comfortable clothes on hand.

For power - we did buy a small Honda generator and a solar generator. We haven't used them, but they're here. We generally keep gas on hand for outside work anyhow. We have (and just added another) battery powered chain saw. We already had Aladdin and Dietz oil lamps and fuel. Also bought Energizer rechargeable batteries in AA, C, and D-cells, and two of the chargers. Generally, now I recharge everything a day before any severe weather is forecasted.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. We had another ice storm, and while it wasn't forecasted to be bad, the ice build-up on trees was at least twice as thick as expected and brought down countless trees, power lines and poles. For days all we heard was trees and limbs crashing to the ground. We lost power for 5 days. It was not fun. We lost most perishables in our fridge, but we didn't have a lot so it was more an inconvenience than anything. We recharged our cell phones in the car with the adapter. While I did recharge all the rechargeable batteries ahead of time, and light wasn't a problem, we didn't refill gas cans because we weren't supposed to get that much ice build-up - epic fail on our part. We weren't truly cold enough to use the propane heaters or fire up the wood stove, the house stayed reasonably warm, but we were wearing sweats and a warm hat for the duration. Not being able to use the generator meant not having hot food (we have a Cuisinart hot plate, very good one, that we could have plugged into the genie, along with the coffee pot), no coffee for DH, soup, etc...part of the epic fail. Fortunately I have a habit of baking before storms, so we had freshly baked banana bread and other types on hand. We have tons of things we could eat, peanut butter crackers, vienna sausages, etc., but of course something warm would have been best. We also had plenty of the Thermacare Back Wraps on hand, and putting one of those on along with sweats really helped us keep comfortable, and at night it was a bonus for a good night's sleep. This was a learning experience again, and those lessons tend to stick the best. We did learn one other important thing - we were more tired than usual, I think because of the lack of sunlight and the cooler temps (we stayed cloudy the whole time), so our energy levels weren't as high. This could be a real problem for anyone older and in poorer health. Concentration levels were not as sharp, I believe.

We broke out the board games, a deck of cards, and kept occupied. When the road de-iced and the local fast-food places got their power back and reopened, DH was able to get his coffee and a burger here and there. We're still working on downed tree limbs from that storm that wasn't supposed to be a big deal. Many lessons learned.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Especially if folks keep the 1 lb. propane bottles around, pick up a propane two-burner camp stove. Doesn't have to be a Coleman, a Walmart brand will work fine. Then you can have hot coffee or tea in the morning, fry eggs and bacon, meat or make one pot meals/pasta, heat up soup or stew, etc. Good hot food is one heck of a morale booster.
 
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winston

Contributing Member
I just wanted to comment on our recent power outage experience, here in the SF Bay Area. (CA haters, please keep your hate to yourselves.) I know that I am nowhere near as prepped as most of you, so please be gentle in your comments there. I am doing what I can. We are in a somewhat semi-rural city here; properties in our neighborhood run from about 0.5 acre - 1 acre or maybe more.

We had another atmospheric river come through on Tuesday, which brought lots of trees down. (A redwood branch fell on our roof, but no damage, we think, other than maybe a pipe that came down in the driveway. Our neighbor's fir tree came down, narrowly missing both our house and our shed (which was trashed by one of OUR oak trees falling on it back on Dec 3, and we FINALLY just got the insurance company to agree with a second contractor's estimate for repairs :mad: ), and we had to call our arborist in to deal with that. The tree took out our property line wrought iron fence, so that will have to be repaired. We also have some other garden area damage, but the tree had to be removed before I could evaluate that (yet to be done).)

So the power went out here around Tuesday 11 am -ish. We checked PGE... "A team has been assigned." We were hoping to get power restored later that night (typical storm outages here are no worse than 5-6 hours on average), but in the meantime we had to resort to preps. (Wed morning, the PGE outage page said not to expect power back til late Friday night (it actually was restored late Thursday night); at that point, we decided to move to a motel for the interim.)

Lesson learned... do NOT store emergency lanterns with batteries in them. Doh. I was down to 3 lanterns (I was sort of, kind of, in the process of replacing older, clunkier fluorescent and krypton lamp lanterns with newer LED ones, but so far only had 1 LED lantern, "to try out"). Of those, 1 we couldn't turn on and couldn't even open to change the batteries - we think corrosion there just glued that shut. A second one had corroded batteries, but those we could remove - yet something is still wrong because with new batteries we couldn't get it to work. (DH thinks we need to do more cleaning of the contacts.) The third lantern was an LLBean LED lantern for camping, and that worked like a champ. On the same set of (previously used) batteries, we used it Tuesday night, then left it on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday night ("someone's in the house"), and it was still working.

(Two more LED lanterns were ordered and delivered yesterday - though not LL Bean ones. Also more batteries.)

I have some solar-chargeable lanterns which weren't charged (actually, I don't recall if they ever even have been), so I have to wonder if those will even work at all, if charged now. I guess I should try charging one.

(An aside... recently I went through all the batteries and we tossed the older ones which tested bad. DH wanted to "donate" all the rest of the (usable) batteries and as far as possible only go to rechargeable devices (including lanterns), but it is my experience (from small external battery packs which I use to power my cell phone on hiking trips) that I am not good about keeping things perpetually charged/recharged, so I vetoed that. (No space to set up a charging station... and most outlets are pretty much fully used anyway.) I hate to think if we had to rely on a charged lantern! (Look at those solar lanterns!) But we have plenty of batteries, and the two LED lanterns that I just received are also battery operated.)

(For those of you about to throw sticks as to why I don't have a solar panel for recharging batteries, and rechargeable batteries... well, I do have the panel, and a few rechargeables. Maybe I should get more. But to be honest I am stupid when it comes to batteries - I just don't understand battery technology, how often batteries must be charged, etc., I know nothing about battery "cycles", and I know that I am not going to be regularly charging batteries all the time, on an everyday basis. I have to go with what works for me. (And it IS me, as DH has little or no interest in managing batteries for small(er) devices.) All of our outages thus far have been short term; for longer outages, I can rely on regular lithium or alkaline batteries in the short term, and then meanwhile charge up rechargeable batteries. That might work for me.)

Light sticks... I have a good stockpile of light sticks of varying purchase dates (which maybe I should have recorded) and manufacturers. I put some of those out Tuesday evening (they are great for hallways and bathrooms, or until you can dig out a lantern or flashlight). When we came back home late last night (Thursday night), some of them were "out", but others were still glowing. So age/manufacturer may make a difference in longevity of the light.... but they all worked.

I have a good stockpile of candles and matches; we used a few candles but barely made a dent in that stockpile.

We were able to cook and heat water on our GAS stove (curses on the politicians who want to ban same :mad:), and with the lantern, light sticks, and candles, we had lighting.

Our big problems were a) heat, b) Internet connectivity, c) fridge/freezer.

When we moved here, I wanted to arrange for an external generator, but there was no place to put one, nor to put a gas tank, so that was out. We have a fireplace of sorts, which seems to have a gas line (it is unclear if it is safe to use), but that has never been used. I think that I have one of those little Lil Buddy heaters (never used) stashed away, but it didn't occur to me until we decided on Wednesday (when we learned that power was expected to be out until late Friday) to move to a motel for the interim. (Judging from comments at check-in, we were not the only power outage refugees.) So that has never been tried.

Re Internet.... We have a large external battery which we keep perpetually charged (because of occasional brief power outages), which we used to charge our laptops and cell phones on Tuesday/Wednesday. (I also dug out a couple of my small external battery packs for the cell phone; they still had charge.) The big problem was that we live in a sort of a hollow, where cell phone receptivity is poor at best. I've been able to hot spot off my cell phone here during past power outages to get the Internet (on the laptop), but Tuesday/Wednesday it was very difficult - the net was up and down like a yo-yo. I'm not sure what the issue was there.

Re the fridge... DH was slow to go get ice, so he didn't even try until Wednesday (!!), and everywhere was sold out. Thursday afternoon he was able to get some. Ultimately, most of the stuff in the freezer stayed frozen (some ice cream and one package of meat were iffy so they were tossed). We ended up tossing some leftover and lunch meat from the fridge, but otherwise most things were okay there too. If DH had hopped to it for ice, or if we had a generator, maybe we would not have lost anything. I'm just relieved that the freezer was so packed that we had few losses there.

The maddening thing about all of this is that we have solar power... but when it was installed, the company doing it said that they could not install it such that we could use it during a power outage! Something about the system would feed charge back into the grid, and power workers could get electrocuted. It seems to me that all that is needed is some sort of cut-off/disconnect from the grid, and then we could run off the solar until power is restored, but we don't have that.

Next house (DH wants to move) we have some pretty clear priorities:

1. Alternate heating
2. Gas stove
3. Decent cell phone connectivity (so we can reliably get the Internet during power outages)
4. DH has plans for future solar systems, but he is waiting (or so he says) until we can get good battery power density, so that we can store power from the solar system. Obviously, we still need to do something about disconnecting the solar system from the grid to begin with!

That's my story. If it weren't so cold (not cold at all compared to what other folks have been/are dealing with, but cold for us with a house with bad insulation), we could (and would) have just stayed in the house, but it wasn't doing my arthritis any good. Easier just to bug out for a bit. (I have to admit that I was also having Internet withdrawals pains!)

Fwiw... When DH was back yesterday afternoon (checking for packages and getting ice for the fridge), he looked around the larger neighborhood. A mile from our house, 4 monstrous eucalyptus trees had all come down at once (they were planted all together) on top of some major/larger power lines. DH talked to the PGE crew working near our house, and was told that they were doing cutting and splicing in order to reroute power around that mess, so that other folks (like us!) could get their power sooner. DH said that they had barely started cutting those eucs yesterday (to get them off the power lines), and he thought that it looked bad for how long that job would take, before those folks could get power restored. (Really, whoever thought it was a great idea to plant eucs... They are notorious for dropping limbs, and are a serious fire hazard. We have several next door, and those are worrisome.)
Don’t feel bad about leaving batteries in stuff and then they LEAK. Been there, done that. Just finished sending a remote control unit to Europe for repair - excellent job - but still kicking myself for leaving the batteries in it so long. It’s just something you have to pay attention to… beats cleaning the corrosion !
 

winston

Contributing Member
Nothing like a storm and loss of power to get the prepping portion of the brain
kicking into high gear.

Right now, the Duracells and Kirkland batteries are the great leakers of batteries.
Rayovac once held that honor, but that was many years ago and I have nothing current
on Rayovac.???

I really like the 18650 rechargeable (the ones not made in China), stored inside 3/4" rigid
conduit, cut to 2 1/2" with end caps for safe storage. Also have the small solar panels for charging
the 18650.
Duracell used to be my go to battery, but no more, seen too many of them leak. Back to RayOVac
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
Went through my first winter here in the San Bernardino Mountains with two big snow storms that dumped four feet of snow over night on Thanksgiving and again over Christmas. Power out for several weeks each time due to trees taking out power lines. It was a mess. Thank God we had a fireplace to provide heat and a gas stove. I did a lot of shoveling that winter. By the next winter we had a whole house stand alone Generac generator and a large Honda snowblower. Experience is how we learn.

If you followed our recent adventure during Snowmageddon '23 down here in the Southern California mountains....I forgot and left my snowshoes in the shop which is still blocked by over six feet of snow. Grrrrr!! Won't let that happen again. Also just picked up a used set of cross-country skis, boots and poles and I'm looking into getting a used but reliable snowmobile for emergency egress should this happen again. For quite awhile that was the only way to get around when we got hit with over nine feet of snow.

Our Generac automatically comes on when the power drops off and isolates our house and power supply from the outside world so as not to endanger anyone working on the grid system. That BTW isolating us from the grid is the standard operating protocol. As for your solar system to stand alone you'll need batteries and a controller that does the same isolation thing, which can be done manually or automatically. Right now, you're using the power grid as your batteries. If you have room for a large dog house, you have room for a stand alone whole house generator. Our is tied into our homes natural gas line....easy-peasy. However, we also have a multi-fuel (gasoline & propane) back up generator to our back up. I'm not losing two freezers full to beef and pork due to trusting California Edison.....no thank you!

We've all learned our lesson with leaving batteries in anything. Royal PITA when they go south. I hate leaky batteries.
 

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
We lost our power a couple of times here in S.CA, desert but only for 30 min or so. Generator worked fine. Just had it serviced and new battery. You guys got it terrible up there. I have pretty much given up on prepping. I can't do anything and can't get any real help. I never check the lanterns and everything else is all over the place.
Que sera, sera. I do wish I could get these 50 ft pines topped though I don't relish going out squashed.
 

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
Went through my first winter here in the San Bernardino Mountains with two big snow storms that dumped four feet of snow over night on Thanksgiving and again over Christmas. Power out for several weeks each time due to trees taking out power lines. It was a mess. Thank God we had a fireplace to provide heat and a gas stove. I did a lot of shoveling that winter. By the next winter we had a whole house stand alone Generac generator and a large Honda snowblower. Experience is how we learn.

If you followed our recent adventure during Snowmageddon '23 down here in the Southern California mountains....I forgot and left my snowshoes in the shop which is still blocked by over six feet of snow. Grrrrr!! Won't let that happen again. Also just picked up a used set of cross-country skis, boots and poles and I'm looking into getting a used but reliable snowmobile for emergency egress should this happen again. For quite awhile that was the only way to get around when we got hit with over nine feet of snow.

Our Generac automatically comes on when the power drops off and isolates our house and power supply from the outside world so as not to endanger anyone working on the grid system. That BTW isolating us from the grid is the standard operating protocol. As for your solar system to stand alone you'll need batteries and a controller that does the same isolation thing, which can be done manually or automatically. Right now, you're using the power grid as your batteries. If you have room for a large dog house, you have room for a stand alone whole house generator. Our is tied into our homes natural gas line....easy-peasy. However, we also have a multi-fuel (gasoline & propane) back up generator to our back up. I'm not losing two freezers full to beef and pork due to trusting California Edison.....no thank you!

We've all learned our lesson with leaving batteries in anything. Royal PITA when they go south. I hate leaky batteries.
Did John Hunter install your Generac? He was just down here working. He lives up by you somewhere.
 

Siskiyoumom

Veteran Member
Thank you for sharing your experiences, each and every one of you.

In our area a lot of grid tied folks install solar systems that feed back power to the utility companies and do not install a battery system to keep charged for their use when the grid goes down. Nor the diverter necessary to isolate the power you generate needed to use that power and to protect line crews from it when they are repairing the main utility lines.

If you have such a system you may want to investigate how to best upgrade your system.
 

anna43

Veteran Member
During an ice storm in the 90's we were without power for about a week. Temps dropped to zero for some of that week. We were okay without a generator or any fancy equipment which we did not own at the time. Gas stove and gas water heater meant we could cook and had hot water. I did a lot of baking and then left the oven door open to let the heat into the room. Had kerosene lamps and extra wicks (for which my neighbor was grateful!) and fuel so had light. People were complaining about losing the food in their refrigerator and freezer which was kind of dumb because outside temps were cold enough to keep food frozen. My freezer is in the basement so I just covered it with old sleeping bags and blankets and didn't open it. The only loss was some ice cream.

I now have a Generac and love, love, love the security it provides. Primary reason to install it was our basement has no drains, so everything has to be pumped out via sump pump. I consider the generator insurance to keep the basement from flooding and ruining my preps, freezer, water heater, furnace and other stored items. Peace of mind for that is worth the price. Since then, we've been in drought so the sump pump only runs occasionally. If this winter is a hint, the drought may be over. Ironically, the only outages since the generator was installed have been in winter so I was blessed to have heat during the outages and none have lasted 24 hours.

I still have my kerosene heater, lamps, battery lamps, flashlights, extra blankets etc. and do not plan to get rid of them anytime soon. I also have a camp stove but it hasn't been used in so many years I would not trust it to work. I'd like to get a small propane or butane single burner for my emergency supplies but keep procrastinating. Guess I should get that soon before Biden outlaws them.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Genny1.jpg


This was what I had installed in the runup to Y2K. 22 kVa.
 
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ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
Thank you for sharing your experiences, each and every one of you.

In our area a lot of grid tied folks install solar systems that feed back power to the utility companies and do not install a battery system to keep charged for their use when the grid goes down. Nor the diverter necessary to isolate the power you generate needed to use that power and to protect line crews from it when they are repairing the main utility lines.

If you have such a system you may want to investigate how to best upgrade your system.

Here's my opinion........take it for what it's worth. The ONLY reason to not have battery back up is to save money on the overall initial solar installation AND to avoid getting directly involved with battery maintenance. In addition, besides batteries being expensive they have a limited life expectancy. The last time I checked it was about fifteen years IF you maintained them properly. I would hope they've improved since I last checked which was some time ago.

Putting in the cutout isolation system is simple and easy. You can either do a manual switch or automatic. Ours is automatic. If you have solar it seems foolish not to have some sort of back up, be it batteries or a generator. Especially considering how things are these days. Without some sort of back up you only have HALF A SYSTEM. Believe me...it makes a HUGE difference. Your goal is to NOT BE A REFUGE.
 
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dioptase

Veteran Member
Thanks for all the responses (well, except maybe the one from Dennis :rolleyes:).

Luddite, thanks for your mention of ENELOOP batteries. We have a ton of AA and AAA Lithium batteries (which I use for my GPS, hiking headlamp and flashlights, and other small things), but only alkaline C and D batteries. (At this juncture, I'm not sure that anything we still own even uses C batteries.) If I can charge AA batteries and adapt them to use as D batteries, that could be a win. (The alkaline batteries, by the way, are a mix... I don't think I have Rayovac, though.)

(Actually, after reading up on the D adapter thingies, it seems that they can be used with "regular" (non NiMH) batteries too. So I'll get some of those adapters, whether or not I get rechargeable batteries (which DH is not keen on, except for his precious flashlights which charge directly from the wall). The AA batteries won't last as long as real D batteries, but they'll do in a pinch, and I have a lot of them.)

One thing that I did early January, and I am glad that I did, was go through and clean out and rearrange the storage area where I keep my batteries, light sticks, and candles. The area itself had gotten blocked by things, so first I had to move things around to even get in there, and then I had to go through all the batteries to see what was still good and what wasn't; we recycled a LOT of old batteries (yes, we can easily do that here). I also had to consolidate all the light sticks into one pile, and get all the candle holders more or less in one spot. I am SO GLAD that I did, as I had everything easily accessible for this outage, and I knew what I had and that it would work (well, other than those 2 lanterns... and the solar chargeable lanterns, which I guess I will have to give a try).

I'd seriously consider the suggestion to try to upgrade our current solar so that we *can* use it during outages, but DH is antsy to move (for a lot of reasons), and won't want to put more $ into this house. The current plan is to move once I've gone through two knee replacements (the first in less than a month from now) and recovered.

I tried one of the (3, not 2) new LED lanterns today. Works great, and is smaller than the LL Bean one. While it is adjustable (via how long you press on the "ON" button), the light is not *as* adjustable as the LL Bean lantern (which has a rotary dial). But at 1000 lumen it is certainly bright enough (too bright on HIGH, if you are sitting with it at the kitchen table), and the lantern only uses 3 D cell batteries (vs 4 for the LL Bean one). Per the spec sheet, it can run for 200 hrs on LOW. Amazon.com

I'm currently recharging my external battery packs, at least the small ones, so those will be good to go. (When we plugged in the large external battery last night, it was making noises and I had DH investigate. He said the "power brick" (?) that is used to transform the house voltage AC into DC to recharge it was super hot, and he thinks that it is failing/has failed. He's afraid of a house fire, so he disconnected it and sent a complaint to the company's customer service, so we can get that replaced. We still have a lot of hours of stored charge on that, though, so we will still be able to recharge laptops on it, in the short term. The smaller external batteries can supply our cell phones, if need be.)

I removed the batteries from the LL Bean lantern, and stored them both together. I think I'm going to leave the new lantern out for a bit, as we are expected to get Yet More Rain next week. (God help us... the soil is super saturated here - the latest round of trees that came down were (as I understand it) largely healthy, but the high winds uprooted them because of the wet soil. If we get more winds, we'll have more of the same, unless everything that is going to come down, already has.)

Re our Lil Buddy heater (which, as I said, I never tried....).... I have a couple/few small propane tanks (and 1 20 lb one) out in the shed (damaged by a falling oak back in early December... the insurance company finally agreed on how much to give us for repairs, earlier this week). I'm not sure *where* in the shed they are (things have been moved around multiple times) or even if it's safe to go in there, but maybe (if my knees are up to it) I should try to look for them this weekend, and to see if they will go with the heater.

Meanwhile, trying to catch up on dishes and laundry, before the next incoming...

Thanks again for your kind comments and help.
 

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
Funny that. Our Generac has worked flawlessly over 10 years now. Like Shadowman says couldn't be happier with it. Maybe it's the skill of the installer has something to do with it?
LOL

When you deal with hundreds of them and have fingers in their guts, you see things.

Latest was 22kw water cooled. First start up, head was so out of balance that it would have walked off the pad if it wasn't anchored.

Customer was not happy that we had to replace the head on a new unit.
 
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WalknTrot

Veteran Member
But at 1000 lumen it is certainly bright enough (too bright on HIGH, if you are sitting with it at the kitchen table), and the lantern only uses 3 D cell batteries (vs 4 for the LL Bean one). Per the spec sheet, it can run for 200 hrs on LOW. Amazon.com
Shades make bright lights a lot less annoying. That's why they were so popular/necessary on oil lamps back in the day and we use them today on all of our electric lights.

When I use my bright LED lamps for more diffused purposes instead of "spot" lighting (like over the stove), I'll grab a shade off of an electric lamp in the house and partially cover it. Spreads/diffuses the sometimes really harsh light (also directs it downward) so it's more pleasant as a table light or room light and that pinpoint brightness isn't stabbing you in the eye.
 

TerriHaute

Hoosier Gardener
I always find these "this was our experience" threads to be interesting and thought provoking. They set my mind to thinking about what WE could do to avoid problems in a similar situation. It's been fortunate in that for my entire lifetime, I have never gone without power for more than a few hours. So far, I have not experienced the aftermath of natural disasters or bad weather. Even the big northeast blackout several years ago did not reach as far as us here in Indiana. In spite of that, I have always tried to be prepared, with backups to my backups.

We own an RV that has a propane stove, refrigerator, water heater, and furnace with two large propane tanks (30 lb each maybe?) that we keep full. To go with it, we have a gasoline powered generator for boondocking purposes that can easily be placed to keep our house refrigerator going and also the well. My plan is to use the camper for cooking and taking showers if our power goes out for very long. Our house is all-electric except for the furnace, which uses propane. We heat the house primarily with wood with a Blaze King fireplace insert. The furnace is supplemental, we consume about half a normal-size tank a year. A couple of years ago, we invested in a Jackery solar generator (big battery that can be recharged with solar panels) to run the blower on the fireplace insert for several hours and give us a few lights. It also does a very nice job of recharging phones, laptops, lamps, small batteries, etc. - I tested that. We've only used it once for about an hour-long power outage, but it kept us cozy and warm. One thing I realized when we lost electricity at night one time is that while we had plenty of flashlights, we didn't have much in the way of lamps or lanterns that could be set on a table, freeing up our hands and lighting up a room. That oversight has been corrected.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Thanks for all the responses (well, except maybe the one from Dennis :rolleyes:).
What, you can’t take a joke? Geez…. :p
Funny that. Our Generac has worked flawlessly over 10 years now. Like Shadowman says couldn't be happier with it. Maybe it's the skill of the installer has something to do with it?
Terrwyn, it depends on the genset’s “mission.” When I got ours, it was for potential Y2K systemic failures, including the power grid. Thus, my criteria for a generator was very stringent. That’s why a Generac wasn’t on my list. I did research for six months before buying a genset.
 

Texas Writer

Veteran Member
In point of fact, it is NOT the GENERATOR that covers this, but WHERE the generator is hooked into the house circuits.

If done incorrectly, you can STILL feed back to the line and kill someone.

FOr instance, if I were to use the stove plug (gas dryer, elec stove) to feed from my genny, anyone working on my line would get a surprise.
I went back and edited my comment to say feedback is not a problem if it is configured and installed correctly. Guess it didn’t take.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
The longest power outage we've had was in May 2019, for 6 days We have two dual fuel generators that powered everything except the big things, water heater, stove and ac. They did power two small window units. One in the front room/sand room. You had to stand right in front of it to feel relief. We had 4 of the camper size propane tanks, one would last close to 24 hours and we had filled gas cans in addition to several of the barbq size propane tanks. We have an assortment of lanterns, oil lamps and oil, some candles. It was too hot to even consider using oil lamps or candles, plus we had lights from using the generator. The second window ac that we were able to use is in my very large walk in closet right off the bedroom. That in addition to a ceiling fan kept it reasonable to sleep.

We mostly ate junk food. The food I had stored was ingredient type foods, we ate out some of the time. From that experience I learned to keep eat out of the can foods, like chef bordee and other things like that.

Now I have my wonderful gas stove converted to propane on my camper porch hooked up to a 250 gallon propane tank. We have several freezers and three refrigerators so we didn't lose any food.

My camper is also hooked up to the big propane tank, but the roof is damaged badly so we can't use it now, but DH will get that fixed to for at least sleeping and a bathroom, could also cook in there once its repaired. We have a couple of window a/c's that are extra so one of them could be put in the camper, once its repaired.

To the OP it sounds like you did what you could and can now figure out how to make things better.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
If I need an answer I go to an expert. Both an independent generator repair man and a lineman for the local co-op said if done correctly feedback is not a problem. Not sure what I would ask you about,
“If done correctly.” I don’t think you understand what that means vis-a vis generators. “Done correctly” means providing isolation from the grid when the genset is in use. Failing that WILL backfeed power into the power lines. (This is usually self-limiting, because that little one-lung generator would be trying to power the entire community. It will shut down almost immediately from that attempt.)

So what you’d said originally (your blanket “this is not a problem” statement) is in error.


While on this topic, use of electric generators continues to be the single greatest area of ignorance on the part of the general public. Unfortunately, this can cause death or one’s home to burst into flame. If one doesn’t hire an expert to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, one must engage in a great deal of study in order to avoid death or a burnt-out home.
 

Timberline

Contributing Member
I feel for you dioptase, BTDT.

A solar system isn't really profitable where we live in our hilly, hardwood forested area.
So, after getting caught flat-footed and miserable during an ice storm and extended power outage years ago, we decided to get a little better prepared for such events without spending a lot of money to do so. Our current set up has served us well so far, but there's always room for improvement.

We have two 2500 watt IGen inverters that we can parallel for more power and a 6600 watt generator to power our well pump. We have a 3000 gal water storage tank so rarely have to run the 6600 gen. It's big , bulky and loud while the IGen is about 50 lbs and quiet. We could use the 6600 gen to power a big portion of the entire house with the house transfer switch if we really need to but at our age we don't relish the idea of moving the beast from the pump house and back again when the small gens serve our needs. But, it's available if we really need it.

Power cords for the IGens are pre-staged, hidden behind furniture, etc., the IGens are on carts stored in a closet in the house. When the power goes out we pull out one gen fire it up on the side porch, hook up and we're back in business with lights, TV, charge our phones and since the phone line rarely goes down we'll have internet too.
If it's an extended power outage we'd paralell the two gens to power the refrigerator and freezer.

The IGens are very quiet and run for hours with very little gas usage. Since we're on acreage in the woods with no neighbors it's easy to store gas outside away from the house in the shade in a vented storage unit.

We have a woodstove and lots of wood; however, we really like using our kerosene stove for extra heat and to cook on.

Also, flashlights are always at the ready and oil lamps are part of the house decor ready for use when we expect the outage to be short-lived.
 
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