Hurricane Irma

[Smitty335]

Could we please get a close up of that huge limb?

Can you take up of that hugh limb? HA!

Can you take a close up picture of that huge limb?

 

[DMH]

Congrats, we had an ice storm a few years ago that knocks power out for 5 days, 2 weeks later I would still catch myself caring a flash light into the closet! That was at middle of the recession, we rented a man lift for trimming trees that you pull around behind a truck. We would get a timing job, the neighbors would see us, come over and ask if we could do there trees, we worked for 3 solid months! In the recession, It was great, 3 months of paying jobs was something else.

Last night I'm walking into rooms holding a candle in one hand and flipping the light switch with the other. This afternoon (with the power back on) I'm digging through my shop for a rope in the dark.

 

[ohanacreek]

Last night I'm walking into rooms holding a candle in one hand and flipping the light switch with the other. This afternoon (with the power back on) I'm digging through my shop for a rope in the dark.

 

[Smitty335]

Last night I'm walking into rooms holding a candle in one hand and flipping the light switch with the other. This afternoon (with the power back on) I'm digging through my shop for a rope in the dark.

Ha! did the same thing!

 

[liftedpsd2010]

49hours and counting no power. Really has me thinking about a whole home generator. If I wasn't wanting to sell soon I would definitely have one installed.

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[Smitty335]

49hours and counting no power. Really has me thinking about a whole home generator. If I wasn't wanting to sell soon I would definitely have one installed.

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After the 2009 ice storm, we ran a lot of gas piping to generators. And most haven't used them!

 

[liftedpsd2010]

After the 2009 ice storm, we ran a lot of gas piping to generators. And most haven't used them!

Lol I bet. If I were to buy a generator now I wouldn't need it for 15 years lol.

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[ohanacreek]

49hours and counting no power. Really has me thinking about a whole home generator. If I wasn't wanting to sell soon I would definitely have one installed.

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We put a 20kw in when we built. It's NICE in 36secs our house is powered back up. 5 mins later the HPumps's come back on.

I can barely get my fat self off the couch and to the garage that quick.

We've used it for about 20hrs in the last 16months. Far cry from keeping the fridge cold and a couple of lights on.

 

[liftedpsd2010]

We put a 20kw in when we built. It's NICE in 36secs our house is powered back up. 5 mins later the HPumps's come back on.

I can barely get my fat self off the couch and to the garage that quick.

We've used it for about 20hrs in the last 16months. Far cry from keeping the fridge cold and a couple of lights on.

I've been at my current house for 3 years and it is 3 years old. We live in town and this is the first power outage I've ever had not counting less than 5 minute once which are rare. If I lived and when I move outside of town I will get a whole house gen. They are saying 2 or 3 weeks for my dad's power to be back on. I'm hoping mine will be on soon. About how much does it cost per day to run? What brand did you get? How loud is it? Depending on my neighbors at the time I might want the loudest they make haha. And is yours natural gas?

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[ohanacreek]

I've been at my current house for 3 years and it is 3 years old. We live in town and this is the first power outage I've ever had not counting less than 5 minute once which are rare. If I lived and when I move outside of town I will get a whole house gen. They are saying 2 or 3 weeks for my dad's power to be back on. I'm hoping mine will be on soon. About how much does it cost per day to run? What brand did you get? How loud is it? Depending on my neighbors at the time I might want the loudest they make haha. And is yours natural gas?

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Lot of detail I'd rather not share on public forum

Sent you PM.

 

[DMH]

49hours and counting no power. Really has me thinking about a whole home generator. If I wasn't wanting to sell soon I would definitely have one installed.

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We talked about getting one after Charley in 2004 but just couldn't justify that kind of expense on something we might use every couple of years.

If I remember right it was in the ballpark of $7,500-$10,000 installed.

If we did have one right before Charley we might have used it for 72 hours max (3 days) since then. Would have ended up costing us around $2,500-$3,000 per day to power our house during the outages. Not counting maintenance and fuel.

We have looked into, and will be getting solar with battery backup in the next couple of years. It pay's for itself a lot faster.

 

[moparornocar]

My grandmother had one installed, cost her like 5k I think. I don't believe she used it more than an hour or so in 7 years.

 

[ohanacreek]

We talked about getting one after Charley in 2004 but just couldn't justify that kind of expense on something we might use every couple of years.

If I remember right it was in the ballpark of $7,500-$10,000 installed.

If we did have one right before Charley we might have used it for 72 hours max (3 days) since then. Would have ended up costing us around $2,500-$3,000 per day to power our house during the outages. Not counting maintenance and fuel.

We have looked into, and will be getting solar with battery backup in the next couple of years. It pay's for itself a lot faster.

Once storage drops to a price where you can see a payoff in your lifetime we will pull everything over to solar, except pool pump or something, State of Alabama requires by law connection to local power utility. Generator will see use after multiple cloudy days to refill battery bank if it gets too low.

Doesn't say you have to use it for day to day use.

 

[adnoh]

Still no power here since 10 am Sunday. Rivers got backed up and it flooded everywhere out here . Coffins are floating up at the old cemetery over here. Some of them from civil war vets. Haven't been able to get into my shop 8 miles away due to water. . Still feel lucky though

 

[Smitty335]

We talked about getting one after Charley in 2004 but just couldn't justify that kind of expense on something we might use every couple of years.

If I remember right it was in the ballpark of $7,500-$10,000 installed.

If we did have one right before Charley we might have used it for 72 hours max (3 days) since then. Would have ended up costing us around $2,500-$3,000 per day to power our house during the outages. Not counting maintenance and fuel.

We have looked into, and will be getting solar with battery backup in the next couple of years. It pay's for itself a lot faster.

Solar makes a lot more since with a portable generator for charging back up, the cost of a whole house generating system gets pretty crazy. If you have a power outage, the main things you need to run are fridge, freezer if its not cold outside, move your food outside, furnace if you don't have wood heat, ventless fire places w/ gas logs are a no, no, might as well bring your generator in the house and run it! Same results. The one good thing out of our ice storm power outage was My wife didn't know you could run a tv off a generator, HA!

 

[ohanacreek]

Solar makes a lot more since with a portable generator for charging back up, the cost of a whole house generating system gets pretty crazy. If you have a power outage, the main things you need to run are fridge, freezer if its not cold outside, move your food outside, furnace if you don't have wood heat, ventless fire places w/ gas logs are a no, no, might as well bring your generator in the house and run it! Same results. The one good thing out of our ice storm power outage was My wife didn't know you could run a tv off a generator, HA!

The wave form from a non-inverter generator is bad on batteries and electronics, the gen we have had a cleaner power than portable but it's not an inverter gen

The nice Honda inverter gen sets sure but you need 10-20kw to charge a large bank while also using the genset to power everything. So a portable wouldn't work for a 100% off grid full sized home. For a small shack in woods sure.


A large whole home gen is far more efficient than a small portable gen if they are sized correctly. We use 1-1.5gph and run everything like we normally use it, which is a @1month runtime with our tank, shut downs for reg preventive maintenance would be NEEDED if that happened. 4gph if we're running EVERYTHING, but who does that?

Propane stores long term very well, diesel and especially gas do not. It allows you to fill up when price drops if you have large enough tank(s).

If you are not home, you could lose all your food, for a family of 4 that could be a considerable cost.

If it's off long enough humidity could become an issue in a home, even without flooding.

If you have all the systems and parts in your home setup/designed to work together. Efficiency and comfort are easy to maintain, and at a much much much lower cost than a contractor spec house.

 

[DMH]

Still no power here since 10 am Sunday. Rivers got backed up and it flooded everywhere out here . Coffins are floating up at the old cemetery over here. Some of them from civil war vets. Haven't been able to get into my shop 8 miles away due to water. . Still feel lucky though

Man, I'm wishing all you guy's the best with getting your power and lives back to normal ASAP.

I work right beside Hwy 17. I haven't been back to work yet, but when things like this have happened in the past I have seen nothing but truck after truck heading that direction.

 

[Remington]

Im the lead generator tech at our shop, I've ben certified by Generac for over 12 yrs. Most of you are correct with your generator pricing. Roughly 7-12,000 for AIR cooled stand by. That's an 8kw (don't recommend 8's) through 22kw. Installed correctly is a HUHGE key. Gas line size and proper meeter size for natural gas and proper tank size along with gas pipeing for propane this is a common issue. Also cant stress enough to use only hard black pipe not ward flex (flex pipe) for gas sizing and flow it's not the same volume as hard pipe with the consumption to generators and will eventually cause your generator to run lean and Catastrophic failure. When using propane your kw on air cooled gowes up 1full kw. Also with a standby the "sine wave" is much cleaner than portable gas generators. Gas portables should NOT be used to operate any large refrigeration compressors A/C's And HP's due to this dirty power that is very hard on the start up to these motors and some DC motors eventually causing catastrophic failure. All this makes it extremely important to have the Standby sized and installed correctly so these things failures don't happen. In some cases a load shedding transfer switch to be installed. I see these problems all the time, dosnt happen right away, it creeps up on you slow.
One last thing, it's also Murphy's law than when you buy a stand by, you seam to not loose power as much as you use to good luck with your purchases gentleman.

 

[Remington]

• Food for thought:
• Pic of a catastrophic failure of a rotor and stator on a stand by that we didn't install. 20kw gas line incorrect and running 2 A/C's lasted 2 years and "ran great" he said till this happened and now 2 blown A/c compressors.
  
  

 

[sharp]

Im the lead generator tech at our shop, I've ben certified by Generac for over 12 yrs. Most of you are correct with your generator pricing. Roughly 7-12,000 for AIR cooled stand by. That's an 8kw (don't recommend 8's) through 22kw. Installed correctly is a HUHGE key. Gas line size and proper meeter size for natural gas and proper tank size along with gas pipeing for propane this is a common issue. Also cant stress enough to use only hard black pipe not ward flex (flex pipe) for gas sizing and flow it's not the same volume as hard pipe with the consumption to generators and will eventually cause your generator to run lean and Catastrophic failure. When using propane your kw on air cooled gowes up 1full kw. Also with a standby the "sine wave" is much cleaner than portable gas generators. Gas portables should NOT be used to operate any large refrigeration compressors A/C's And HP's due to this dirty power that is very hard on the start up to these motors and some DC motors eventually causing catastrophic failure. All this makes it extremely important to have the Standby sized and installed correctly so these things failures don't happen. In some cases a load shedding transfer switch to be installed. I see these problems all the time, dosnt happen right away, it creeps up on you slow.
One last thing, it's also Murphy's law than when you buy a stand by, you seam to not loose power as much as you use to good luck with your purchases gentleman.

I have a 2-200amp service panels. One of the has all the important stuff in it, fridge tv main lights ac etc. And the other has the less important stuff like closet lights etc. I have the 22kw generac generator running off natural gas with transfer switch hooked to the more important panel. It's pretty cool how it works, the only way I would know if the power is out is if I hear the generator running. Someone was wondering earlier how loud the generator, it's about as loud as a lawnmower. It automatically comes on by its self every Thursday at 2oclock and runs for about 10min to keep it lubed up.