OT, Oh Crap, Now We Have An Ice Storm On The Way

Having been through several here in Oklahoma I can say that a good ice storm is nothing to sneeze at. It can pay big time to be prepared. Bad enough to be stuck at home with no power, being stuck at work or on the road is really the pits.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Gill
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I have a wall heater and a gas stove. The central heat was damaged by the combustion chamber rusting out and the controls burning up. The central AC is working but I installed the natural gas wall mounted heater and have another identical one that I'd have to repair because it was originally installed and a goofy roommate broke the control and now the grill is missing. Two heaters would be enough to heat this old house which originally had a floor furnace. The wall heater is in one side of the house and the gas stove is in the other. I set the oven to low and leave the oven door open about 4 inches but can open it wider if more heat is needed. The oven thermostat cuts it on and off just like the wall heater. I also have a 5 gallon stock pot full of water on one burner set to very low to add humidity to the air. I have three electric heaters to average out the temperatures. Heck, the four desktop computers running add heat to the air. When the temperature dropped down to 7°F, the house was comfortable and no pipes froze, temperatures that low are unusual for Alabamastan. Snow paralyzes the area and now we have an ice storm hitting North of here and it's expected to descend upon Birmingham tomorrow. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

Per Stormin Mormon:

We are about 23 miles West of Philadelphia and were out for the better part of five days.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Per The Daring Dufas:

Somebody else observed that there are two extremes in home generators: "Cruise Ship" and "Lifeboat".

We went "Lifeboat".

Our house cruises on 800-1200 watts depending on how hard the natural gas furnace's blower is working.

That gets us:

- All the hot air heat we want.

- Couple of PC's, a NAS box, and various LAN stuff

- TV

- Lights in almost every room of the house.

It does *not* get us:

- Toaster

- Coffee maker

- Microwave

- Electric stove

- Washer & Dryer.

I have a little screw-on stove burner that works with a 16-oz propane bottle and it is extremely effective. Just ordered 2 more, in fact. That's good for coffee, and whatever else can be made on a stove burner.

We have a mini-propane grill (about 10" x 18") that also works on a

16-oz bottle. That gets us toast, store-bought pizza, and so-forth.

I have been obsessing about a second 2KW generator (these things are made to run in parallel) to run intermittently around meal times to pick up the slack for microwave, coffee maker, toaster....

But we're older than dirt and the wife has become adamant about getting a natural gas powered auto-transfer setup against the day that one or both of us are too sick or too feeble to manage the two "manual" generators.

That would be full "Cruise Ship" except, maybe, for the central AC.

I have not priced it yet, but am bracing myself for sticker shock.

OTOH, I don't want our survivors to have *too* much fun..... -)

But the bottom line for me is that 2KW works if you don't want the sun, the moon, and the stars.... or central air...

It's also good on fuel: about six hours per gallon. My little hoard of gasoline in the garden shed got us through 5 days with plenty to spare. OTOH, my neighbor was driving heaven-only-knows-how-far and standing in lines to feed his Home Depot monster.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Per (PeteCresswell):

- Two refrigerators

- One freezer

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Heh Heh. We have had a couple of slight frosts. And quite a bit of rain.

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No probs with floods at my house. Can function with no electricity if we have to.

Reply to
harryagain

A friend from South Carolina sent me his local forecast. Snow, sleet. Sounds rough.

.WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST THURSDAY. .WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY WILL EXPIRE AT 6 PM EST THIS EVENING. * LOCATIONS.NORTHEAST GA & UPSTATE SO. CAROLINA. * HAZARDS.HEAVY SNOW.POSSIBLY MIXED WITH SLEET AT TIMES. * TIMING.MAINLY PATCHY LIGHT SNOW WILL IMPACT THE REGION THIS EVENING. THE PRECIPITATION WILL BECOME HEAVIER TOWARD DAYBREAK & LAST THROUGH MUCH OF WED NIGHT BEFORE TAPERING OFF THUR MORNING. MAINLY SNOW IS EXPECTED.BUT WITH SLEET MIXING IN AT TIMES.ESPECIALLY AT LOCATIONS SE OF INTERSTATE 85. THE SNOW WILL END FROM THE WEST THURSDAY MORNING. * ACCUMULATIONS.SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 8 TO 12 INCHES.ALONG WITH AROUND A TRACE OF ICE. * IMPACTS.THE COMBINATION OF HEAVY SNOW & OCCASIONAL SLEET WILL MAKE TRAVEL TREACHEROUS. THE ACCUMULATIONS MAY ALSO CREATE NUMEROUS POWER OUTAGES.ESPECIALLY LATE WEDNESDAY THROUGH THUR MORNING. * TEMPS.IN THE MID 30S.

I keep expecting to be asked for my bank account number so he can transfer L24,000,000.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Sounds like you are the first hand wisdom man on this list. This time. Dufas will be first hand reporter, the next time. I think I've seen your field reports on the groups. Thank you for your wisdom of what worked.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

That's all democrat fearmongering climate change propaganda. It's going to be a nice republican 74, sunny with a mild breeze.

Reply to
0ren

Per Stormin Mormon:

One of my sick friends sent me this:

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Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Ice and snow is expected tonight 2/12/14 and that can cause havoc if the ice knocks out power and snarls traffic. A number of schools, government offices and businesses are going to be closed because the ice storm will make things worse than the snow that hit us last week. It's just not a normal weather condition for our Southern province of Alabamastan. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

I've installed a lot of natural gas powered automatic transfer switched generators in grocery stores and homes, I've even converted some contractor type gensets to natural gas and installed a manual transfer switch. My favorite genset is the old Onan air cooled four cylinder 15kw natural gas fueled gensets because they're very reliable. Every single one of them I've installed was a used genset from a retail store and restaurant salvage company. I've made repairs to the engines and transfer switches when I installed them but all they needed was an annual oil change and rarely needed spark plugs that tended to last a very long time especially if I put platinum plugs in them. I'd like to have one for the house because it would run everything. The largest genset I installed in a home was a used Kohler 40kw. I've installed a lot of new Generac 8kw to 20kw gensets in homes and I setup many of them with an alarm system circuit board inside the transfer switch that would dial in to an alarm system monitoring company to report whether or not it had exercised on schedule or had a fault condition. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

U R Just a climate racist! o_O

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

Ice and snow are a rarity here in The South and when it happens there is havoc. People go bonkers and blame the weather boffins. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

We don't have natural gas so I've been running a 5,500 Watt gasoline powered generator for outages. I've been thinking of getting one with a diesel powered one that I could run off the home fuel oil tank.

Paul

Reply to
Pavel314

Per The Daring Dufas:

What is your take on installing a generator rated at 4kw for running on gasoline - but powered by natural gas? I'm thinking that some of the RV-oriented generators, although designed for propane, might be a good fit because they are designed with low noise in mind. e.g.

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I came away from power.cummins.com thinking that a 4kw gasoline generator was good for 3.6 on Propane.

But then I read

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and it sounded like natural gas is a *lot* less energy-intensive than propane.

Any idea what the conversion factor is for estimating a gasoline generator's max output when it is run on natural gas?

Where I'm going is:

- My Better Half has become adamant about installing something that will do the job even if we are both too sick and/or feeble to go out and attend to it (as in startup, refueling...)

- Even though we don't pay highway tax on natural gas, it's still far from free. Otherwise, I'd just go for something like your 15kw Kohler. But my experience is that fuel consumption rises very sharply as the generator's peak power is increased.

- We already have a smart transfer switch (APC's UTS-6H) that is rated for 4kw and accepts only 120v power.

- A 2kw generator is pretty much doing it for us now, although another KW would add a certain convenience factor in terms of load shedding and/or going outside to run a gas appliance when heating up food making toast, making coffee, and so-forth.

- I am picking 4kw blindly - without any idea of how much power I will get out of a 4kw gasoline-rated generator. Maybe it will turn out that I will need 5kw... But 6.5 seems like a stretch, as does 3, once the device is running on natural gas instead of gasoline.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

New York State also doesn't handle ice storms very well. We have our share of drivers who don't adapt to road conditions, and end up in the ditch. Or piled into each other. I do my best to get home and stay home in moments like this. Ice storm 2003, I took my friend Jason to get dinner and food. Came home to find my own power out, and trailer cold.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

That should be legal, as long as you don't drive your generator on public roads. (smile here). fuel oil isn't taxed for road use.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Per Oren:

Guy I used to work with was stationed North of the Arctic Circle - somewhere in Greenland, IIRC.

They lived in these long Quonset huts placed side-by-side with maybe 50 feet between them.

During storms, when winds were heaven-only-knows how strong and it was seriously below zero everybody was supposed to stay in their hut and not go outside under any circumstances.

But the macho thing to do was exit the hut on, say, the North end; run for the adjacent hut while the wind blew you South, and make it in to the lee of the other hut at it's South end where they could enter the hut.

He said that every so often some guy would go out the North end... and never be seen again.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

I spent a year at USCG LorSta Port Clarence, AK.

Back in the 70's when I got my orders I did a little research. I found an article that said National Geographic considered Nome, AK as the "end of civilization" in that part of the world.

Port Clarence is about 70 miles north-east of Nome i.e. beyond the edge.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

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