Power is out, but not me!

Our annually averaged bill comes to about 125 bucks a month , less than 15 cents per kw/h . We could probably reduce usage a little but I like being comfortable .

Did you see that Iowa gets 60% of its electricity from wind!!!

But the storm a few days ago blew down several of the turbines and some actually caught on fire!! There ought to be a way to prevent that. In fact I don't even understand how it happened. Is it the power from the rest of the grid flowing backwards into the broken generator windings?

I hate the gawdamn radicals.

Even though T gets on my nerves, to say the least, I don't want to rain on his parade. But since he's had 13 hours to celebrate and it's already raining, I will comment.

Baltimore must not have too much terible weather, and it has a pretty strong tree trimming policy, such that there are a lot of ugly trees around where any branch within it seems like about 6 feet of a wire is cut off. Some trees look ridiculous (although new n'hoods, even mine that is 42 years old, have underground wires.) I don't recall there ever being a power failure that was not related to storms and fallen tree limbs, or exploding transformers. I think the one that powers my house and 7 or 15 others failed once in 41 years.

So we've had interruptions for 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 10 minutes (I can tell how long by how many clocks have lost track of the time. Some take only an instant and others have built-in backup batteries or capacitors that last for different times. And of course real clocks, the ones with two hands, stop immediately but restart where they left off, leaving a record of how long the power failure was.

The only really bad one was 20 years ago in the mddle of winter. It still didn't get that cold until the 3rd day and I was about to start calling friends to stay with when the power went back on. Or maybe that was the time when none of my friends had power either. (I'm confusing two times, one of which was not in the winter.)

If something serious happens, I'll get in my car and drive west until I find a motel with a vacancy. When it's not repetitive, I love to drive and I will get to see some corner of West Virginia or Kentucky (or Missouri) that I've never been to. I never let my gas tank get empty.

Now that software is much better about not losing data or even web browser tab urls, I don't even worry about a UPS for my computer. My main one sits unconnected under my computer desk and I use it for a footstool, and I never bought batteries for the big one I got free at a hamfest. (I still save what I'm writing before leaving a page for any reason, and Firefox remembers what tabs I had, with rare exceptions for at most the most recent one or two.)

And of course the laptop will go for 10 or 20 minutes without losing anything, and is set to hibernate if the battery goes below ?? 20% ??, and hibernation is wonderful, saves everything.

In cases like that one does have to pay to have the security of having power at most any cost.

We have an 8-kW generator. My husband does the maintenance, and the natural gas consumed during its weekly test cycle is a pittance.

It has come in handy a handful of times. We wish we'd gotten a bigger one so it could service the clothes dryer, detached garage, and a few other things we deemed non-essential.

None of that has happened in the 10 years we've had the generator.

I just do not understand why a propane or natural gas generaor would have to be started every week. Or even a gasoline engine if ran to the tank was empty. I let my 2 tillers sit all winter and they start with one or two pulls every spring. NG or PP will not go bad for years or longer. My small propane generator was started twice with in a few months just to see if it would start with the battery and the pull rope. Then it sat for around 2 years to needed and started in just a few seconds or so on the battery. I did have a solar panel to mantain the battery.

What do they do for $300? Change the oil? , ? , ?

Solar panels are great. One car years ago had some sort of problem but a 1 foot x 9 inch panel on the dashboad solved all its problems

The natural gas to run the thing costs less than the electricity from the grid.

Two winters ago we had a YUGE storm comes through. The fire department had to rescue a bunch of folks. A lot of folks have generators now.

It increased their reliability. Mine was spec'ed to run every appliance at the same time with 40% margin at sea level. At nearly 5000 feet elevation, the ratings decrease.

And no trudging through snow, no getting chemicals all over my hands to give my wife asthma, no cleaning out clogged gasoline lines, no having to remember to fire them up to test every month or so, no storage of flammables, no running out of fuel, no having to fetch additional fuel that is not available as everyone else ran out of fuel too, no freezing my ass off, and on and on and so forth.

Two winters ago, we had a YUGE snow storm take out power to most of the city for two weeks. Luckily, I was not one of them. Those that were, the fire department had to go and rescue them. I paid attention and got a whole house unit.

The sucker just works. I am giddy. Worth every cent. And not to mention, a happy wife!

Electricity is a bargain. Moaners & groaners are just spoiled. My monthly electric bill is ~ $ 80. < Canuck Bucks >

My monthly TV+internet+phone is ~ $ 180. Which of these is more important ? John T.

Keeps the oil from stagnating. And it also alarms out if the test (mine every two weeks) does not work, so you can get it fixed before and outage.

Fuel supply is a big factor for choosing the correct-sized standby generator. < rather than household conveniences >

If I were to over-size my generator, I would need a bigger horizontal propane tank - difficult placement, etc. The ~ 12 kw can be supplied from my existing propane bottles - 2 x 300 with maybe a 3rd added for security. I never dream of using my electric oven nor my electric clothes dryer during a power outage. The well pump, furnace, sump pump, fridge & freezer - yes. John T.

I'd be curious to know the brand & model - - that's about the capacity that I need - - no 8 KW models are available here. The 10 kw Generac had a single-cylinder engine < yuk >

John T.

I do not have to dream. I can run the whole damned house at once!

It's a single-cylinder Generac. I don't know the model. Since we bought it 10 years ago, I'm sure the model we have is no longer sold. We've been quite satisfied with its performance.