Preparing for Power Outages?

[FreddieDog]

Jonathan, we are in the same boat. We don't have the money to go buy one of those larger generators so we have a 5500 Watt gasoline generator. It is enough to run a furnance in two houses on our property, the deep freeze in our house and some lights. You can bet on using a lot of gas though. Ours runs for around 13+ hours on a tank of gas. We are using bottled water for drinking and cooking and going to a friends house to shower. Our electricity has been out since Saturday, Feb. 24th at 1:30 so we are going on 4 days. Also, our few animals are getting bottled water too. While most of the town we live near is without power, at least the gas station and grocery store are open (running on generators). We also have lots of candles and flashlight batteries.

[IBM5081]

Excellent question, similar to the Y2K preparations in 1999, same season.

- Preparation depends partly on the season: Food, heat, lights, communications, water and sanitation.

- What length of outage is anticipated: probably 2-4 days is long enough. By then, you can make other choices if it looks like the outage will extend.

- Unless your normal living depends on diesel, gasoline or kerosene, I prefer propane to gasoline. Keeping a gasoline generator fed is bulky as well as hazardous, particularly in more populated areas. Few generators are truly quiet.

- If you are prepared for a 2-4 day campout, you will already have most of the required equipment and resources. Realize that most grocery stores, gasoline stations and other retailers only have about

3 days of merchandise on the shelves. They will be picked clean in a day. Even 5 gallon fuel containers will be scarce from people travelling elsewhere for resupply.

[Chris Friesen]

I'm up in Canada, and in my province the power company is state-run. It doesn't need to show a profit for shareholders...but it does show a small profit that is fed back into the government operating budget.

Chris

[Rod Speed]

Don wrote

profit is the

Irrelevant to whether it is for everyone.

Quite a few are essentially just buying themselves a job with the conditions they get to set for themselves and its much more about the best overall outcome time and profit wise than maximising profit.

Your problem.

[Rod Speed]

Dont forget who will be picking your nursing home.

[James]

Which Province are you in?

In Ontario, the province has been subsidizing the electrical utility for some time, but thats been trailing off. In order to pay down the debts, there are additional monthly charges. As my house has electrical heating, its a big thing for me.

James

Jame

[support]

Check with the manufacturer to be sure, but modern powders don't have the crystallization thing that black powder does.

(and you Civil war collectors make SURE what you have is inert)

Steve

[dancer1 via HomeKB.com]

After the 3 day outage in August, 2003 my husband bought a gasoline powered generator, which fortunately we haven't had to use yet (probably a good thing since he never has the gas can filled anyway ;) It will at least give enough power for the refrigerator and freezer, and maybe a few lights etc. If ya get one, don't forget the gas!!!

[Jim Yanik]

"dancer1 via HomeKB.com" wrote in news:6e7f514aee600@uwe:

I wonder why they don't make propane-fueled (or natural gas from the home's pipeline) portable generators;as one can store propane with fewer problems than gasoline or diesel. And it's easier on the engine.

I wonder how long a moderate sized generator,say 3-4 KW,would run on a 20 lb tank of propane?

[Jim Yanik]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Storage temperature will have a great effect on that time.

Modern smokeless powder is nitroglycerin/nitrocelluose. (double-base powder)

I would think the can's label would have some info on it.

[Usenet2007]

The previous poster's email address has, "usask.ca" in it. My guess is that that means that "Sask" province in the middle of the country.

[Ralph Mowery]

Provided the powder has not gotten too hot or wet it should be good for over

50 years. I have some in the origional cans that is 35 years old that is still good. Smokeless powder has not really been around long enough to determin how long it will last. Ammo loaded for WW2 is being shot today by many people.

Smokeless powder will not explode in its origional container. It has to be contained so it can build up pressure. It will burn and I doubt it could be put out with water.

[BR]

You might want to consider a radome for your dish, if one is available. I've seen fabric radomes for receive only sat dishes, no heater expense, although if the snow is really bad, it might cover up the radome enough to stop working, although show should slide off a properly designed radome.

[gfretwell]

Probably about as long as it would run on 4 gallons of gasoline. The problem is a 20lb tank isn't 20lb these days.

[AL]

[...]

I used to think we'd never see broadband where I live but we received notice last week it was now available. I jumped at the chance to ditch my satellite (Wildblue). I had not fulfilled the Wildblue agreement for

1 yr service but the phone company agreed to do an even swap if I'd let them have the equipment back - DEAL! DSL is so sweet and the same monthly price as Wildblue...

Our county sounds similar to yours in population size so who knows? you might get a notice yourself someday.

[Larry Caldwell]

Isn't there anywhere to relocate the dishes? My satellite dishes are installed below the windows on the south side of the house, just above the posies in the flower beds. When it snows, I just walk outside and brush the snow off.

There's still a bunch of prejudice left over from TV antenna days - people think their dish has to be installed on the roof. I had a friend with a perfect location, on the legs of a second floor wooden deck, where all the feeds could be installed in a false ceiling between floors in his house. Instead, he drilled holes in a steel roof to mount the dish, and butchered the finish in a closet to get the feed to the first floor.

[Larry Caldwell]

Yeah, and then drive to somewhere that has cell phone service.

Doesn't a car adapter come with every cell phone?

[Larry Caldwell]

Any small engine can be converted to propane. You just replace the carburetor with a conversion kit. Unfortunately, the kit is pretty expensive. Normally they cost a couple hundred dollars. You have to derate the engine about 20%, so a 10 hp engine will only put out about 8 hp. As you note, that is easier on the engine, which will last a lot longer, at the expense of some power.

As you mention, the big advantage of propane as a generator fuel is that it doesn't deteriorate like gasoline or diesel. You can set up a 200 gallon propane tank, and 10 years later it will still be good fuel for the generator.

[Matthew Beasley]

Wacker GS 8.5 It has a B&S 16 HP vanguard

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Nope, that's about $20 more.