Extended Power Outage

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 5:42 am

So, we're going on 60 hours of no power here. It's now just a local outage of just a few neighbors around me. A tree fell on the line about 3/4 miles down the road.

Fortunately, I was prepared for an outage. On Thursday night when the lights went out I dragged the generator about a 100 feet thru heavy wet snow and got it within reach of the breaker box tie in line. It's a powerful genny, 5600 watts continuous with 8700 surge. I have it back feeding the breaker panel thru a 220 breaker which is only dangerous if you don't know what yer doing.

It's powering the whole house with the exception of high draw appliances. I've left the breakers off with the hot tub, hot water tank, and electric stove. The water coil in the coal furnace is the only thing heating our DHW and it's keeping up as long as we use it sparingly.

I shut down the genny during sleeping hours since it's a bit noisy and we really don't need it running thru the night. Although the blowers on the coal furnace don't run while the generator is off, I took the air filter out and it gravity feeds to keep the house at a bone chilling 67 degrees even though it's 18 currently outside.

My neighbors aren't so fortunate, one of them abandoned their home to go stay with relatives, the other cobbled a genny hook up finally at midnight last night to get the heat on.

Hopefully the power will be back on soon. The genny is pretty expensive to run. It seems to be using about 3-4 gallons of gasoline per 8 hours.


 
Benny
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Post by Benny » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 7:03 am

Lightning, I run the same setup back feed from the garage,11k genny works well,hope you get power soon.

 
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michaelanthony
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Post by michaelanthony » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 7:05 am

Nice having a geni L and keeping the house relatively warm. Every major storm I look forward to cooking on the coal stove and not needing to worry about keeping my family warm. :yes:

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:26 am

I wonder why our President has abandoned your neighborhood & left you guys in such deplorable conditions ? :P
I just had to do that... i get tired of Puerto Rico having all the attention. :)

This storm with all the wind sure has tested the line repair crews over a vast area.

Lightning, i am surprised that you haven't rigged some coal fired genny into that furnace yet. ;)

 
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Post by freetown fred » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:39 am

Hamden Bob is a Line Tramp out of Ohio & I'm sure he is out there doin his best with his crew. Hopin this finds him safe.

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:49 am

freetown fred wrote:
Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:39 am
Hamden Bob is a Line Tramp out of Ohio & I'm sure he is out there doin his best with his crew. Hopin this finds him safe.
Linemen rank up there with 1st responders when having to repair lines in nasty weather conditions. They have my admiration !!

 
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Post by stokerstove » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 11:06 am

My brother and sister in law from your area are experiencing the same fate and went up to Buffalo and got a room. Think I heard the power at their place is back on.
We are fortunate here that our town has it's own Elec. Co. that services it's own lines. Fallen tree knocked our power out during the storm and they had the power back on for us in less than 7 hrs. A local tree grower had heavy equip. in the area and helped the power Co. out. That's what small town is all about!
The old Alaska kept the house warm thanks to the Tripplite UPS unit. As always, it worked perfectly running the stove and the Teco pump for the hot water. Was at work during the outage and was worried how long the battery would last.
Hope your power is restored by now.


 
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Post by Qtown1835 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 2:25 pm

Some areas here not schedule to have power back on till midnight Wednesday. My power went out around 930 Friday night I grabbed the small gen and back fed the boiler and a few lighting circuits to keep us going. Power was back on by 2am. During sandy we were out for 6 days. That sucked

 
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Post by Soupy6914 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 7:21 pm

[quote=Lightning post_id=662637 time=1520160147 user_id=9813

Fortunately, I was prepared for an outage. On Thursday night when the lights went out I dragged the generator about a 100 feet thru heavy wet snow and got it within reach of the breaker box tie in line. It's a powerful genny, 5600 watts continuous with 8700 surge. I have it back feeding the breaker panel thru a 220 breaker which is only dangerous if you don't know what yer doing
[/quote]

Do you have some sort of transfer switch to prevent back feeding onto the grid or have you at least disconnected you main breaker from the line. The reason I ask is if you have not you are creating some very hazardous situations for those trying to restore your power.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 7:27 pm

Yes soupy, thank you for your concern, it's very valid. I always make sure the main breaker is off before turning the genny breaker on. And then make sure the genny breaker is off before turning the main breaker back on.

 
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Post by titleist1 » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 8:32 pm

Went through similar here, but only out for 48 hours, came back on today about noon. I also backfeed the gen through the garage panel to the house and like you don't do anything until i switch the main breaker off so it isn't a danger to anyone working on the lines. Hope you are back on grid soon!

Times like this will remind you how nice is it to be using a no electric hand fed! I didn't bother to move the Mark III in place because it was only one tree down on our lines, but it took them about a day longer to get to us than I thought it would. If I knew it was going to be a two day outage I would have swapped out the girlie man stoker and gone he-man for a couple days! :D

 
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Post by BunkerdCaddis » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:45 pm

Lightning wrote:
Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 5:42 am
is only dangerous if you don't know what yer doing.
That's what I keep telling my wife but I seem to be losing ground every year with that argument... :lol:

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:53 pm

BunkerdCaddis wrote:
Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 9:45 pm


That's what I keep telling my wife but I seem to be losing ground every year with that argument... :lol:
Hahaha! I hear ya :lol:
Lightning wrote:
Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 7:27 pm
Yes soupy, thank you for your concern, it's very valid. I always make sure the main breaker is off before turning the genny breaker on. And then make sure the genny breaker is off before turning the main breaker back on.
To simplify, you just never have the main breaker AND the genny back feed breaker on at the same time.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Sun. Mar. 04, 2018 10:17 pm

Also, I want to report that my power came back on around 4:30 this afternoon. That makes it about 6 hours short of 3 full days no power. In the 24 years I've been here I think there was only one other time to be that long.

 
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Post by hank2 » Mon. Mar. 05, 2018 3:12 am

Good to hear that some of you have had power restored. My hat is off to the linemen that do that!

In today's local paper they quoted a lady that was really complaining that her power wasn't back on in two days. Sheesh! We have several outages a year, some due to trees coming down, some from power co. equipment. For once, we escaped an outage this time. Over 80,000 were out in my county, including close to me. Although we didn't have it nearly as bad as those near the coast, Sandy in 2012, gave us no power for 8 days. Not having water is the worst result. The hand fired has saved us more than once, for heat.


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