yikes for all

[skatha]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11927624/from/RSS/


This next year, since there's a 2 category strength dropoff(as in Cat 3 at coast, Cat 1 at my house) from the coast to my house, we decided to stay for all upcoming hurricanes, unless there's a cat 5 making landfall between Freeport and Galveston, in which case, we'd be on the dirty side of a cat 3 storm in a cat 2 designed house....
Our plan is to gas up the vehicles, buy extra gas( a couple of 25 gallon tanks should do) and get a generator rated to run one of the refrigerators, a few minor electrical appliances like a radio and a dvd player and a window A/C unit for our "cool" room(our daytime highs following Rita were all in the upper 90's)

Any experiences with generators?
Sure, Honda is the best, but they're damn proud of their product

[Gecko]

I had a Coleman 5K it worked well but MAN was it noisey...we ran it during the Cat 5 that we went through in Guam (Supertyphoon Paka 236mph). We could hear it over the howl of the wind. The advantage to a Honda is that they are soooooo quiet. As far as ook up I secured the main breaker into the house and all but a few select breakers and I had a 220 power cord that pluged into the dryer backfeeding the circuits that I wanted...It worked great though it's not exactly legal

[trailertrash]

skatha,
search on here (http://www.woodalls.com/cforum/index.cfm/fuseaction/listings/forum/39.cfm)
for anything you want to know about generators. to run a fridge and ac at the same time you are looking at 2-3k watts.
good luck.

[chrisk]

Where I live in Pennsylvania, the power goes out several times a year. The longest so far was three days during a Christmas ice storm a few years ago. Not fun.

I have a portable, 5500 watt generac generator (load, but cheap) and a generator transfer switch wired into the main panel. Currently, I am configured to run the fridge, well pump (very important), oil heater, one light in the main bathroom (also very important), and several other convenience outlets. So far so good. At least I can get a shower before I go to work.

The purpose of the transfer switch is to connect the desired house circuits to the generator without feeding the power back into the local utility grid. Basically, you just power the circuits you need not the entire house. Connecting a generator to your home's electrical system by plugging it into an existing outlet (without flipping the main breaker off) feeds power back into the grid. That means the lineman 25 feet up a pole, trying to fix your power supply problem, could find a live wire where he doesn't expect one.

I know it sounds like a hassle, but if you're going to do this its worth doing right. Get a permit and get it inspected.

[Gecko]

which is why I said I turned off the main breaker. Typically any alternative power source will require a street power shutoff whether by relay or by manually flipping a breaker. My dad has a natural gas generator that has a seperate breaker box, for priority circuits, with a built in relay. I think his is a 60amp it's not 3' tall and like 4' wide x 2' deep. These also run on Propane if you live away from a natural gas line

[skatha]

My hubby is an industrial architect...I'm going to let him configure the switches...needless to say, he's envisioned a trifuel setup :p


I just hope, like all good plans, we won't need it. The scary thing was, the mayor of Kemah ran an article in the op-ed section last May about how long it would take to evac the Houston-Galveston area and that people would drown in their cars in the storm surge with a cat 5 storm and, minus the cat 5 storm, he was right. I had a friend who left Galveston Co, just on the mainland at 4 am. At 5 pm, she had made it to my neck of the woods, 60 miles up the road, and she was nearly out of gas

[Gecko]

they often have 10Kw (or larger) diesel generators for cheap, usually they need a new muffler and a tune up and then ready to go. These are high torque low RPM generators so they ain't too loud.