Ive spent 2 weeks w/o power in Florida summer heat.
You don’t need it.
It’s EmilyfromOhio again…she’s more powerful than you know, and you’ve obviously made the list.
Watch your back, dude. Watch your back.
Oh.
Well, that’s awkward.
I had assumed it was 'cuz all the neighbors on the other side of the street are monsters.
Oh well. Maybe I shouldn’t have…oh well.:eek:
My Gods!! So what do I do?
How do I appease TheEmilyThatinOhioResides, and get back in her good graces?
Thanks Ron. Hey, how are things going with Caprica?
-Love Joss
Just a crazy thought: why not put the food in a box and put it outside, say, in the garage where it’s sub-freezing? Heck, even if animals ran off with some of it you’d be ahead of having to pitch it all.
re: generator
We’ve been thinking about putting together a good on this for TM for a while, and I think you’ve finally kicked Sean and I off our asses to go do it. But even before doing the research, I can think of a couple of concerns.
Obviously you’re going to need to figure out how much juice you need. A little 1.5k gen isn’t going to drive much. And you’re going to need a way to get the power into a house. You could certainly just pull an extension cord inside and jack in the fridge (assuming your little gen can handle it), but driving the standard outlets in the house would require some electrical work.
By the time you’re buying a gen big enough to drive a significant portion of the house – like, say, the heat blowers, the fridge, and maybe some lighting – you’re looking at a pretty significant investment. Add to that the wiring work and some safe fuel storage and it can’t be cheap. (Says me, who’s sitting warm in my powered house. If I was you, $10k or whatever might sound pretty darn reasonable.)
Anyway, just off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts.
One thing’s certain: don’t do anything dumb. (Not that you would. But you matter too much to us not to say this.) Don’t run gas-powered anything inside. Don’t build fires inside. Don’t run the cooktop or oven for heat. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer, and the cooktop causes more fires than you’d imagine – without really contributing significantly to heating.
The difference being, yes Florida heat is HORRFYINGLY AWFUL. However, it’s is not below freezing. You do not run the risk of your pipes freezing & bursting resulting in massive damage & huge plumbing bills. You do not risk frostbite in your own house.
Only one thing will appease the Breathless One:
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.
Some further thoughts on this. We have run into this type of thing in the news here in Michigan several times over the years. Most recently was a guy who died in his sleep because the neighborhood he lived in, he knew he would not have a generator in the morning if he left it outside just chained to the house. So he had it inside & died of Carbon monoxide poisoning.
A couple things you CAN do, if you have a current breaker box instead of a fuse box, you can have it modified to allow a generator hook-up to it, or even put in a seperate box specifically for this contingency. Also, be mindful of where you want to be able to put it outside, also be mindful of being able to secure it so you continue to be able to run your heat & refrigerator. a nice housing unit is a good idea. If you go this route you can have everything wired so that it plugs directly into the house from inside there & you’re good to go.
As Chuck said, this is a real investment, don’t go off half cocked & just buy one. After 4 days though…go to a frakkin hotel at this point. It’s not worth continuing to stay there until you have power.
BTW, Thot, a phaser set to heavy stun will nicely heat a stack of rocks, providing radiant heat long enough for you to survive until you’re beamed aboard.
It’s one of the largish countries, you know. We’re a bit more spread out.
Good gods, man. Let her out!
I’m not sure what the temps are there now, but usually ice storms are often followed by relatively warm weather. Blocks of dry ice in the freezer is a better idea (along with opening it rarely) but you need a thermometer to trust it.
Don’t run the cooktop or oven for heat. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer, and the cooktop causes more fires than you’d imagine – without really contributing significantly to heating.
Don’t run the stove tops, but the oven is fine for a few hours at a time. You don’t kill yourself roasting a turkey, after all. Still, that’s more of an emergency measure than a comfort thing.
Run the water periodically, too. You’ve got days of subzero temps before you normally have to worry about burst pipes, but better to be safe.
Seriously, what is the German solution (bad pun not intended)? I heard on the BBS that Germany is seriously looking into alternative energy solutions…
Thot - the hub wants me to tell you to get one that runs on natural gas and can be tied in to your existing natural gas line. Evidently not having to run outside in sub-zero to fill the generator with gasoline is a good thing. 
LOL. I never thot of that!! Plus I’ve got this nice red shirt to keep me warm.
Wait a sec…there’s something about red shirts… (It’s 10:15 am and still no power 
)
I mean if you are dealing with Blackouts regularly than i would say yes. but if its a once every year or two kind of thing. just plan for that with food warm blankets and someones place you can go; instead of a machine you’ll use twice and let sit for months and months. than one day who knows when you hope will still work.
Its the same deal up here in northern Canada in the summer when it gets very hot (for about 2 weeks) people flock out to get Air conditioners. I like to call it the “Southern city Snowblower effect” ™ Basically when a large city not used to snow gets a freak storm they all go out a buy snowblowers. and than never really use them again. or vice versa with cold
So to sum up if this is a regular occurance or you cannot in any other way keep yourselves warm and protected from the elements. Than you might have too but mostly its just gonna sit in your garage for a very long time.
My mother is extremely lucky to have purchased a house on the same grid as the town’s Emergency Operations Center- the office that manages major storms and such. Even after a hurricane made landfall in the town just a few miles north, we still had power the next day.
If you can’t swing an arrangement like that, Thot, my next suggestion is to buy plane tickets rather than a generator. Like various others have said, a generator is a very large expense that you will use 1-2 times, if ever. On the other hand, when that rare storm that closes everything down for a week passes through, airports are generally operating again in 48 hours. Grab your laptop, the wife and kids, and do some work in whatever location is cheapest and above freezing.
Ok, that’s not practical at all. I give up. Move slightly south.
Oh, and here is a lesson from my childhood redneck neighbors about when you should not buy a generator, and just use less frakking power:
They put together an annual Christmas lights extravaganza which required town permits because they put up PVC arches of lights over the road. They had all kinds of light-up, blow-up, mechanical singing and dancing lawn crap that you can imagine- lots of it with tasteful Florida themes like flamingo-Santa! To power this monstrosity of holiday spirit, they all bought generators, because if they didn’t, the mere act of running a hair dryer would short out and entire house.
First of all, thanks so much every one for your awesome advice on this. This Hive Mind thing really works. As you may have heard in another thread, our electricity finally did come back on today around 11 am. Ahh…so nice to have life back to normal.
I wish we had thot of that the first day. After two days everything in the fridge and the freezer was pretty much riuned and we had to dump everything except condiments --things like ketchup, mustard etc. But then when came back today we had to dump even those. Plus we have a 2nd freezer in the basement which was doing fine the first couple days, but after 5 days all that was ruined too—about $200 plus worth of ruined food altogether I’d say. Now if I had know the first day that we’d be out of power for so long it would have been a no brainer to just put the food outside (worst that could have happened would be the food freezing). But at the time, you never expect the power to be out so long.
Yeah, that’s the conclusion I came to. Not really worth it for my situation. In a typical winter we maybe lose power 2, at most three times—and almost never for longer than 24 hours. It’s been two years such the last over-24-hour power outage around here.
All good advice. We’re fortunate because we have a fireplace, and there’s of course, nothing wrong with a fire in a fireplace. On Friday and Saturday night, when the temps where below 20 degrees, we stayed warm by sleeping in the family room with a fire going all night. But some idiots in NH did do stupid things like build a fire in the house without a fireplace.
I agree using the cooktop for heat is a bad idea. But it is so handy to have a gas-stove and not an electric stove when your power goes out. We were still able to cook on the stove, and boil water—and we even boiled water to make hot water for taking baths. We’re also lucking in that we’re on town water, so we still have running water when the power goes out.
Yeah, that’s the conclusion we came too. A lot of folks in town (and State wide) flocked like lemmings to Home Depot and other places to buy a generator. I couldn’t see spending at minimun $500 for something I may never use, and will have to maintain (I have enough trouble keeping my lawnmower and snowblower tuned up).
Geez, what has GWC come to these days? Back in the day you couldn’t get away with “a bit more spread out” without Galaxy Ranger coming in with a IYKWIM.
Yeah, the bursting pipes thing was our big fear. But things worked out. The days that it was freezing we were home and runing water all the time. And when we left to stay at my sister’s house for two nights, we left the water running at a trickle—but by the then the temps had shot up to 40s, and even high 50s.
That’s something to think about. Tell your hub thanks for the idea.
I’m not sure what I’ll do to prepare for the next time. A co-worker of mine lives in Florida during the winter, and he said I could go to his place in Massachusetts and borrow his generator any time I want. So I’m more likely to do that than to buy my own.
Yeah, that’s the smart choice I’d say. As I said, we’ve got a fireplace—access to water, etc. And power outages don’t happen that often. Still, the whole situation makes one thng: It’s important to have all you disaster plan stuff in place. On Friday—all the stores, for example, immediately sold out of D-batteries (which is what most flashlights use). Other important things: make sure you have radio (it will probably be your only means of getting information, when your in a “disaster” whatever it is, information is what you need. Also, make sure you have an ordinary non-electronic phone. It sounds like a simple thing. But when you cell battery runs dead, you’ll want that phone. Sorry, you Voice over IP users, your screwed. Amaxing how the regular 100+ year old POTS-phone system works even when all the power is out.
Starbuccaneer!! Great to have you back on the Forum! Haven’t seen you in a while.
We ain’t moving. As I was saying to my wife, this is what we get for living in New England, and it (relatively speaking) it’s not bad. Other parts of the country get Earthquakes, Hurricanes, floods, wildfirres, Tornados—but all we get is cold, snowy winters (and by the way, not all our winters are even all that cold or snowy). And snow and cold (for the months of December to March) is very manageable. And—unless Global Warming truly is changing everything—which may be the case----ice storms like this ones are very rare. A certain combination of conditions has to happen----and we haven’t had a severe ice storm like this since around 1998 (Canada had a big one in 2000 if I recall?).
So yeah, the past five days weren’t ideal. But, when I get right down to it, I can’t honestly say we suffered.
Yeah, we got some of those types in our neighboor now. Me, I just have my pathetic lighted reindeer that bobs his head up and down, and small Charlie-brown like tree with lights, some lights strung over the garage and battery-operated candles in each window.
Okay, so here’s another thing about generators. A lot of idiots are hooking them up wrong and it’s causing problems for the power company workers.
The power company posted this special notice yesterday:
“To protect line workers, a generator should only attach to the house wiring isolated from the utility supply. Without isolation, power that is being generated through the home could also feed into the PSNH electrical system and possibly electrocute a utility worker. Please take care when installing a portable generator.”
So we’ve been piecing together somethings, and we THINK that generators may have been the CAUSE of us not getting our power back sooner. On Saturday night–around 8 pm or so—our power came back on for only a couple minutes and then went out again. And is so happens that that is EXACTLY when about one 1/2 of the neighborhood got their power back permenatly. What we think happened is that, some folks running generators on our side of the street had them hooked up wrong. And that’s why our side of the street didn’t get power back then, but instead got it back not 'til day.
Fraakers.
Anyway, thanks again, all of you for your advice. You’ve saved me hundreds of dollars and stopped me from making a hasty decision.
I don’t think I saw anyone mention this but I thought I would throw it out there. Solar power is making large advances in recent history and is much more cost effective than it ever has before. While it is still much more expensive than a generator there are also tax credits, you can sell the excess back to the power company and can save you money on your electric bill running those major appliances off of it. If you only have a couple outages per year I would say a generator is the best insurance. If it happens more frequently solar power would be a excellent alternative.
We have also scene recently how bad the price of gas can get. When the Revolution :eek: comes gas will also be hard to get at all so it would be nice to have a self sustaining product.
If you have kids there is nothing better than a good old-fashioned Giant Hamster Wheel. It’s great for emergencies and make a good tool for disciplining.
2 things…Thot, the fact that you have city water makes the decision a much easier one. My parents do not have city water. Power goes out, so does the bathroom, IYKWIM. We have had enough storms hit with multi day outages that a small one was worth the investment.
UD…solar power is a great option in sunny areas. It kind of depends on his area whether it’s really worth the investment. There are long stretches of time in the northeast where the idea of solar power is really kinda laughable. Even here in Michigan, there can be multiple days in the winter where we never really see the sun at all. It’s also a good thing when it happens, the cloudcover keeps the temps higher. So, depending on the area in the northeast, solar just really isn’t that practical.
My husband agrees. I have a natural gas generator that runs air, freezer, refrigerator, and power to half the house. We also hooked the natural gas to a spigot to use with our grill. We did this because for medical reasons my husband can not be without electricity. The generator “exercises” once a week and we get it checked once a year. When buying one you have to remember that you may need a building permit since it puts out major power so include all of the installation stuff in your budget.
In Florida we have the schools with generators and are used as shelters. They expect people to be there before the storm since after it you do not know how well you will be able to get around. You would be amazed how fun it is to drive without stop lights. Yes, my area even has generators for major intersections but it takes time to get them set up. The high school that has a greyhound as their mascot also will let you bring your pet as long as you have a cage.
Please if you get the kind of generator that is like having a car engine on a cart please be very careful where you put it. More people die from generator misuse in storms than the storm kills. If you can call on a friend or go to a hotel that is great. My sister took her family to a Disney hotel. The kids had fun inside and the adults did not have to worry about anything. I am off to my mother’s in South Florida. I am getting cold. It is only 50 degrees.