How do you prep for future power outages?

[Larry Caldwell]

This of course assumes the internet connection to your house stays up. If the outage is widespread, or if the lines are down between you and your ISP's CO, maybe not.

The fiber runs on the power company poles, and this is a wildfire area. The power company is fanatical about trimming trees that could contact the power lines, so the fiber gets the same protection. If everything goes out, that's life. A couple years ago we had a county-wide outage. TV stations and radio stations went down immediately, the telephone land line and the cell towers went down when the backup batteries died.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I run my heater elements at 120, but have both on, not in a wig/wag configuaration. Less calcium buildup.

It's always been the positive note. Good amount of pressure built up in water pressure tank, hot water stays warm a long time. No electricity required to remove sewage (That's a biggie in my book).
So even if I have to start and stop generators in a longer outage, the water issue, isn't.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Reminds me of my last water heater failure. Unfortunately a generator didn't help with that. A number of days followed where I heated my water on the stove for bathing in whatever way made best use of a couple gallons of heated water. Now I'm always mentally casting suspicous glances at the new water heater.

Get one of the old oval style laundry tubs. 7.5 gallons of boiling water on the wood stove tempered with cold water in the tub gives you a pretty decent bath.

 

[SylvainG]

You can drop a kw off your load by swapping the 4600w elements in the water heater to 3600w elements. Recovery is slower, but if your hot water demand is low, it will work fine.

If the water heater has two elements in parallel, simply open the element's service door and disconnect one? You would drop from 4600W to 2400W, only when there is an outage if that works.

Edit: How about if you use a Single Pole Double Throw switch to 'switch' between the return from the other live line or a return line (white wire)? Would this effectively drop the usable power from 4600W to 2400W?

 

[Bullwinkle123]

Get one of the old oval style laundry tubs. 7.5 gallons of boiling water on the wood stove tempered with cold water in the tub gives you a pretty decent bath.

Also useful if I want to film a western movie!

 

[MoKelly]

Also useful if I want to film a western movie!

Man!! I lost a full mouth of soda on that response. Very good response!

MoKelly

 

[LouNY]

25 KW PTO unit, everything works just like the utility was on and actually a bit smoother.

 

[Hay Dude]

Reminds me of my last water heater failure. Unfortunately a generator didn't help with that. A number of days followed where I heated my water on the stove for bathing in whatever way made best use of a couple gallons of heated water. Now I'm always mentally casting suspicous glances at the new water heater.

I have 2 Hot water heaters side by side in my basement. After 35 years in construction, I learned they tend to go belly up at the worst times. At one time I was going to split them and do one side of my home (master bedroom and guest suite) with one and kitchen and kids side of the house on the other. I scrapped the plan and simply use one to preheat and the other to finish heating hot water. Works fantastic and never run out of HW.
I have used this system in my last 2 homes and have shown customers I built homes for this method. They all agree its worth the $1000-$1500 extra on a big project and go for it.
I also always install a sub panel upstairs to reduce # of home runs back to basement panel and put one HVAC in attic for second floor and first floor HVAC in basement.
Lastly, I try to get all customers to install whole house backup while we are under construction. Once i show them it is cheaper to do while under construction, its usually a "go".
Overkill, maybe but I really like it. My customers often are going for more sophisticated mechanicals and saving money on less square feet.

 

[/pine]

I have 2 Hot water heaters side by side in my basement. After 35 years in construction, I learned they tend to go belly up at the worst times. At one time I was going to split them and do one side of my home (master bedroom and guest suite) with one and kitchen and kids side of the house on the other. I scrapped the plan and simply use one to preheat and the other to finish heating hot water. Works fantastic and never run out of HW.
I have used this system in my last 2 homes and have shown customers I built homes for this method. They all agree its worth the $1000-$1500 extra on a big project and go for it.
I also always install a sub panel upstairs to reduce # of home runs back to basement panel and put one HVAC in attic for second floor and first floor HVAC in basement.
Lastly, I try to get all customers to install whole house backup while we are under construction. Once i show them it is cheaper to do while under construction, its usually a "go".
Overkill, maybe but I really like it. My customers often are going for more sophisticated mechanicals and saving money on less square feet.

If the water is already hot why heat it again ?...

Sorry...couldn't resist...!

 

[the old grind]

I heat up gwllons of water at a time and store it in the freezer for just in case.