How do you prep for future power outages?

[Toyboy]

Automatic whole house generator here also except mine runs on natural gas.

 

[ponytug]

FWIW: We live in an area with fires, and earthquakes, so we have the potential to be without power for weeks in little to no notice. Belt and suspenders rule here. We have a primary backup diesel, with some just in case gasoline backup backup generators if the diesel fails (which it has done)

• 6500W diesel, 120/240 with 15-20 gallons of readily accessible fuel, plus 75 gal more if we need it.
• 4kw gasoline, 120/240
• 5kw gasoline 120 backup, with 40gal fuel.

All fuels get preservative as soon as they get on site. The diesel fuel gets cetane booster/lubricity additive, gasoline (89 (R+M) mid grade) gets Stabil, or its equivalent. They are all stored in metal, sealed, cans which helps keep it fresh. I run the gasoline generators dry when I'm done with them. All the gasoline is 10% ethanol, but I haven't had any issues.

Prime backup will soon be solar with batteries. Dealing with generators to keep the internet up for "work from home" aka "living at work" got old, and we need to keep the water running for the livestock. The local utility has become rather unreliable, as I close to 14 days of outages last year, with no major weather / fire /earthquake causes. Everywhere else that I have lived the utility got more reliable with time, but not here.

YMMV...

All the best,

Peter

 

[airbiscuit]

just another day with a good book wearing longies, a sweater, Winter coat, and stocking cap.

I read your post too quickly. i thought you said "Just another day with a good look wearing longies, a sweater, Winter coat, and stocking cap."

 

[Sigarms]

Flashlights, lots of water, and good coolers for anything in the freezer that could spoil has worked well the past 15 years

 

[Doofy]

LED Lanterns with today's long-life batteries are great additions to your survival kit.

 

[the old grind]

I read your post too quickly. i thought you said "Just another day with a good look wearing longies, a sweater, Winter coat, and stocking cap."

You flatter me, Good Sir! btw, I look my best under several blankets.

 

[deserteagle71]

For the short outages, especially during the winter, a little Honda 2kw to at least power the pellet stove (biggest reason I miss my wood stove). When it sounds like the outage will last a while, I hook on to my trailer with the big Miller welder/generator on it and bring it over to my power panel. When I built this place the power panel was designed so that welder/generator couid plug in to it and take over supplying power to the whole place...as long as I didn't run out of gasoline.

 

[two_bit_score]

Secondary heat source is preferable. A must if your primary is electric.

Fuel up ahead of time.

Keep some extra food handy and rotate it for freshness.

Don’t let the ammo supply get too low either.

 

[ronjhall]

I have a 12KW whole house generator on natural gas.. Got to use it for 16 hours last month. Also have wood stove that I have gas logs in it for heat. Take about 10 minutes to convert it back to wood. Always have about 30 days of food in house. May not be fresh but it will keep me nourished.

 

[groundcover]

Of the mind set that one is none and two is one. Three wood stoves, added an 80 gallon pressure tank to the water system, then there's the generators. 8K welder/generator, 6K diesel, 6.5 Honda inverter and a couple of Honda 2K's.
Three big guys plumbed into manual hole house transfer switch (one at a time), redundancy is a good thing !
They plug in in detached garage, welder has pipe through metal plate so it can stay inside,( heats garage nicely during a storm !) Don't hear them from the house , really don't knot the power is off .
LP range and tankless hot water heater. Gas jobs stored with VP fuels SEF 94, keep 20 gallons of non ethanol and couple hundred diesel usually available.
Usually good for a doozy ice storm every ten years, outage for a week or two and the the more common trees /wires outages from wind and or snow good for a few hours.
Have seen some very High end homes that thought they were all set fall back to third world conditions when their fancy whole house systems failed ! Had a voltage regulator fail on a high end Generac LP liquid cooled 1800 rpm during an ice storm. Elderly couple with a dog that were not leaving ! After a day of cutting our way up their mountain drive I hooked my diesel rig into their transfer switch and at least got their heat , water and a few lights going. Finally found a dealer a couple of hours away that knew what I needed and left the part hanging at his back door for me. Got it back together and local guy got me dialed in, next morning one of his technicians came to check if for me , his first words were " YOU GOT PARTS FOR A GENERAC, ON A SUNDAY, DURING AN ICE STORM ??? !!!
Couple of others that mice decided to rewire and went unnoticed, then those that ran out of either LP or oil, who knew you should check those kinds of things every week or two that they run flat out !
Then the look of shock the owners of the whole house rigs got after a week or two of non stop use when the gas bill arrived ! Of course they had a party with less fortunate neighbors stay for the duration, not much conserving !