Urban and otherwise "survival"

[DoggyDaddy]

Right. You select the things you definitely want to be able to run and then it will tell you how big a generator you need to do that. Portables will only do so much. For true "whole house" power (as if nothing happened), a standby generator like Generac is probably the way to go, but they're much pricier.

I'm new to this too. Just what I've been finding out recently. I went with the portable only because our power has been pretty stable. This last outage was the longest I can remember. Usually it's maybe 1-4 hours at the most.

 

[gregr]

Right. You select the things you definitely want to be able to run and then it will tell you how big a generator you need to do that. Portables will only do so much. For true "whole house" power (as if nothing happened), a standby generator like Generac is probably the way to go, but they're much pricier.

Of course.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Of course.

For me, the bare minimum would be our two refrigerator/freezers, well pump, and one tv/internet router, and the furnace blower (gas furnace) in the winter time. Water heater and lights would be a bonus, but not a deal breaker.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Just running extension cords gave me the two fridges, tv/internet (two tv's) and a few lights. The only thing I really missed was the well pump, which is hardwired, so I'd need a transfer switch to be able to run that.

 

[Creedmoor]

Right. You select the things you definitely want to be able to run and then it will tell you how big a generator you need to do that. Portables will only do so much. For true "whole house" power (as if nothing happened), a standby generator like Generac is probably the way to go, but they're much pricier.

The last hurricane that I went through in Md my house on the farm was total electric at that time. I have a Miller Bobcat 250 welder generator, that's 10,000 watts of 240 & 120 volt output.
With heat pump at 68* I was burning about 42 to 50 dollars a day ( 14 - 16 hrs ) in gasoline, I recall gas being just over $3.50 a gallon. I also have a Honda 650 watt super quiet and a Honda 2,500 watt generator.
We didn't get power service back for 16 days, you learn quickly to run smaller gen sets and rotate when necessary.

 

[Leadeye]

How do you store water? I`ve read keeping water in plastic containers, the water leaches out bad stuff.

Having been in the industrial chemical business my entire life I would not worry about plastic contamination of water storage. Bacterial contamination of stored water is another matter, but can be dealt with in various ways.

 

[gregr]

Having been in the industrial chemical business my entire life I would not worry about plastic contamination of water storage. Bacterial contamination of stored water is another matter, but can be dealt with in various ways.

Even if stored in heat, like an un-cooled garage?

 

[Leadeye]

Even if stored in heat, like an un-cooled garage?

The mobile parts of a plastic compound are typically the plastizer. I store rainwater in plastic tanks for use by the gardener and would have no issue with the water after treatment by boiling, halazone, iodine etc. Health issues from plasticizers like pthalates are personal injury lawyer fiction. Hospitals still use them in the bags and tubes you get IV from which says something about the veracity of those claims.

 

[manifest destiny]

The mobile parts of a plastic compound are typically the plastizer. I store rainwater in plastic tanks for use by the gardener and would have no issue with the water after treatment by boiling, halazone, iodine etc. Health issues from plasticizers like pthalates are personal injury lawyer fiction. Hospitals still use them in the bags and tubes you get IV from which says something about the veracity of those claims.

I'll just add that the "scary" plasticizers are only being used/consumed briefly. If one is concerned about surviving a day or two, up to maybe a few weeks or months, any valid threat from plasticizer leakage isn't going to amount to much. Yes, perhaps the stored water has sat in the plasitc tanks for months/years. But isn't one only comsuming it in small/limited quantities during a recoverable emergency? If the emergency is mushroom clouds/mole people, yucky plastics will be pretty low on my uh-oh list.

 

[bobzilla]

We have a 10.5k gen with a 6 circuit connection box wired into the breaker box. We have it set up to habdle the fridge, well, water heater and kitchen outlets to run microwave, griddle etc. heat in case of power ohtage is covered by the 36k btu propane fireplace. Gen is not quiet, but it works well.

 

[firecadet613]

There are a number of sites out there with usage calculators to help you size the generator you want.

This one is pretty good with the basics.

What Size Portable Generator Do I Need? | Briggs & Stratton

Whether for home, work or play, discover what portable generator size you need with Briggs & Stratton's portable generator sizing tool.

www.briggsandstratton.com

I bought a Predator 9000 from Harbor Freight Friday when our power was out (about 26 hours). It should power most everything in our house except for AC. You just don't want to overload it by having a lot of things starting up at once or running at once. My main concerns are refrigerators (2), gas furnace blower in the winter, lights, and well pump.

Lowe's sells an inlet box. You can wire it to your panel and buy an interlock kit on Amazon. (Just noticed you said the 9000, not 9500, which is an inverter generator). Add a soft start kit to your A/C and it'll run that as well.

You're a few hundred bucks and a couple of hours of being able to run everything with that generator - light switches and all.

My 9500 just ran 62 hours straight without a hiccup, for the second time this year. If we get another long duration outage in the near future, a whole house may be in my future...

 

[bobzilla]

We bought ours when we would lose power at least once or twice a month because of old lines. Bought the genny and hooked up the box and then they replaced all the lines and we’ve been 2 hours without power for the last 5 years lol

 

[manifest destiny]

My 9500 just ran 62 hours straight without a hiccup, for the second time this year. If we get another long duration outage in the near future, a whole house may be in my future...

Harbor Freight 9500? If so, have you ran it extensively before your recent 62hrs straight? Any shortcomings for that particular genset? The older I get the more Pittsburg and Bauer show up on my tools. But I'm leary of HF gennies, long-term, parts for, etc.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Lowe's sells an inlet box. You can wire it to your panel and buy an interlock kit on Amazon. (Just noticed you said the 9000, not 9500, which is an inverter generator).

You're a few hundred bucks and a couple of hours of being able to run everything with that generator - light switches and all.

Mine just ran 62 hours straight without a hiccup, for the second time this year. If we get another long duration outage in the near future, a whole house may be in my future...

In my case I only wanted to run a few choice things. And my house is VERY compact; all plumbing on one wall, and both fridges are virtually stacked on each other along that wall.
So I installed an inlet box like this wired directly into the back of a quad surface box on the back wall.:
Amazon product ASIN B09GXGMCSG

I just upgraded mine tonight by stubbing out conduit across the outside wall into the common garage wall, where I connected a duplex outlet so I dont have to run an electrical cord through the man door to the chest freezer in the garage. I just have to move the cord from the utility outlet to the generator outlet.

 

[firecadet613]

We bought ours when we would lose power at least once or twice a month because of old lines. Bought the genny and hooked up the box and then they replaced all the lines and we’ve been 2 hours without power for the last 5 years lol

I like those odds!

 

[firecadet613]

Harbor Freight 9500? If so, have you ran it extensively before your recent 62hrs straight? Any shortcomings for that particular genset? The older I get the more Pittsburg and Bauer show up on my tools. But I'm leary of HF gennies, long-term, parts for, etc.

Do some research on it, they come highly recommended (surprisingly).

I had the 3500 for a few years at my last house and only ran it a few minutes a month to exercise it.

When they released the 9500 I bought one, again, never really used it until we moved.

I did a few hours of break in and changed the oil. It ran 56ish or so hours straight a few months ago when those tornadoes came through southern Indiana without a hiccup.

I changed the oil and then run it 30 minutes every month to exercise it. Then she started up Thursday evening, nonstop until Sunday afternoon. Even the pouring rain didn't phase it...

I bought this new for just under $2,000. Actually owned two for a while as we bought a second place and I wanted one at each place.

It's $2,499 now.... but give it a few weeks it's sure to go on sale again soon.

 

[bobzilla]

This is similar to what we have for ours:
6-circuit transfer switch

 

[firecadet613]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004HSO1JW?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09QLVVCPP?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

[Cameramonkey]

We bought ours when we would lose power at least once or twice a month because of old lines. Bought the genny and hooked up the box and then they replaced all the lines and we’ve been 2 hours without power for the last 5 years lol

Our power is out less than that. which is why it took me forever to actually buy a generator. Hard to justify a generator when your power is never out longer than 5 mins, generally. This was barely under an hour this time.

Oh, we did lose it for 4 hours last week. Planned outage while they trimmed trees that were apparently WAY too close to the lines .

Not including last week, I think Ive got MAYBE 7 hours of downtime in 19 years. One 6 hour outage and a bunch of 1-5 minute outages.

 

[manifest destiny]

Do some research on it, they come highly recommended (surprisingly).

I had the 3500 for a few years at my last house and only ran it a few minutes a month to exercise it.

When they released the 9500 I bought one, again, never really used it until we moved.

I did a few hours of break in and changed the oil. It ran 56ish or so hours straight a few months ago when those tornadoes came through southern Indiana without a hiccup.

I changed the oil and then run it 30 minutes every month to exercise it. Then she started up Thursday evening, nonstop until Sunday afternoon. Even the pouring rain didn't phase it...

I bought this new for just under $2,000. Actually owned two for a while as we bought a second place and I wanted one at each place.

It's $2,499 now.... but give it a few weeks it's sure to go on sale again soon.

Yeah, I read reviews, just looking for genuine experiences. I've slowly been talking myself into a PTO driven genny. HF has one listed at $2k but it would run my whole house more/less. Among its flaws is that it lacks inverter, so a/c units might be finicky. My other concern is that I might need the tractor to tend to whatever the 'disaster' might be thus using the tractor's PTO for house power might be conflicting. The red was my other concern but you've addressed it. Thanks for the feedback.