Master thread for disasters and generators.

[idleprocess]

my dream is to go solar

I've considered this myself, but the economics in my region overwhelmingly favor grid-tie only solar: power is cheap, there's no TOU metering, and 'net metering' is largely nonexistent. For the rare power outage a small generator powering a limited number of circuits is far cheaper than a battery bank.

 

[orbital]

my dream is to go solar

+

That's good raggie,, you just heal up & always get second or third doctor opinion on any surgery.
I'd say that to any friend or family member.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

My fridge/freezer, and freezer are each less than 2 years old.

If I had to cycle the generator on and off, how long, and how often, do you think I would have to run it, to bring the temps back down to safe food temps?

hmmm a little google search says that the average refrigerator runs about 8 hours a day.
That translates into 8 hours ON, and 24 hours minus 8 = 16 hours OFF.

So I guess I can turn the generator OFF for two hours at a time, and then run it for an hour.
Maybe at night when the fridge isn't opened and closed, I can turn the generator off for six hours, and then run it three hours in the morning.

In part I was wondering, how I could help my neighbors. Two out of three of them do not have a generator. SO... I can hook one up with power for a couple of hours, and he should be good for about an additional four, and then power the other neighbor for a couple of hours, and he should be good for about four. Two hours later the gennie can be moved back to the first house.

Sound like it could be a lot of trouble, the best would to just run a cord to the houses and arrange for them to not plug in major appliances till told to so as to not overload the generator with several fridges and other high power devices at the same time.

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Sound like it could be a lot of trouble, the best would to just run a cord to the houses and arrange for them to not plug in major appliances till told to so as to not overload the generator with several fridges and other high power devices at the same time.

When supplying power with an extension chord, the length of the chord and the amperage draw must be taken into consideration to protect the appliance. Motors don't fare well when starved of amps.

Voltage drop also needs to be considered.

 

[orbital]

+

Nearly obsessive on getting the thickest gauge wire for whatever I'm doing.

It's worth the investment, in my opinion.


(able to get it in any length locally, I use welding cable w/ my DC inverters):huh:

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Our sons drag them out for Christmas illumination. I get to clean and put them away.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I've considered this myself, but the economics in my region overwhelmingly favor grid-tie only solar: power is cheap, there's no TOU metering, and 'net metering' is largely nonexistent. For the rare power outage a small generator powering a limited number of circuits is far cheaper than a battery bank.

For me there are several problems with solar here.
1)We have hail that could damage panels
2)Batteries are required to use solar yourself (not sell it back to the Electric company) and these batteries have a lifespan that reqiures you to replace them which can drive down savings.
3)Cloudy days hamper solar production which we have a lot of here.
4)No state subsidy on Solar here, many who invest in solar do so because they are essentially "paid" (subsidized) either by the electric company (selling power at high rates) or a tax incentive which helps to pay for solar setups more quickly than having to use them for 10-15 years to break even.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Our sons drag them out for Christmas illumination. I get to clean and put them away.

I have a few cords myself, mostly from the families Christmas lights which with LEDs now you don't need nearly as heavy of cords to suffice.
If you have to run a cord 150 feet to a neighbors house you may think about even 8 gauge cord when trying to fire up a neighbors large fridge.

 

[Poppy]

I didn't realize how often or how long refrigerators need to be run to maintain temperatures, and I don't know the same for heating systems. This was a little bit of an eye opener for me.

Most of my extension cords are 12 gauge. I have 2 or 3 100' and a few 50' ones. I'm aware of voltage drop, and have only one 14 gauge 100' cord, that I use for Christmas lights, or the leaf blower.

If I am powering my neighbors, I'll strap the gennie to a hand truck and wheel it back and forth between the houses.

I think that 10 gauge cords have twist lock connectors, so I would need an adapter to plug a refrigerator into it.

LOL... I'm starting to think that maybe, they should just get their own generator set.

 

[idleprocess]

A tad outside of the scope of this thread, however...

1)We have hail that could damage panels

Much like roofs also succumbing to hail, that's what homeowners' insurance is for.

2)Batteries are required to use solar yourself (not sell it back to the Electric company) and these batteries have a lifespan that reqiures you to replace them which can drive down savings.
3)Cloudy days hamper solar production which we have a lot of here.

The economics in my region (and likely yours as well) dictate a grid-tie system designed around bill reduction. As such solar is best treated as a producing asset that averages X kWh per week in a given season. Ideally, the inverter is on the panel side of the meter, production 'makes the meter spin backwards', the system is sized for peak loads during the season of lowest demand, thus you're not counting on a check from the utility generated via mystery meat accounting and substituting a consistent slice of your electrical bill for payments on the array until it's paid off.

Adding a battery bank is a great way to double or more the cost of the system and introduce additional maintenance expenses. The main place a battery bank makes much sense is truly offgrid or in a situation where commercial power is extremely unreliable and routinely running a generator is more expensive than maintenance on a battery bank.

4)No state subsidy on Solar here, many who invest in solar do so because they are essentially "paid" (subsidized) either by the electric company (selling power at high rates) or a tax incentive which helps to pay for solar setups more quickly than having to use them for 10-15 years to break even.

The federal subsidy has been a thing for some time. All utilities are required to accept and compensate backfeed from distributed generation systems that meet minimum safety standards; the compensation they offer can range from compensation for each kWH at retail rates (net metering) priced at what they're worth at the moment (Time-Of-Use or TOU) to refunding some fraction of the wholesale value of the electricity less byzantine accounting fees. I'm not personally aware of anything more advantageous to the typical homeowner-level solar array than net metering + TOU, but I've mostly looked at the laws in CA (because there's an abundance of literature on them), and TX which does not much incentivize installations.

Payback times using with a bill reduction logic is indeed >15 years every time I've crunched the numbers in my area, thus I've not pursued the matter in spite of miraculous claims by local installation firms.

................................

I didn't realize how often or how long refrigerators need to be run to maintain temperatures, and I don't know the same for heating systems. This was a little bit of an eye opener for me.

Most of my extension cords are 12 gauge. I have 2 or 3 100' and a few 50' ones. I'm aware of voltage drop, and have only one 14 gauge 100' cord, that I use for Christmas lights, or the leaf blower.

If I am powering my neighbors, I'll strap the gennie to a hand truck and wheel it back and forth between the houses.

I think that 10 gauge cords have twist lock connectors, so I would need an adapter to plug a refrigerator into it.

LOL... I'm starting to think that maybe, they should just get their own generator set.

My thinking for powering the immediate neighbor is an extension cord that has a low-amperage breaker (10A or less) on a box near the plug on my end with no more than 50' going over the fence to their place so they won't pull enough to overload my genset running a big space heater or window unit.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

A tad outside of the scope of this thread, however...


Much like roofs also succumbing to hail, that's what homeowners' insurance is for.

Not sure solar panels are included in normal homeowners' insurance or not, it may be an added charge

The economics in my region (and likely yours as well) dictate a grid-tie system designed around bill reduction. As such solar is best treated as a producing asset that averages X kWh per week in a given season. Ideally, the inverter is on the panel side of the meter, production 'makes the meter spin backwards', the system is sized for peak loads during the season of lowest demand, thus you're not counting on a check from the utility generated via mystery meat accounting and substituting a consistent slice of your electrical bill for payments on the array until it's paid off.

I'm sure they would allow backfeeding, but power here is cheaper than most areas due to state natural gas and oil resources

Adding a battery bank is a great way to double or more the cost of the system and introduce additional maintenance expenses. The main place a battery bank makes much sense is truly offgrid or in a situation where commercial power is extremely unreliable and routinely running a generator is more expensive than maintenance on a battery bank.

power here used to be finicky but since 2007 ice storm it has been rather reliable so the expense and hassle of maintaining a generator is not much of a temptation.

The federal subsidy has been a thing for some time. All utilities are required to accept and compensate backfeed from distributed generation systems that meet minimum safety standards; the compensation they offer can range from compensation for each kWH at retail rates (net metering) priced at what they're worth at the moment (Time-Of-Use or TOU) to refunding some fraction of the wholesale value of the electricity less byzantine accounting fees. I'm not personally aware of anything more advantageous to the typical homeowner-level solar array than net metering + TOU, but I've mostly looked at the laws in CA (because there's an abundance of literature on them), and TX which does not much incentivize installations.

Payback times using with a bill reduction logic is indeed >15 years every time I've crunched the numbers in my area, thus I've not pursued the matter in spite of miraculous claims by local installation firms.

Some states have had tax breaks for the cost of the solar system which can pay perhaps 25% or more of the cost making it take less time to pay itself off perhaps from 15 to 12 years or less even. Likely if you had batteries they would have to be replaced 2-4 times over the years adding further to the cost. If I were to build a house I probably would consider a solar system, 2 of them even as solar water heating is probably more efficient than electric power generation. I've decided that since in my lifetime no more than 3-5 days for power outages going without power vs investing in a rarely used generator is a no brainer. I have invested in 12vdc and 5vdc entertainment and chargers for both voltages including car charging. I would have to have longer than a few days outage more than once every 15+ years to find the loss of some food and sweating in the summer a problem.

 

[idleprocess]

Not sure solar panels are included in normal homeowners' insurance or not, it may be an added charge

Professor Google suggests it's a standard coverage item with most insurers.

I'm sure they would allow backfeeding

As far as I know it's been a federal requirement to allow safe, permitted backfeeding for decades.

but power here is cheaper than most areas
[...]
power here used to be finicky but since 2007 ice storm it has been rather reliable so the expense and hassle of maintaining a generator is not much of a temptation.
[...]
I've decided that since in my lifetime no more than 3-5 days for power outages going without power vs investing in a rarely used generator is a no brainer. I have invested in 12vdc and 5vdc entertainment and chargers for both voltages including car charging. I would have to have longer than a few days outage more than once every 15+ years to find the loss of some food and sweating in the summer a problem.

It's a decision you have to make for yourself with many variables to account for.

My situation is work from home. The events of the 2nd week of February merely strengthened the case for a modest home backup power situation - and as of last week I no longer have an office to trek to. While I can cut it to the absolute minimum and hotspot off the phone, LTE quickly becomes near-useless when the power goes out and it's not advisable to go squat in a public setting due to the nature of my work. It's also becoming an interesting project.

I don't expect that maintenance on a couple of portable inverter generators will prove any more challenging than other outdoor power equipment.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Professor Google suggests it's a standard coverage item with most insurers.


As far as I know it's been a federal requirement to allow safe, permitted backfeeding for decades.


It's a decision you have to make for yourself with many variables to account for.

My situation is work from home. The events of the 2nd week of February merely strengthened the case for a modest home backup power situation - and as of last week I no longer have an office to trek to. While I can cut it to the absolute minimum and hotspot off the phone, LTE quickly becomes near-useless when the power goes out and it's not advisable to go squat in a public setting due to the nature of my work. It's also becoming an interesting project.

I don't expect that maintenance on a couple of portable inverter generators will prove any more challenging than other outdoor power equipment.

If you work from home it is possible you could write off the expense of a backup power source as without power you cannot work.

 

[Poppy]

<SNIP>

My thinking for powering the immediate neighbor is an extension cord that has a low-amperage breaker (10A or less) on a box near the plug on my end with no more than 50' going over the fence to their place so they won't pull enough to overload my genset running a big space heater or window unit.

idleprocess,
I thought that was a great idea, and wondered what a project it would be to build a breaker box for an extension cord, then it struck me...
A power strip with a 10A breaker!

 

[turbodog]

FYI, I know enough about breakers to know they are not all the same. Some trip more easily than others. Some are made to operate at or near their capacity for long periods of time.

Worked with some specialty breakers getting a whole-house on-demand ELECTRIC water heater working. Used (4) 40 amp breakers at 240v... or 38KVA of power. Normal breakers from home depot would trip. Had to get some fancy type I can't remember.

People forget that fuses are still a thing and are sometimes more desirable than breakers.

A 10 amp breaker takes more than 10a to trip, how much more depends on time and the amount over 10a.

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

FYI, I know enough about breakers to know they are not all the same. Some trip more easily than others. Some are made to operate at or near their capacity for long periods of time.

People forget that fuses are still a thing and are sometimes more desirable than breakers.

A 10 amp breaker takes more than 10a to trip, how much more depends on time and the amount over 10a.

Also worth stating, there are slow-burn and fast-burn fuses ....... something I just learned last week at the ripe old age of 64. Makes sense now that I think about it. :thinking:

 

[turbodog]

Fuses are to protect equipment. Breakers protect wiring.

Trying to 'loan' power to a neighbor is nice, but difficult. Also... when your generator surges and blows up the electronic control in their fridge, tv, computer, etc... that might be a difficult conversation.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I agree with TD here..... unless you are "managing" the connection of devices in your neighbors house there is a temptation for them to plug everything possible in and have kids not thinking and plugging in a hairdryer or microwave oven and BLAM.... they have a brownout that could damage things including your generator.

 

[idleprocess]

FYI, I know enough about breakers to know they are not all the same. Some trip more easily than others. Some are made to operate at or near their capacity for long periods of time.

Former co-worker of mine was an electrician in a previous career and had witnessed many a GE breaker fail to even protect wiring - relayed a few incidents where wires had gotten so hot the insulation melted off while the breakers merrily did nothing - probably looking something like this.

 

[orbital]

+

Several years ago I switched my home & auto insurance together, all was good and I was happy with my rates.
About a month later I got a letter form my insurer that I needed to replace my breaker box with a new 200A unit.

I thought; that's great, I get this after setting up my contract.

Talked to my agent & he agreed that the old breaker box in my house was a well documented fire hazard.
>>> it failed to trip when it was very much supposed to.

Anyway, told this to a friend of mine & he asked me if I installed the new 200A breaker box myself, the short answer is nope

At one time there were two electrician trucks, a WE Energies truck & a building inspector vehicle in my drive (maybe 5 or 6 professionals in the field)
..I'll pass on doing that myself.