Dead Water Heater, Power Outages and Generators Oh My!

[shipo]

The problem with the L-Type switches is they only work for a few circuits in the home, by feeding the entire panel via the dryer circuit, you get to pick and choose what parts of the house are on and when.

[Zombie13]

That is a cool idea. We have seen how that can be done, with an L-type switch which toggles between the main breaker and the generator breaker on the breaker panel. But we are renting so we would have to run extension cables into the house to power devices.

[shipo]

Regarding the generator you're looking at; I "cheated" when I set up a generator for our last house. Given our house was wired for an electric clothes dryer, I rigged up a 240 volt switch to flip the dryer circuit from the wiring between the breaker box to the dryer to new wiring out to the garage where I set up a box with the wiring from the switch coming in one side and a very thick flexible cable with a round four prong plug coming out the other side. When we needed the generator I wheeled it outside, fired it up, plugged in the cable, and then flipped off the breaker for the dryer, flipped the switch from dryer to garage, and then flipped the breaker back on.

Given 240 volt breakers feed both sides of your panel, this methodology will allow you to feed electricity to your entire home; the wrinkle here is your generator, as with the one I had, doesn't have anywhere near enough power for high energy use devices (dryers, ovens, A/C units...), so you need to manage what you turn on and when.

[Barbisi]

The funny thing is the water heater in Colorado wasn't in the best condition and one of the realtors suggested cleaning out the sediment by draining and refilling the tank (just as the landlord here did last week) before putting that house on the market. We demurred because of the cost and since we ended up selling to an investor anyway, it didn't turn out to be an issue.
The 30-year-old furnace ended up costing us $3,500 because it was clearly on the brink and barely functioning and the realtor negotiated the discount for the investor in order to facilitate the closing thereby ending any further buyer objections. We still came out with far more than we could have gotten on the open market, given all the outdated appliances and ageing systems.
This house, although attractive on the surface, is really in need of a whole redo and total systems update.
For starters, the overlarge indoor non-working party hot tub, an eyesore relic of the 1990's, will have to be removed somehow from the downstairs' basement floor. (As an "ignorant" layman, I can only imagine what a logistic and physical nightmare that process will be! I can only guess that the entire walkout basement will have to be gutted and totally modernized.)
As Zombie13 has stated many times before, it's not our problem because we are only renting, TG!

[Zombie13]

Well, the water heater is dead. But hey, we don't own the house so Heck yeah! We don't have buy the thing. It has always chugged out nont-clear water; it was drained last week. Saturday morning - the water temp was 180 degrees - I used a thermometer, took a pic, sent to the landlord. Can we say, meltdown? I think it's too late. Sunday morning, no hot water. So the house is getting a new one tomorrow, not on our dime.
Since this area is known for power outages, we are looking at power generators. We saw a Westinghouse one, 4500W peak/3700 nominal power, $750 ($350 off at Lowes). We may use the Capital One card, for the points. Thing is, we will need to run power cables from the generator, to necessary items like the fridge, if we have a long duration outage. Anyone have experience with generators?