Dead Water Heater, Power Outages and Generators Oh My!

[Barbisi]

Well, that settles it- we will eventually be oh so glad we bought these when the power actually does go out, probably when we least expect it, LOL!

[shipo]

Murphy is in play--you have generators so there will be no outages haha! Or at least none for a very long time!

Yeah the wind does it for sure: Wind plus weak tree limbs, dead standing trees as well.

We bought our last house in 2002; shortly after moving in our neighbors told us they'd had several power outages, and after having been without power for 5 days when we lived in New Jersey due to Hurricane Floyd, I decided to buy a generator for the new house. The rest of 2002 came and went with virtually no generator usage, as did the years 2003 through most of 2008; during that time our neighbors occasionally teased us with having done the generator thing, and by the end of 2008 I think I'd gotten a total of 6 hours of usage out of it.

Then in December of 2008 we had a really nasty ice storm which took down something like 50 line segments between our house and the closest point on the grid with power; we were 8 days without power, right before Christmas. The next thing I knew, a number of the very same neighbors who'd teased me about having a generator were asking us for help in doing the wiring cheat I'd done on our home. Needless to say, I didn't get teased any longer.

[Zombie13]

Yeah the wind does it for sure: Wind plus weak tree limbs, dead standing trees as well.

[Carmella]

Murphy is in play--you have generators so there will be no outages haha! Or at least none for a very long time!

[Barbisi]

Thank you Carmella .
Yes, I'm much better now and so far, (knock on wood!) the power hasn't gone out once since we bought those generators, so we'll see.
The weather is pretty mild here apart from some heavy rain , a few inches of snow in late November and "black ice" last Friday.
I think high wind is what causes outages here.
Happy New Year!

[Carmella]

Barbisi I hope you are feeling better and the pneumonia is clearing up. I know nothing about generators and my husband knows even less. Luckily my neighbor knows about them and the last time we had an outage (which, knock on wood, doesn't last very long maybe 6 hours) he ran an extension cord through my window and he even had a few extension cords through my backyard to my other neighbor's window. We could only use a space heater a lamp the TV, we also had the router or whatever it's called hooked up LOL.

Yes our houses are pretty close together.

[Zombie13]

Yep all that'll do it.
These were on sale at Lowes: Westinghouse; both 33% off. One is a 4500W inverter, for 'clean 60 Hz sinusoidal power' - for sensitive electronics such as computers etc. The other is a 9500W 'reglar' generator for refrigerators, lights, etc. We have heard of frequent long power outages out here.

[Barbisi]

UPDATE : So far, the electricity hasn't gone out and the two different generators (I'll let Zombie13 explain exactly what kind each is- I'm afraid that's above my current pay grade, LOL!) on the way to us and should arrive by Monday.
As for my loopiness, I'm still a little off but am slowly I hope, getting better. Pneumonia is no joke even though it not nearly as bad or life-threatening as COVID-19 would be. I have had sinusitis many times and bronchitis three times, but I had never had real pneumonia before.
Luckily at my age, it's not so common and usually isn't too dangerous if treated promptly. I believe the earlier bout with the nearby toxic wildfire smoke coupled with the heating oil furnace powered by filthy air ducts (the technician said the 26-year-old house had never been cleaned once) was a perfect storm for my already weakened immune system. (I.e., six months of continuous stress, double moves, changing air quality, etc. just compromised my system too much for me to handle well.)
Well, what can go awry next?

[Zombie13]

shipo - yeah that makes sense. Though since we are renting, and in 1997, this house burned to the ground (and was rebuilt), I think I may just use extension cables.
Barbisi - yep, *IF* we buy a house again, indeed!

[shipo]

No worries Barbisi, get better (and less loopy) soon!

[Barbisi]

Zombie13, I think you should qualify that statement of "when we buy a house....., etc." with "if we buy.....etc." after those two residence fiascos! Buying another house is the last thing on my mind right here and now.
Sorry shipo , I didn't mean you rented a horse stable to live in , rather I meant you rented an apartment in exchange for taking care of the horses and their stables, which is hardly a luxury setup. I contracted pneumonia 2 weeks ago from what I suspect is the filthy air ducts, which only got cleaned after I was on very strong antibiotics last week. I 've been loopy ever since , LOL!

[shipo]

The other option would be to buy/make a flexible extension cord long enough to run from your dryer plug to outside where the generator will go. If you take this option, there will be no rewiring, simply turn off the dryer, turn off the service from the street, plug in the generator and then flip the dryer breaker back on; instant power to the whole house without rewiring anything.

[Zombie13]

To clarify, the video discusses functionality exactly as you have described with the dryer circuit, except it involves the main breaker. The whole home cannot be powered, but rather, you have to pick and choose what you use, and you need to calculate power usage of each intended item beforehand.

[Zombie13]

Good to know shipo . When we own a home again, we can talk to an electrician about it. I did watch a youtube video last night which supported the possibility of powering the home: main breaker goes off, generator breaker and connected outlet come on. Fortunately as renters we don't have to deal with the expense and such. Now, the landlord is replacing the water heater, which is of course his obligation. I think, when we leave, and he preps this house, it will be modernized, dependent on available utilities in this neck of the woods. For example, there is no natural gas here, which is interesting. Oh and one internet provider could only offer 6 Mbps download speed... wow lol.

[Barbisi]

shipo , since we are only renting, we would need to obtain the landlord's permission before we rewired his circuit breaker box. And since he is a land developer, his chief concern is to keep his as- is house in rent -worthy shape- that is why we payed for the portable air conditioners, air duct cleaning, etc.
Our "comfort" is not his concern, LOL! (Remember when you rented the horse cleaning stable during your BK13?)
Frankly, the main reason we rented this fixer-upper rambler was because of our post-BK13 score. He checked our credit and didn't mind and also didn't care about 3 cats and the old dingy, stained carpet and nail holes in the walls.
In less than two years our credit will better than most and we will have our pick of the rental market.