How much backup are we talking about here? Are we getting a biodiesel transfragahguregjfhnn plant or something? Because I grew up in the south, and gas and diesel don't flow freely in emergencies and also don't store all that well. Everyone bought a generator, then ~25% of gas stations ran dry the next go around. Local to me, that was all of them.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/we...nwa-story.html

I guess a decade later half the stations are empty. It ain't getting any better anytime soon, not with Prez. Biden at the helm axing all our energy independence plans.

I think I should make an emergency keg still. My car actually started easily in -20F weather on ~70%...

 

Any further and you're getting into full on prepper territory. I know little about such things.

I keep enough "rolling stock" of gasoline at my house to bug out half way across the country if needed.
It's also enough gas to power my furnace(with generator) for at least a week.

Honestly, the biggest tragedy would be running out of beer. I don't think i could survive without such essentials.

 

One of my friends picked up one of these last fall
https://generatorbible.com/generator...campaign=email

It is fine to run his well, furnace, fridge and hot water plus other smaller stuff.

I have a big wood stove and a cord of wood as backup, but this year going to finally break down and get a generator. Current plan is for something of similar capacity, but going with propane instead of gasoline - more expensive upfront, but capable of multi-day running on a single fill. My wife is not at all comfortable with small engines and would really struggle to deal with adding gas and restarting.

A surprising(to me) number of folks around me heat with wood, use propane for cooking, hot water and back-up generator.

 

Thanks Brother! I grew up in a hurricane state, so we are always prepared for weird stuff. Oddly enough, we haven't lost power at all through this whole thing. We must have some critical govt thing in our power grid, but I'm not sure what.

Went to the grocery store today. No power there and line was around the building within 10 minutes of opening. And of course only 20 people are allowed in the grocery store at a time because covid. Are you F^CKING kidding me?!?!?!

 

It's nothing conspiratorial, it's just that Austin is a civilized area. I'm speaking from first-hand experience here.

 

The age old trick to overcome fuel shortage is buying an electric generator in the first place.

 

I was thinking one of those big Predator units from HF. Our water and heat are gas, so I just need to power the blower, refrigerator and deep freeze at a minimum. But it'd be nice to have enough to run some lights, the internet stuff and the TV as well.

Looks like you can get a 7500 watt unit for $750. I'm sure it's loud as hell because it's cheap, but a Honda that size is 3-4x more.

They have cancelled rolling blackouts for the moment. The big problem is one of the pumping stations went out and multiple water line breaks, so we are on 15+ hours with no water.

 

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I expect the 3kw inverter predator would run the things you mentioned, and I got mine for $600 on sale. (mine is intended for running the AC on the trailer at the track, but it'll do as an emergency measure too).

--Ian

 

I had a HF 9500W model, but sold it because it was obscenely loud and the power was so dirty it took out some electronics in the house. I replaced it with a Honda inverter. It was stupid expensive, but with the wife working from home on her computer, the noise and 'cleanliness' of the power were essential. The Honda is so quiet, I can hold a conversation at a normal level while standing right next to it when it's running. Another added benefit is that it's fuel injected, so no carb to worry about gumming up by the **** gas nowadays. When you pull a generator out of storage for emergency use, you need to know it will start!

 

The natural gas / propane converted Hondas make some sense as well. Never have to fill the tank. Power is less, however. I think the 2200W is only good for 1800W as motor cannot put out as much power.

 

Intriguing.


As good as these Xi3 tires are, yesterday was the day I looked out the window and said "Nope, I know my car's limits."

That's the first time in five years.

 

That's good to know. Maybe I'll have to up my budget then.

Were the electronics plugged into surge protectors? I've got all my stuff plugged into big battery backups with built-in surge protectors. I'm hesitant to drop a bunch of coin on a generator since in 3.5 years we've only had one instance of the power being off longer than 1 hour. And that was during an ice storm in October that was the first bad one since 2007.

 

No, I will confess that my electronics were not on surge protectors, but I'm not so sure they would have been protected even if they were. I bought that HF model the first year the utilities company (PG&E) started shutting down power during fire season here in CA. I figured it would be fine for a one shot to just get me through that season. Fast forward 3 years and it has become a regular occurrence to have power shut off for days at a time throughout fire season. I was able to sell the HF unit for about 80% of what I paid for it, so it did serve its purpose. If I didn't need such a large size, I would probably have gotten one of the medium size inverter models that Costco is selling (they carry tri-fuel capable models: gasoline, natural gas, propane gas). I really do like having fuel injection though. Maintenance is almost nill.

 

... and guess what just happened at Sears?




I hate water.

 

The "surge protectors" in power strips don't do a whole lot. I mean, there's no reason NOT to use one, but don't expect miracles from a device costing less than a dollar.

--Ian

 

Also, voltage spikes aren't as much a problem from cheap generators as just ugly, noisy waveforms. I don't know the precise reason why cheap generators make ugly power, but they do tend to look like this:

 

I would think a UPS would clean that up with no problems. Thoughts?

 

A UPS?

Lots of UPSes will just outright refuse the incoming power if they see that. Some UPSes are able to be configured such that they will tolerate it, but they won't improve the quality of it, just pass it through.

For that, you need a full-conversion UPS, which is commercial-grade stuff. In that, the inverter runs all the time, and the incoming AC just charges the battery.

 

That was the analysis I was requesting. Thanks.

 

You can build your own full-conversion UPS, if you need / want to.

Start with a big car battery charger. One which will run on shitty power. Hook that up to a car battery. Now, connect a high-quality inverter to the battery, and use it to power the delicate electronics.

I'm not being sarcastic, actually. People have done this, and it's a decent way to clean up bad power for not a huge amount of money. RV supply places sell large inverters for not huge amounts of money. (Some of them are good, some of them are crap.)

Unless you already have an inverter lying around, though, it's probably cheaper (and definitely more efficient) to just buy a "does not suck" generator in the first place.

A lot of newer generators, those advertised as "Inverter Generators" actually function exactly as I described above (without the intermediate 12 volt step.) They produce DC, then use an inverter to make it into AC. Not all inverters naturally produce clean power, either. But it's easier-ish to get close that way.