When an Inconvenience Becomes an Emergency

[Art]

This is a little addendum to my earlier preparedness post.

I saw on the news yesterday a story about an older lady of modest means who had a local power outage. No big deal right? Well the time her power would come back on kept getting pushed back by the electric provider until it was almost two days. Not only did she loose hundreds of dollars worth of food from her refrigerator/freezer but her insulin. Bad mojo for a diabetic. A little inverter/generator, and I mean itty bitty, along with a gallon or so of fuel would have solved her problem with refrigeration. Old folks that need refrigerated drugs, or C-Pap equipment are vulnerable to this sort of thing and a few hundred dollars for a backup power solution to keep the food (and insulin) cold will pay for itself with the first use.

Where I live the State has "Sales Tax Holidays" for things like school supplies and emergency preparedness items. Among the tax free preparedness items are small generators, I believe the limit is 4,000 or so cranking watts which is much more than this poor lady would have needed.

[Major Tom]

Rolling electrical power outages are going to be the norm thanks to you know who.

[Allen]

Where I live the State has "Sales Tax Holidays" for things like school supplies and emergency preparedness items. Among the tax free preparedness items are small generators, I believe the limit is 4,000 or so cranking watts which is much more than this poor lady would have needed.

Glad to see agencies thinking in this direction. For the elderly they could go a little further though on the generators. Perhaps a loan program since so many people do not maintain their generators and expect them to work perfectly when needed.

[Johnny P]

One of the new inverter generators would be just the ticket for someone like that.

[barretcreek]

My inverter is from an outfit which specializes in them. Keep a deep cycle battery charged and have a small solar panel to recharge. There are small 12v coolers which can keep meds from spoiling.

[Vern Humphrey]

You can buy a small generator for less than the cost of refilling a big freezer. That's what I used to do before I got a propane 48KW backup generator.

[Johnny P]

Somewhat depends on where she lives, and if hers is an isolated rather than a widespread outage. Publicly owned electric utility companies didn't want to serve the rural area as it was expensive to build the powere lines to serve them, so the government stepped in and developed the rural power co-operatives. The territories were divided up, and they remain the same today. Typically the rural power co-operatives don't have the man power to respond immediately to wide spread power outages, but if hers is an isolated case there is no excuse for it. If she is served by one of the typically large publicly owned power companies, she should get in touch with the states Public Service Commissionand file a complaint.

[Merc]

Stand by generators have come a long way. The electrical system at our summer home has always been unreliable. Years ago, the system’s age was the problem. Storms with heavy winds are to blame for for most outages these days. We had a 27 kw Generac stand by generator installed last fall. It’s fully automatic and large enough to fully carry the electric demand of our 200 amp distribution panel and comes on within a few seconds of a power failure. It’s programmed to run for 5 minutes every Saturday at noon to exercise the engine. It sends a message to my cell phone when the test has started and another when the test is finished. It also notifies me when a power failure occurs and another message when power has been restored. The propane tank has a cell phone connection to the supplier and sends a message to come fill our tank when 70% of the gas has been used. The voltage supplied by the generator is free of harmful spikes and harmonic disturbances so it is safe for household electronics. A Generac service technician will come periodically to change the oil and replace the battery. We had a major power failure earlier this spring and the generator ran flawlessly for several days.

[Allen]

Stand by generators have come a long way. The electrical system at our summer home has always been unreliable. Years ago, the system’s age was the problem. Storms with heavy winds are to blame for for most outages these days. We had a 27 kw Generac stand by generator installed last fall. It’s fully automatic and large enough to fully carry the electric demand of our 200 amp distribution panel and comes on within a few seconds of a power failure. It’s programmed to run for 5 minutes every Saturday at noon to exercise the engine. It sends a message to my cell phone when the test has started and another when the test is finished. It also notifies me when a power failure occurs and another message when power has been restored. The propane tank has a cell phone connection to the supplier and sends a message to come fill our tank when 70% of the gas has been used. The voltage supplied by the generator is free of harmful spikes and harmonic disturbances so it is safe for household electronics. A Generac service technician will come periodically to change the oil and replace the battery. We had a major power failure earlier this spring and the generator ran flawlessly for several days.

I'm curious. Law provides that whole house generators have a lock out switch or transfer switch to prevent back flowing current from generators back through the power lines. It sounds like your generator is connected at all times and comes on automatically when needed and routinely. There must be advancements to this transfer switch too?

[Merc]

The Generac transfer switch automatically disconnects and isolates the generator voltage from the power grid while it is running. Many users will simply plug their generators into a 220 volt receptacle and open the main circuit breaker. This should be unlawful because it can be dangerous if their breaker panel is wired in the older split bus configuration that is no longer in compliance with the electrical code.

[Art]

I am pretty sure this method (using a 220 volt plug as an inlet) is illegal where I live. So is rigging some sort of "suicide plug" and running it into your 30 amp clothes dryer plug. Anytime you run auxilliary power into your house by whatever method the main breaker needs to be "off" for safety reasons including the possibility of electrocuting power company workers. As you said a Generac or other whole house system does this automatically if you have a portable generator plugged into your house with an inlet jack the transfer switch box or interlock plate needs to be in the correct position to cut off the public utility power.

All of this is common sense but as we all know that can be in short supply. In every hurricane down here there are people who die from carbon monoxide poisoning due to running generators indoors despite warnings all over the news not to do that in the storm run up. In an attempt at "idiot proofing," our current generator actually has a CO sensor that shuts it down if carbon monoxide levels around the machine rise above a safe level.

[Allen]

Many users will simply plug their generators into a 220 volt receptacle and open the main circuit breaker. This should be unlawful because it can be dangerous if their breaker panel is wired in the older split bus configuration that is no longer in compliance with the electrical code.

I suppose pulling the meter would be the safe route in this regard if people would do it.

[Johnny P]

If a power company has any type of safety program they will ground the primary to the neutral after the circuit is denergized before starting restoration. If someone has a generator tied directly into the system it will fry the generator. A transformer doesn't care which way it works, put 8000 volts primary in and get 120 volt secondary out, or put 120 volt secondary in and it will put 8000 primary volts out at the transformer.

[Merc]

53045

53046

Generator, 250 gallon propane tank and the isolation switch.

[Vern Humphrey]

53045

53046

Generator, 250 gallon propane tank and the isolation switch.

That's almost exactly the setup I have.

[Merc]

It was not cheap but was worth it.

[Vern Humphrey]

It was not cheap but was worth it.

Right on both counts. I strongly recommend a backup generator for people who live out in the boonies like I do.