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Running AC on a gas generator? Nope, not a thing. Well pump, deep freeze, furnace, sure.Comment
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I have a small one (8500 watt with a 16hp twin engine) that I've never had to use. My brother had a small one (don't remember the KV but had a 20hp Onan engine) that would power the whole house including heat pump/central air. Problem was every 2 hours it would have to be shut down so the fuel tank could be re-filled (usually in the wind and rain). Think it had a 3gal tank. Here again you can only store so much fuel. During a crisis you can't buy any extra fuel either so it has to last. He now has a government surplus generator with a 130hp Allis Chambers diesel engine. I don't know the KV but it's suppose to be enough to power more than one house at a time. Luckily he's never had to use it either.Comment
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Every time one of these come up I "get to thilnkin" again. Here is my assessment which I put up and modify every time the subject comes up.
Disaster prepping has become more "institutionalized." My state now has a "Tax Free Weekend" for prepper stuff to encourage disaster preparedness.
All of this stuff has been correctly stated to be dependent on your personal situation and what you "prep" for.
Everything below assumes our house isn't too compromised and we don't have to pack up the family truckster and leave (or try to.) The current "escapemobile" a new Subaru Forester. It has good gas mileage and rough road/off road capability.
The big problem where we live is hurricanes and at 71 we have lived through quite a few. We have never lost water but power outages are inevitable in these and the longest we've been in the dark was a few hours under 20 days so we figure we have to be ready for six weeks with no juice which means no going to the corner store.
Portable generators are indeed thirsty. Ours is mostly used to run the 'fridge and little freezer in the garage. We can keep the food in the outside freezer and inside refrigerator/freezer good to go running the generator 6-8 hours a day. We will sometimes use it for other stuff like selected lights or to run the microwave during the periods we are using it to keep the frozen food frozen and the cold food cold. This does of course require fuel storage and we maintain 20 gallons of stabilized gasoline which we keep in reserve. We had 5 gallons less for Hurricane Ike and it wasn't enough. The lights didn't come on for 13 days and we were out of fuel after 11 which meant, even with things coming back, I had to drive almost 70 miles to find fuel. We also have kerosene for lamps, and, like folks above, a bunch of flash lights including head lamps and a big bunch of batteries.
We have enough refrigerated/frozen food and ready use stuff in the pantry to probably last us, even with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson in the house for 3-4 weeks (food can go faster than you think.) We have natural gas appliances which have never failed in a storm, even the worst ones so cooking wouldn't be a problem except in the most extreme Armageddon like experience. If we had electric utilities (as are becoming mandated in some leftie communities like Berkeley Ca.) we'd be doing a lot of cooking on the old gas grille and we'd definately have a camp stove. We have about two weeks of reserve canned goods and probably another two weeks of freeze dried stuff so that would be 35 days of eating normally. If we had to scrimp, lets say go from 2.000 calories a day per person to 1,200-1,500 calories we could squeeze out another week to 10 days. When we rotate our stored canned food and eat the back end stuff, we think about how we'd use them. If the kids were here a chili and tamale casserole for 5 would take two (preferably three) 15 oz. cans of tamales and two similar cans of chili with beans minimum. Chicken and dumplings chowder takes one can of chicken and dumplings, one 6 oz. can of chicken, one 15 oz. can of corn, some salsa, one 15 oz. can of black beans some cumin, salt and pepper. We figure 4-5 cans every meal (times two a day) for 5 people. If things don't start to come back by the end of 6 weeks we'll have a lot more serious problem than just a hurricane. We have never lost our city drinking water but if we did we have about 20 gallons of stored water on hand at all times and we fill up with another 15-20 gallons in containers right before a storm. This stored city water would be used first. That is not a lot of water in the big scheme of things but as I said that part has never been a problem. If the city water became contaminated we can purify it. About long term stored water and food, freeze dried food requires a lot of water, canned goods obviously don't so the availability of water may have something to do with how you store calories in your personal situation.
After a hurricane chain saws are at a premium but like generators (as was noted above) they have to work. To make sure they work its a good idea to run them periodically. Mechanical devices that aren't run occasionally eventually don't run at all and you tend to find out they won't run when you really need them. I figure at least one in three portable generators are a no go every time a big one hits because they've been just sitting, sometimes with old fuel in them, for years....ooooops
. After Hurricane Harvey some friends of ours had their house flood. Some friends of theirs loaned them a generator which they found the hard way wouldn't run. Fortunately we got power back pretty quickly and loaned them ours which, because it had been maintained ran like a clock for three days until they got power back. Also with small engines, you'll need a reserve of 30 weight. A generator needs an oil change every 50 hours which is going to come around in a week even if you run it like we do. Every 2-4 days if you run it most of the time. I understand some of the new solar generators are actually pretty good and we may look into one of those as a reserve.
We also have two U.S.G.I. medic first aid kits with tourniquets. Not cheap but worth it. One in the car and one in the house.
Hand tools were mentioned above and we have the usual stuff, axes, hatchets, saws, hammers, shovels fasteners, pry bars, pullies jacks and so on.
This is not mentioned enough but you'll find friends are good to have but they have to be true friends. That means good character. People you are afraid to turn your back on or don't have enough discipline, or are simply lazy are a major liability and can even be dangerous. When our daughter and her family were flooded out during Hurricane Harvey one of their friends put them up in their garage apartment at no charge for almost six months and were glad to do it. Whatever other qualities or skills a person has they'll be no good if he's a low life.
Of course there are situations like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans where you might have to repel borders. I think some people overthink that part to the detriment of the stuff above but some things are priority for thieves after a disaster and you'll need to protect stuff that isn't in the house first like that generator cranking away in the back yard.
Just the accumulated thoughts of 60 years of intermittent hurricanes of varying levels of catastrophe.Last edited by Art; 08-11-2019, 08:19.Comment
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One thing no one has mentioned is vermin control. This year has been bad and I can't figure out why. Our neighbors have had problems as well in controlling the large population. I have tried all and I have found that the "industrial" sticky types work best and are cost affective. Once a rodent gets involved with the glue, the rodent stays! I also have a live trap for coons and the like which works pretty good. I "relocate" the coons to the next world rather then push my problem elsewhere.
SamComment
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"IF" you are where you can poison the rats and "IF" you have no cats or other animals that will eat or play with a poisoned rat then this works very well. A friend of ours who works for the local telephone company recommended this. He has to deal with a lot of rat chewed phone lines under houses. This stuff comes in brick, can be broken into bars and then further broken down into 1 or 2" chunks. I have a house with a crawl space, barns and no cats so I use this in the fall before the mice/rats start to make nest for the winter. It works quickly and I buy mine from the local feed store.
https://www.amazon.com/Just-One-Bite...gateway&sr=8-1Comment
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vermin (rats, mice etc) go where there is food, and shelter,
you cannot eliminate the shelter without destroying your own house, but you can look for access points and block them up (steel wool around pipes etc helps, they cannot chew thru it)
I've had good luck with standard snap traps, using peanut butter smeared in a cotton ball, then lace the cotton ball on the trigger with a wire bread tie, (they have to pull on the cotton to get the peanut butter, and that triggers the trap, vs them just licking it clean)
glue boards work well too, but will catch other stuff too, (spiders, lizards etc)
we used the bait blocks in the grocery business in certian locations, they work well, and the green ones are designed to kill the rats\mice and basically embalm them too , from the inside, to keep the smelll down,Comment
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I have three outside cats so bait is out. As Lyman pointed out the glue traps secure other things that crawl in the night. The other reason for the no use of poison is that rats die where they cannot be taken out and the smell is horrendous! Mom use to use D-Con and these are childhood memories best forgotten. I tried the mechanical traps with a hit/miss due to various sizes of vermin. Glue traps work pretty well and best of all safe for my animals as they are pretty large. So far they have stayed away from them figuring out what they are.
SamComment
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This is a good topic at this time of year. The National Hurricane and have revised their forecast and say its going to be more severe then they first forecasted. That being said August and September are right around the corner and the tropics have been very quiet so far. I'm and old Boy Scout and FEMA trained guy so my house is always prepared. Last year when we thought we were going to have a storm hit, I decided to replace my generator. I didn't run out to the big box store. I ordered from Amazon and they delivered it well before the storm which never hit. So Be Prepared.To Error Is Human To Forgive Is Not SAC PolicyComment
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The cats are my wife's and daughter's, not mine. I am a dog person basically and tolerate the cats for family reasons. Wolf and Mickey get along with the cats as long as the cats stay outside. If a cat gets too friendly with me, Wolf gets between the cat and myself. Heck, Wolf tries to get between my wife and me! Wolf is very possessive, I guess it is the pack instinct in her as she has been by my side since I brought her home 3 years ago this October.
SamComment
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