Finally got electricity back today

I lived here in Indiana when we had a major ice storm back in 1991. The big power lines coming into the area all went down, and the town I lived in was out of power for 10 days. People out in the boonies like I am now were out up to 3 weeks. We used to have the power go out pretty regularly (like 4-5 hours every couple of weeks) when we bought the place 30 years ago, but our electric provider has fixed a lot of those issues. Plus we don't need to have power available every second of the day. When we built our house 4 years ago part of my electrical specification was to add a plug to the side of the house to connect the generator to the electrical system and an isolation breaker in the breaker panel. I have an old (1990 or so) Coleman 5000 watt gennie which will cover the furnace, well pump, fridge, freezers, and lighting with no real issues. As for hot water, well, the water heater pulls 4500 watts and the gennie just can't handle it with anything else going! The electricians kept brow beating me to have a Generac installed instead. It would be so convenient, as it would hook up to the LP and kick on immediately when the power goes out. This sounded pretty good, so I asked about the price. "Well, it should only be about 10 grand or so." was the response! In the 30 years we have been at our place we have had the gennie hooked up to the house (old one or the new one) 3 times! I can't see dropping $10k for that kind of system when what I already have will keep the lights on, the house warm, and the food good!

Chris... the hot water heater normally has TWO ELEMENTS that are maybe 2000 watts on one and 2500 watts on the other....... They work together.... You could have a switch or disconnect on ONE elements when needed.. Would take twice as long to get hot water, but it would work.

When I had issues last spring with the water heater not getting hot I dug into mine, expecting it needed a new lower heating element. Turns out it has a pair of 4500 watt elements, but will only use 1 at a time, top first then switching to the lower. Turns out my problem was the electricians didn't wire things correctly. They had 220 volts coming into the disconnect box, but only 110 volts coming out to the heater! The red wire from the breaker panel (hot by the way) was lying on the bottom of the disconnect box and the black and white wires were connected to the black and white wires from the water heater. This wasn't the only electrical problem I had with this company, but that's a story for another day. In the end I can deal with going to my Mom's or my son's house to shower if the power is out long enough we need to be on the gennie. The last time we had the gennie in use was 2013 when we were out of power for 3 days during deer season. A tornado came through and hit the plant where I work and then bounced around for a while knocking things down at random.

My sons house in Midland TX has a whole house back up generator(Kohler brand), last year during that infamous cold spell, his generator kicked on 3 or 4 times during that storm. One stretch was 18 hrs long. Had no problems keeping up with the load, as he has a natural gas furnace & water heater. If the power goes out during the heat of summer, he needs to be bit more mindful of the load, while running the central a/c, with an electric oven/stove, microwave, and the washer/dryer.

Bob, by a second, spare 'backup' unit. That way you'll garuntee you'll never have a big,bad windstorm agin !

i still gots my 90,000 watt genny foe sale, runs on natural gas. shucks you could have lit up a bunch of your town with this one! look at the $$ you missed out on

Very much informative Dave, but am a bit lost here. Are you upset that people have backup generators? Maybe I’m reading your response as a diatribe(if I’m mistaken, me bad).

Edited by DaveKamp - 13 Feb 2022 at 12:58am

The neighbor lady's generator is 22kw and cost her $14k. I believe it's a Genrac brand. Her biggest complaint was she couldn't tell when she was on the generator. I would think that's a good thing but she is like Mrs. kravets and has to know because she is the neighborhood know it all.😆

I don't keep any fuel in my generator. I store it dry. Has worked for me since 94. I do keep 15 gallons of fuel on hand just because it can be an issue getting fuel due to downed trees and stations being without power. I cycle through the fuel 2-3 times a year as I use it in the mowers and motorcycles so that keeps it fresh and on hand.

When I complained on how much gas we were going through last week my wife just said worth every penny.🙄

Edited by jaybmiller - 15 Feb 2022 at 4:13pm