So ice no power no cell no net no cable

[cigars]

Power outages are not too frequent around me, but they do happen. All of our lines are underground in the area but transformers do pop.
Usually power gets restored within a few hours but if an earthquake or something took some of the substations offline it might be a different story. After the last outage I went and got a small generator for the main fridge and a smaller fridge where meds are kept.
I chose this one because our power needs aren't that great and it's one of the quietest on the market. You can barely hear it. The price has come down since I bought it a few months ago. Costco now has it for $899.

Generac iQ3500 3500-Watt Gasoline Powered Electric Start Portable Inverter Generator with PowerRush Technology 50 State/CSA-7127 - The Home Depot

 

[Pops1911]

SO very sorry to hear about your lack of power. This last year when we moved into our newly refurbished house I bit the bullet and bought a new Duro Max 55kw generator for the place. The former owner had already installed a sweet generator transfer switch inside the main electric box in the garage. All I gotta do is plug it into the system and fire up the gen. We have had two longish power outages already and I was grateful for the generator. Runs the well pump and most everything in the house too. Yeah I lose the hot water heater and central heat/air but we have propane for cooking and heating water and a super wood stove. Dutifully the first of each month I fire the gen up and let it run for 20-30 minutes. Store extra gas with Stabil so it stays fresh. Considering adding another propane tank and converting the generator to propane. I don't mind the gas power, if I don't use it in the winter it goes into the vehicles . Always a good time to rethink one's SHTF preps.

 

[The Heretic]

I love underground lines. In the ~9 years I have lived here I don't know of any problems we have had with the power lines on our private road, it has always been with the above ground power lines on the public roads, mostly due to trees and sometimes a car hitting a power pole.

I am just saying that the source of the power outage can be miles away and as long as there are power lines above ground, having underground power lines locally doesn't mean a whole lot.

Right now there are 26 transmission lines down, and 6 substations down. Those are never underground, but if you are one of the locales they service, it won't make any difference what kind of power line your feeder is.

But yes, as you say, less points of failure - not sure it makes a whole lot of difference at this point. Our power grid is so fragile - if we had a severe earthquake we would be without power for months, especially people like me who live in the boonies.

 

[The Heretic]

SO very sorry to hear about your lack of power. This last year when we moved into our newly refurbished house I bit the bullet and bought a new Duro Max 55kw generator for the place.

You do mean 5.5 KW right?

 

[Mark W.]

Hows this for Karma. I get a call from neighbor that their power went back on would i like to use his little generator to top up the freezer and heat up the house. So I run the pickup over there load it up run extension cords through the house. Find a mall chain and lock to lock the thing to my truck and fire it up. Yea pellet stove and making sure the $1000 worth of food in the freezer is edible. Sit down in my chair to play with the phone. And 15min later our power comes back on!!!

So spent 65.00 on inverter
Used up maybe 5-7 gallons of fuel in vehicles running inverter or charging batteries,
Lost maybe $20 in food
Saved $20 in wood pellets
Lost a beautiful Crimson Maple
Lost about a week of time I could be working on my Willys jeep thats 6 weeks away from the road.
Used up 3 canisters of coleman propane
Used a dozen AA batteries
Saved maybe $25.00 in electricity
Will be without cable for a few more days.

What fun

 

[v0lcom13sn0w]

havent had power since friday night sometime...except my whole house is being powered by a generator. none of this run extension cord BS. my whole panel is hot. everything works except my dryer. until sunday, i was the only house on the street with power.

i was prepared and still have 25 gal of fuel left.

 

[NobullSKS]

Lost power 5pm Friday, lost cell about 11pm the during the night my beautiful Red Maple we transplanted into my front yard 30 years ago split in two. Some thoughts

Do not put off buying that generator. 10mib after power went out I was at NAPA buying an inverter to run the pellet stove. We have been able to keep the house above 50 degrees.

Years ago to save money I cut 2" foil backed foam insulation like barrel staves and wrapped them around the water heater. This morning we had water warm enough to comfortably wash dishes not hot but not cold either thats more then 62 hours since it ran. Obviously the foam made a big difference.

The fridge freezer still has Ice in the icemaker. There is also a bunch of blue ice in it. We will be able to eat lunch and dinner out of it. The ice made a huge diff. The big freezer has 4 gallons of water as Ice in it I will not open it until Wed when the generator is supposed to arrive.

We put the stuff from the fridge in open boxes in the unheated shop which has been about 40- 42 degrees so that stuff is fine.

Got full cell and data back sometime middle of the night ordered a gen from Amazon at 2am lol.

Hope everyone is doing as well.

Side tip.....
Can also get decent warm water (electric heater) with small generator if you wire in the lower element at 110. It'll keep it warm enough to bathe without getting frostbite.

 

[Member 34319]

I used Covid as an excuse, even it started, to buy a generator. Dual fuel and two large propane tanks.

I however, have yet, wired the house for it.

 

[AllDayRay]

When I bought the house there was a gas line splitting from the furnace running to the front of the garage. Always wondered why it was there. Now I have a use for it. Natural gas conversion for generators.

 

[Pete F]

Only lost power for 3 hours, but several limbs wiped out my wood shed and the 6' deer fence around my raised beds. We have piles of limbs, up to 30' x 3-4" diameter in four spots around the property and my wife's AWD Honda CRV is sideways in the driveway. Cleanup is going to be PITA.

We had 1' of snow in places and it is not melting very fast. The driveway is now an ice rink from my wife trying to get out and just ended up plowing and packing snow.

I still won't go out side because of the ice balls and limbs falling out of my 100' fir trees. The limbs sound like explosive's when they cut loose. I can't remember that ever happening.

 

[JedB]

I would point out that this is an example of free market failure. Power companies, being monopolies, have no incentive to upgrade the infrastructure (put power lines below ground), and aren't responsible for any inconvenience caused to the subscribers. Similarly communications companies are often in the same boat, though there is at least some competition happening in some areas. Generally firearms enthusiasts are against the government regulation, which is understandable, but unless they're prepared to go full off-grid, this is why government regulation in many areas is the way to go.

As a data point for you, I can tell you why they don't always go with buried lines; cost.
Having been in telecom for over 20+ years and about 6 years of cost modeling for all the buildouts of fiber to the cell towers, it's cost.
Most of my data points are from 2010 - 2016, and probably have increased since then.

Portland Costs:
Aerial: $12-15 per foot of install and $20K if you have to install a pole.
Buried: $120 - $150 per foot of install
Downtown: $150-$175 per foot and you have to repair the street back to 'standard'

Seattle costs
Aerial: $25 - $30 per foot of install and $30K if you have to install a pole.
Buried: $250-$300 per foot, depending on municipality.
As an example: Everett or Bothell have buried requirements, so there's right of way and conduit there. Ballard can be either.

Boise costs
Aerial: $8-$12 per foot of install.
Buried: $40-$50 per foot of install.

Having come from San Diego (where everything is buried) it was very odd to see the poles/lines when I got to Eugene in '96.

IMO, all the power & telecom should be buried. Generally it's less maintenance over the long run, less outages to customers, and less capital investment over time.

 

[bzltyr]

Going to be worse when coal plant officially closes, no natural gas terminal, get rid of a few days. It's all good. We have wind power from gorge and solar, which works well covered with freaking ice and no sun for a few weeks. Love it

 

[fd15k]

As a data point for you, I can tell you why they don't always go with buried lines; cost.
Having been in telecom for over 20+ years and about 6 years of cost modeling for all the buildouts of fiber to the cell towers, it's cost.
Most of my data points are from 2010 - 2016, and probably have increased since then.

Portland Costs:
Aerial: $12-15 per foot of install and $20K if you have to install a pole.
Buried: $120 - $150 per foot of install
Downtown: $150-$175 per foot and you have to repair the street back to 'standard'

Seattle costs
Aerial: $25 - $30 per foot of install and $30K if you have to install a pole.
Buried: $250-$300 per foot, depending on municipality.
As an example: Everett or Bothell have buried requirements, so there's right of way and conduit there. Ballard can be either.

Boise costs
Aerial: $8-$12 per foot of install.
Buried: $40-$50 per foot of install.

Having come from San Diego (where everything is buried) it was very odd to see the poles/lines when I got to Eugene in '96.

IMO, all the power & telecom should be buried. Generally it's less maintenance over the long run, less outages to customers, and less capital investment over time.

That's understandable. Now if you can also provide the costs of repairs over some period of time per foot of install, and also the invisible cost of degradation of quality of life for the population and effect on economic activity due to outages for the full picture. Those last data points may be a lot harder to come by, and while there is likely a study out there, the main point is those things shouldn't be discounted.

 

[Holepuncher]

Had the sparkys come by last week and wire up transfer switch, already have 2- 10kw generators but wanted to be able to plug into the panel instead of running cords. I live in town tho, so don't usually lose power. I need a better way to store fuel, right now just using multiple 5 gallon VP fuel jugs. I would like to get a 55gal drum with hand crank pump eventually. Hope you get power restored soon. Stay warm.

If you get that 55 gal drum for storing gas.... be sure to fill it with non ethanol 92 octane gas. Also add some fuel stabilizer. The gas will stay good for about a year. Store the drum in an outbuilding away from your house. You will then eventually need to use the gas in your vehicle. It's a real pain to do this, compared to filling up at the gas station.

 

[Holepuncher]

Going to be worse when coal plant officially closes, no natural gas terminal, get rid of a few days. It's all good. We have wind power from gorge and solar, which works well covered with freaking ice and no sun for a few weeks. Love it

It's going to be a long cold winter. Everybody will be using wood heat with all that great clean smoke.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

The goal is to reduce the number of points of failure. If 20% of the lines are buried, that means potentially 20% less work for the crews. Additionally, many roads are blocked and non-power crews can't work on unblocking them due to presence of damaged power lines. I have no power since Friday night.

Underground power goes out due to groundwater intrusion. That's more of a nightmare than rehanging overhead lines.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Lost power 5pm Friday, lost cell about 11pm the during the night my beautiful Red Maple we transplanted into my front yard 30 years ago split in two. Some thoughts

Do not put off buying that generator. 10mib after power went out I was at NAPA buying an inverter to run the pellet stove. We have been able to keep the house above 50 degrees.

Years ago to save money I cut 2" foil backed foam insulation like barrel staves and wrapped them around the water heater. This morning we had water warm enough to comfortably wash dishes not hot but not cold either thats more then 62 hours since it ran. Obviously the foam made a big difference.

The fridge freezer still has Ice in the icemaker. There is also a bunch of blue ice in it. We will be able to eat lunch and dinner out of it. The ice made a huge diff. The big freezer has 4 gallons of water as Ice in it I will not open it until Wed when the generator is supposed to arrive.

We put the stuff from the fridge in open boxes in the unheated shop which has been about 40- 42 degrees so that stuff is fine.

Got full cell and data back sometime middle of the night ordered a gen from Amazon at 2am lol.

Hope everyone is doing as well.

After two weeklong outages in the past 5 years I got smart this year and installed a sub-panel off the main panel, and moved all of our 120V circuits to the sub-panel. In between the main and sub panels I installed a 100 amp 240V manual transfer switch and a plug for a 30A 240V generator feed. The 9600W generator will power all of our 120V circuits through that arrangement. Just start the generator and plug it in. What we will be doing without is just the 240V heating system and the 240V water heater. We have a wood stove that will keep the house at 80 degrees if we aren't careful to keep it banked, and we can cook and heat water on the wood stove. We have 2 cords worth of covered wood storage within a few feet of the back door.

Next year we will switch to a 12000W generator that is dual fuel. The 12000W generator will be semi-permanently installed and run on propane with a 250 gallon tank. The portable 9600W generator will be moved to RV and construction service.

 

[Certaindeaf]

If you get that 55 gal drum for storing gas.... be sure to fill it with non ethanol 92 octane gas. Also add some fuel stabilizer. The gas will stay good for about a year. Store the drum in an outbuilding away from your house. You will then eventually need to use the gas in your vehicle. It's a real pain to do this, compared to filling up at the gas station.

I got some of that down at the Astro last year.. regular gas was around $3/ga and low ocane non ethanol was $8/ga so that'd be $450/50 gallons.

 

[ron]

So priority come spring/summer is to get an electrician here to deal with providing power to the meter via a generator, and providing some kind of shelter for the generator, and getting a new generator that can power everything.

So the well pump has a separate utility meter from the house meter? You can not feed the meter you have to be downstream of the meter.
The meter would record your power usage and you would pay the utility for generator power. Some utilities have a minimum charge for
each meter. If the well pump is only 20' from the house I would consider running the well from the house power? Connecting generator power
to a service must be done with an electrical code compliant interlock to ensure you do not back feed the system and kill some lineman.

 

[The Heretic]

Agreed - I mispoke about feeding the meter, I meant providing power at the breaker box at the meter, and yes, it would be a transfer switch like I have at the house, and as I said, I would have an electrician come out and do it to code.

The meter near the house is for both the house and the well. A separate power line comes off the box at that point to feed the well, and one to feed the house.

And yes, PGE has a $12.50 charge each month just to provide power to each meter - they require a separate meter for my shop - so I pay $12.50 each month just to provide lights and power to my chest freezer - I pay about $22 each month total.