Power Outage Last Night

[Larry Frank]

I was out of town for the big snow storm here as I have mentioned earlier. We had over 12" of heavy wet snow.

Today, I have to replace the mailbox as some plow hit it.

When I got home, the power was back on as it had been out for 18 hours from the snow and 50 mph winds. I found that a number of my circuit breakers and GFCI had popped. My neighbor said there was a surge when the power came back on and he lost a TV. I also have a couple of good surge protectors that are not working. Probably will not be making sawdust today as I work to get things fixed.

[Dave Anderson NH]

With only 2 of us in the house now we got the 14kw Generac with the auto transfer switch and with load shedding capabilities. It has worked wonderfully and we've never come close to taxing its capabilities. At the same time they installed the generator I had them put in a whole house surge suppressor since I'm paranoid about the quality of power from generators and we have had issues in the past with utility power surges after outages. I heartily recommend having it done along with the generator. Since I'm often a belt and suspenders kind of guy I still keep individual suppressors on all major appliances for extra insurance.

[Brian Elfert]

I really should have a generator of some sort since I have well water at this house. I have a really nice diesel generator in my converted bus, but it is set up for 120 volts only and I need 240 volts for my well pump. It would be a fairly major pain to spend an hour or two switching it back to 240 volt operation, particularly in a rain storm.

I had a whole house generator in my previous house because the sump pump ran so much. I figured it cost a minimum of $50 an hour for every hour the generator ran in 12 years. It did run for three days straight after a major wind storm in 2013. It was only 8,000 watts, but I could even run my central A/C. I had a subpanel for circuits powered by the generator. For this house I will probably get a larger generator and a 200 amp transfer switch to avoid the subpanel. I see whole house generators cheap from time to time on Craigslist, but the ones that are a good deal are gone quickly.

[Al Launier]

Jim, I don't see how you can go wrong. As seniors (69 & 73) we were considering moving south to avoid the winters & power outages. Thinking more about it we realized that contending with snow removal & loss of power was the culprit that was motivating our thoughts to move. Yet we love our home, our town/community, our neighbors & friends, and the seasonal changes. To resolve the snow removal I decided to hire a snow plow guy rather than snow blow the heavier storms, and we installed a 20KW Kohler standby generator to solve the power outage problems. Now we have peace of mind - no more worries! Plus, should we decide later on that maintaining a home becomes too much, the generator will add to the value of the home when we do sell it. The total cost of the 20KW generator (completely installed with all permits) amounted to $10,800.
GO FOR IT - YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

Keith, I'm giving serious consideration at this point to a whole-house generator system as the "project for the year" at this point with the weather getting progressively more volatile as time passes. Being without Internet, etc, can be slightly maddening, but being without water, septic and heat is even less fun. I've wanted to do this for awhile, but it may be financially feasible now so research and thought is in progress.

[Tony Zona]

If you're like me, after you install an automatic switching generator your commercial power outages will be minimal.

[Brian Elfert]

If you're like me, after you install an automatic switching generator your commercial power outages will be minimal.

Yep, exactly. Part of the reason I got a standby generator for my previous house was because of a massive storm that took out power for a week or more a few years before I built my house. I think in 12 years I had three outages although 2013 was almost three days. The others were just hours. (The local grocery store ran on generator for a good week after the massive storm. They had to move a lot of frozen/refrigerated goods to cases that had power as the generator didn't power the whole store.)

[Jim Becker]

If you're like me, after you install an automatic switching generator your commercial power outages will be minimal.

Yea, that's some kind of natural law. And if I pave the 400'+ of driveway, we'll get even less snow.

[Brian Elfert]

Yea, that's some kind of natural law. And if I pave the 400'+ of driveway, we'll get even less snow.

I'm actually thinking of paving the rest of my driveway not because of snow, but because winters are getting to be a lot warmer. It snowed in December and then it warmed up into the 30s. The top layer of the gravel portion of my driveway melted and it kinda turned into soup. I couldn't use my snowblower because it dug into the gravel. The gravel portion is usually frozen when it snows.

[Keith Outten]

It all falls under Murphy's Law doesn't it?