DURR it's cold outside there can't be no global warming or hurrrrr

[Gulo Blue]

The main thing keeping me from getting a backup generator is the maintenance/need to maintain a big enough supply of fuel that needs to get used up periodically.

 

[Gulo Blue]

People Ted Cruz invited to go to Mexico with him leaked the group chat.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...-texts-about-cancun-trip-schadenfreude-ensues

 

[byco42]

Had Ted simply said “I messed up” and left his daughters out of it, this incident wouldn’t have augured in so quickly.

But, all this illustrates to me is that our elected officials don’t care about We, the People.

 

[Thumb]

The main thing keeping me from getting a backup generator is the maintenance/need to maintain a big enough supply of fuel that needs to get used up periodically.

5 gallon gas can would run a genny quite a while, and when said can is nearing a couple months old (assuming it's sealed properly) you can just add it to your cars tank and refill it with fresh. Also some fuel stabilizers can keep it fresh long enough to eventually use up in your mower/weed eater/leaf blower, etc

The biggest drawback is noise. Whatever line is connecting power wont be terribly long, meaning you are going to have a noisy engine running near the house.

Or you could drop a bit of dough and get something like this

 

[byco42]

5 gallon gas can would run a genny quite a while, and when said can is nearing a couple months old (assuming it's sealed properly) you can just add it to your cars tank and refill it with fresh. Also some fuel stabilizers can keep it fresh long enough to eventually use up in your mower/weed eater/leaf blower, etc

The biggest drawback is noise. Whatever line is connecting power wont be terribly long, meaning you are going to have a noisy engine running near the house.

Or you could drop a bit of dough and get something like this

Any way to easily blimp a generator without buying a blimped generator?

 

[Spartanmack]

There's nothing wrong with this. The problem is when you have can't things explained to you.

I thought about that comment briefly yesterday, and I probably should have instead replied "says the guy who starts and carries on 5 page arguments about what "now" means."

And I don't agree there's wrong with constantly needing simple things explained to you.

 

[Gulo Blue]

5 gallon gas can would run a genny quite a while, and when said can is nearing a couple months old (assuming it's sealed properly) you can just add it to your cars tank and refill it with fresh. Also some fuel stabilizers can keep it fresh long enough to eventually use up in your mower/weed eater/leaf blower, etc

The biggest drawback is noise. Whatever line is connecting power wont be terribly long, meaning you are going to have a noisy engine running near the house.

Or you could drop a bit of dough and get something like this

I once looked into the whole home systems and I thought they burned a couple gallons per hour. So I'd need a significant stockpile of gas.

To clarify, I'm on an electric heat pump. It needs to run pretty much continuously to hopefully keep up when it gets really cold.

 

[Spartanmack]

FYI. Anyone that has a gas or propane furnace and can't afford a entire house backup generator (about $5-10K) here is what you do.

Instead of hard wiring your furnace, have an electrician dedicate an outlet for your furnace. They will keep it on the same dedicated circuit so it's no different. Get yourself a $400 Honda generator for emergency purposes. Unplug your furnace from the wall and run it off the generator. If you have a prolonged power outage just run your generator when you want to heat up the house. It could be a pain in the ass (starting and stopping the generator to conserve gas) but at least you can keep your house warm.

there's an alternative that's a slightly more expensive solution but gives you more power. you can have your electrician install an Interlock and generator hookup to your panel (that's about $800 to $1k around here in ridiculously expense NJ - probably more expensive than what you described but w/ the portable generator, still a lot less than a whole house backup generator).

The interlock is a simple safety device that forces you to shut off the main before switching to generator power, and you have to switch off generator power before you can flip the main back on - so as Thumb said, when power from the grid comes back on, it doesn't cause a dangerous situation. Depending on how much power your house draws and how much your generator can put out, you probably have to shut off the breakers you don't need. A gas or oil furnace only needs a 15 amp circuit, so you can run a lot more than that with most generators so you can keep food from spoiling, run some lights and outlets in the house, etc.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I thought about that comment briefly yesterday, and I probably should have instead replied "says the guy who starts and carries on 5 page arguments about what "now" means."

And I don't agree there's wrong with constantly needing simple things explained to you.

Cool.

We put too much CO2 in the air.

 

[Spartanmack]

Cool.

We put too much CO2 in the air.

stop breathing so much then.

 

[Gulo Blue]

stop breathing so much then.

This is funny. The last bunch of times you said you were joking, nothing was funny, but this was funny.

 

[Spartanmack]

This is funny. The last bunch of times you said you were joking, nothing was funny, but this was funny.

I'm glad you liked it. as for the others, just to be clear, I don't consider you an authority on what's funny and what's not.

 

[Michchamp]

5 gallon gas can would run a genny quite a while, and when said can is nearing a couple months old (assuming it's sealed properly) you can just add it to your cars tank and refill it with fresh. Also some fuel stabilizers can keep it fresh long enough to eventually use up in your mower/weed eater/leaf blower, etc

The biggest drawback is noise. Whatever line is connecting power wont be terribly long, meaning you are going to have a noisy engine running near the house.

Or you could drop a bit of dough and get something like this

my neighbor has one of those. It's still noisy; not as bad as a lawnmower, but louder than I expected. Sounds like a lawnmower in a box. It was also mildly infuriating having to listen to it while we froze our asses off.

Any way to easily blimp a generator without buying a blimped generator?

I assume you mean... add a muffler? I've wondered this myself. I remember someone mentioning to me you can put a muffler on a generator to get it running quieter. I assumed there would be an easy-to-install product, but at least a couple years ago when I looked into it, it was a lot more "DIY" than I expected.

My plan is to build a small wooden "garage" next to the house, adequately ventilated, and maybe with a small fan installed, to both muffle the noise and keep it secure. That's within my handy-capabilities. The biggest issue I can think of would be keeping it hornet and wasp free, so I don't have to fight a swarm of those fuckers when opening it to refill the gas.

I once looked into the whole home systems and I thought they burned a couple gallons per hour. So I'd need a significant stockpile of gas.

To clarify, I'm on an electric heat pump. It needs to run pretty much continuously to hopefully keep up when it gets really cold.

The generac ones operate off your home's gas line. I think I read they'd burn about $50-$60 in natural gas to power a typical suburban home around here per day. Too expensive for typical use, but in a week-long crisis, better than freezing your ass off or having to replace pipes, or leave and try to find a hotel when millions of other people are doing the same thing.

Not sure how much it would cost now. I know the price of natural gas collapsed over the last year, so much so that in TX it was negative (meaning they were just burning it off right out of the ground, rather than paying to transport and store it). And then there's stories about some of the gas plants not operating this week because of a lack of gas, in addition to frozen lines and pumps... and you see how retarded the people in charge of all this are. Markets are great and all when times are good, but what about when they're not, and people freeze to death because they couldn't supply needed services and basic human needs when it was critical? Really hoping there is actual reform of the the electrical grid here, because this is just insane.

Similar to COVID-19 hitting and it being difficult for healthcare professionals to get all the PPE they need. There's no margin for error when short-sighted (and sociopathic) bean counters set the rules.

 

[Gulo Blue]

The type of risk assessment and prioritizing that led to what's going on in Texas is wrong for addressing climate change. It was wrong for running a power grid too obviously, but it should serve as an example that business as usual is putting people in charge that have no business being in charge.

 

[byco42]

my neighbor has one of those. It's still noisy; not as bad as a lawnmower, but louder than I expected. Sounds like a lawnmower in a box. It was also mildly infuriating having to listen to it while we froze our asses off.


I assume you mean... add a muffler? I've wondered this myself. I remember someone mentioning to me you can put a muffler on a generator to get it running quieter. I assumed there would be an easy-to-install product, but at least a couple years ago when I looked into it, it was a lot more "DIY" than I expected.

My plan is to build a small wooden "garage" next to the house, adequately ventilated, and maybe with a small fan installed, to both muffle the noise and keep it secure. That's within my handy-capabilities. The biggest issue I can think of would be keeping it hornet and wasp free, so I don't have to fight a swarm of those fuckers when opening it to refill the gas.

No, blimping is what you are planning. More like insulation. Wood and sound insulation. Lining your shed with furniture pads is one possibility.

 

[Michchamp]

The type of risk assessment and prioritizing that led to what's going on in Texas is wrong for addressing climate change. It was wrong for running a power grid too obviously, but it should serve as an example that business as usual is putting people in charge that have no business being in charge.

Oil company leadership people are an odd mix. There are some of the "cowboy" Texan types there, but also a significant number of "former" intelligence agency spooks and military brass. It's a dirty business, and they don't play by the rules. They're above the law, and when they want to be, they are the law. Have you followed this story at all? It's insane. After I read that last year, I concluded I could never work in that industry (and I have told recruiters that).

A lot of notorious names in the oil/construction/defense industry are HQ'd around Houston, like Halliburton/KBR, Bechtel, not to mention all the oil giants. And there are constant mergers and acquisitions in the industry (I'm sure all of which are "above the board" and comply with SEC disclosures and what not).

This leads to a lot of junk oil wells and other garbage all over the place that no one knows who owns and the public is on the hook to clean up.

It blew my mind how many platforms are in the gulf, and around Galveston Bay first time I went to the ocean here. Just tons of waste there, and poor economic decisions. Paving the road to hell...

 

[Michchamp]

No, blimping is what you are planning. More like insulation. Wood and sound insulation. Lining your shed with furniture pads is one possibility.

turns out there's this product, but I'm skeptical of anything marketed to people that believe in/prepare for "zombies"


guide to building your own. Makes more sense.

 

[Spartanmack]

my neighbor has one of those. It's still noisy; not as bad as a lawnmower, but louder than I expected. Sounds like a lawnmower in a box. It was also mildly infuriating having to listen to it while we froze our asses off.



I assume you mean... add a muffler? I've wondered this myself. I remember someone mentioning to me you can put a muffler on a generator to get it running quieter. I assumed there would be an easy-to-install product, but at least a couple years ago when I looked into it, it was a lot more "DIY" than I expected.

My plan is to build a small wooden "garage" next to the house, adequately ventilated, and maybe with a small fan installed, to both muffle the noise and keep it secure. That's within my handy-capabilities. The biggest issue I can think of would be keeping it hornet and wasp free, so I don't have to fight a swarm of those fuckers when opening it to refill the gas.

Check your local building code before you spend the time and money. In NJ, at our old house, we couldn't run our generator under the deck which had about 6' of clearance and wasn't enclosed other than decorative lattice panels. we could store it there, but were supposed to pull it out into the driveway to run it.

Honda makes a series of "quiet" portable generators. They're definitely better in terms of noise but not sure if they make them big enough for your needs.

 

[Michchamp]

Check your local building code before you spend the time and money. In NJ, at our old house, we couldn't run our generator under the deck which had about 6' of clearance and wasn't enclosed other than decorative lattice panels. we could store it there, but were supposed to pull it out into the driveway to run it.

Honda makes a series of "quiet" portable generators. They're definitely better in terms of noise but not sure if they make them big enough for your needs.

we have really strict HOAs around here, so I wouldn't do anything like that without clearing it with them first.

 

[Spartanmack]

5 gallon gas can would run a genny quite a while, and when said can is nearing a couple months old (assuming it's sealed properly) you can just add it to your cars tank and refill it with fresh. Also some fuel stabilizers can keep it fresh long enough to eventually use up in your mower/weed eater/leaf blower, etc

The biggest drawback is noise. Whatever line is connecting power wont be terribly long, meaning you are going to have a noisy engine running near the house.

Or you could drop a bit of dough and get something like this

that's about half the all-in cost after running gas lines and electrical - my former boss got one after Sandy and paid $10k for one that would power 80% of his house. That was consistent with quotes I was hearing from other people who went that route. Maybe it's cheaper in lower cost-of-living areas but probably not a lot, gas line work is pretty expensive everywhere.

We're considering it because neighbors in our new neighborhood tell us our section of town loses power a lot. We moved in at Halloween and haven't had any issues. My neighbor across the street says his house shakes on a certain day once a month at 1pm like clockwork, when his next door neighbor's kicks on for regular testing.