It's been really hot here today, and I guess the power company is struggling, or a transformer blew. A few minutes ago things dimmed, and my mother's generator kicked in. It was enough of a dip that I had to reboot the computer, but I'm really glad she has a whole-house generator that automatically switches on and runs through a dedicated natural gas hookup.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I'd like to have a generator, but I can't quite justify the cost.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I'd like to have a generator, but I can't quite justify the cost.

My mother's house is about 2000 square feet. The generator looks like a central AC unit in the backyard and cost about $8,000. I talked her into getting it back in 2009, after we had an ice storm that knocked out power for two weeks for most of Louisville. She's very stubborn, and would just as soon take a bath in hot water and deal with the cold, but now that I'm taking care of her here 24/7, I'm very glad she has the generator.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Part of the reason I don't do it is that I'd also need to change out my fuse box for a breaker box. That might lead to rewiring the whole house. All of that is a few thousand extra bucks. (Not to mention very inconvenient.)

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Part of the reason I don't do it is that I'd also need to change out my fuse box for a breaker box. That might lead to rewiring the whole house. All of that is a few thousand extra bucks. (Not to mention very inconvenient.)

Part of the cost with my mother's system was replacing her old fuse box with breakers.

I'm just glad she's got it. It's peace of mind as she's gotten sick.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

i run big apc battery backups which give me a couple hours of runtime which is enough time to plug in a 15kw generator in a manual transfer switch plus i got some solar panels and an outback inline inverter which works well during the day

---

I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

Part of the reason I don't do it is that I'd also need to change out my fuse box for a breaker box. That might lead to rewiring the whole house. All of that is a few thousand extra bucks. (Not to mention very inconvenient.)

Part of the cost with my mother's system was replacing her old fuse box with breakers.

I'm just glad she's got it. It's peace of mind as she's gotten sick.

It would be for me too as I get older.

Otoh, outages here used to be fairly frequent, but we haven't had one in several years now. I can't remember the last time I had more than a quick bump. I suppose one of these days there could be a flood that causes a three day outage like happened about 20 years ago... The good thing is, I don't have a sump pump to worry about.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

When was My last power failure? Hmm, a few days back, it was brief, nothing here is mission critical, so no generator is needed, can't afford one of those, a friend had one briefly here, then someone stole it...

@ Gordon, glad everyone is ok there.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

yup always chain it up to something that can t be removed easily

same with the outside heat exchanger

they steal everything that is not bolted down

---

I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

yup always chain it up to something that can t be removed easily

same with the outside heat exchanger

they steal everything that is not bolted down

He had it chained down, the chain was cut.

A heat exchanger won't be bothered here for some reason.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

damn

---

I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

I'd get a portable generator, but I don't have anyplace to keep it out of the weather, never mind theft.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I thought about a generator but no natural gas and I am not sure I want that big of bottle in the small back yard. With underground power and the sub station about a mile away, power failures are pretty rare.

---

Ha, ha, hah!

Noone is having any interest or bothering.

I thought about a generator but no natural gas and I am not sure I want that big of bottle in the small back yard. With underground power and the sub station about a mile away, power failures are pretty rare.

I bought a Generac back in 2000. Its a 10K watt whole house unit. It cost me $3,000 with instalation but worth every penny. Two winters ago the pwer was out for 4 hours. Like minus 10 below F. We get the lake effect thunder storms that nock power out for a time also. Keeps my frozen food frozen. I have to use propane as we dont get NG out where I live.

I have National Grid, We get a lot of pwower outages.

---

[/quote]

Old James

I thought about a generator but no natural gas and I am not sure I want that big of bottle in the small back yard. With underground power and the sub station about a mile away, power failures are pretty rare.

I bought a Generac back in 2000. Its a 10K watt whole house unit. It cost me $3,000 with instalation but worth every penny. Two winters ago the pwer was out for 4 hours. Like minus 10 below F. We get the lake effect thunder storms that nock power out for a time also. Keeps my frozen food frozen. I have to use propane as we dont get NG out where I live.

I have National Grid, We get a lot of pwower outages.

The inland remnants of ferocious Hurricane Ike in 2008, and the 2009 ice storm were really a one - two punch for this area, with several days of outages. I wanted to make sure my mother had full house power safely and no-nonsense, and the underground natural gas lines were replaced a few years ago, so barring a major earthquake, we should be fine.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place