6ixStringJack: I immediately went out that next day and bought a $100 beefy indoor/outdoor extension cord, and everything I needed to hang it all up along the ceiling in the crawl as well as a few hooks to wrap all the line that goes out to the garage right at the crawl door for me to easily grab and throw out the window. It's saved me from back-breaking bailouts in the dark, dank crawl four times since I did that. I still have to go down there twice (once to switch to the extension cord, and once to switch back to the house when the power is back on). But I'm not crabwalking with 3 gallon buckets out to my toilet to dump water and fill up again on repeat anymore. Once I get this new system installed I won't even have to do that anymore.  |
| 6ixStringJack: Just like my genny... Better to have it and never need than not having it when you do. I learned that lesson when I had a major power/flooding issue that could have easily been solved with a working generator. I had a working generator. What I didn't have was a water-safe extension cord long enough to get it from the garage to inside my crawl when I needed it and I ended up bailing out the crawlspace for dear life for 3 hours until the power came back on. |
| 6ixStringJack: Yeah. Make sure you have a good amount of water on hand. People can get crazy when they're trying to hoard after the fact and didn't prepare early. Good to have that stuff safely at home beforehand so you don't have to worry about any of that. And after hearing some horror stories of people stuck in those California wildfires without any drinking water for days, I just don't want to see anybody I know get themselves stuck in a situation like that when you have working water right now and you can fill up a few "just in case" jugs. |
| 6ixStringJack: Glad the smoke isn't coming your way and I hope the wind keeps blowing in your favor. Let's get some rain and hope it's all out soon. |
6ixStringJack: I could/would never pay the price for a genny that big anyhow.  |
| 6ixStringJack: So yeah... That's why I've got to make sure that I put in bigger wiring than I currently need between my breaker box and the outdoor generator plug. I was somewhat limited on this because of the different sizes of plugs/outlets for different sized generators. My current one is small enough where I couldn't install a plug or large wiring that would be sufficient for a massive generator one day, but I have been able to get what I need where I can still get one around 3 times the size of my current genny and I won't have any problems or safety issues from using that extra power. I just won't ever be hooking up some massive 10k or 12k watt monster to it. But that's fine. I don't need anything that big. |
| 6ixStringJack: I think what I probably could do in an extended power outage during the middle of winter is rotate what is getting powered and I could still get some heat when I needed it. Chances are that if it's that cold, I'm not getting a ton of water in the basement anyhow and the power was knocked out because of wind and not a bolt of lightning. In that event, I could easily flip the breakers for the fridge and sump off for 10 or 15 minutes and get the house nice and toasty warm before switching them back. |
| 6ixStringJack: I don't think I have to go crazy overboard since in the near 15 years I've lived here the longest power outage I ever had was 8-10 hours, and the 2nd longest was only about half of that. But for whatever reason they are fairly common here. At least annoying black/brownouts are where I stopped bother resetting the stove and microwave clocks many years ago. But if I did get myself a 6,000 watt genny one day than I would basically be able to power my entire house off of gasoline if I needed to. |
| 6ixStringJack: But as dependable as my genny is, it's not too much power. I think it's only 2,000 or 2,500 watts. Easily enough to handle my sump and fridge, although, if I have other lights on I will assume that every time the pump starts up it will be drawing extra power to start and the lights might flicker with that fridge on there if they just both happen to be doing their things at the same time. There's no way I could power a cheap 1,800 watt heater with it AND do those other things, and I'm assuming the blower on my ancient furnace would be way too high to keep the heat on with this genny. But at least I won't flood and my insulin will not be at risk. Not sure if I could actually power up the internet and a tablet too, but I will be testing all of that out when I finally get this thing installed. |
| 6ixStringJack: That kit is important because without it you could easily "back feed" electric into the grid and somebody working on powerlines could actually get zapped or worse from people using generators to power their house without shutting their house off from the grid first. |
| 6ixStringJack: Yeah. For now I'll be happy just knowing that I can easily get the sump working when it needs to be in a power outage without getting sopping wet outside then going deep into the crawl space to take the pump off my main and onto the generator plug. This new setup will allow me to jack my generator right up to the power for my house, but only after the kit I install ensures that the main power to my house is cut off first. |
| Brenda: I will. Have to get a bottle of water today before I had off to a mammogram. Yuck! My hair is starting to get oily because of the heat but I can't put a hair clip in to keep it off my neck because of the metal in it. As I said no smoke near me. It must be going into Alberta or staying localized. |
| Brenda: Yeah, you have to watch your wiring. The building I am in is old and I think that is some of my electrical problems come from that. It wasn't designed to handle all the stuff we have today. |
| Brenda: Wow! Yeah, if you can get that generator to do all of that you are a head of the game for sure. |
| 6ixStringJack: You stay safe and hydrated and out of that smoke as much as you can. |
| 6ixStringJack: I'm planning on wiring everything up in such a way where I can upgrade in the future without having to knock any of the wall out to put thicker wires behind the scenes. Maybe my next generator will be a bigger one. But if I can get a tablet online with this one, I might not need to. |
| 6ixStringJack: I'm planning on wiring everything up in such a way where I can upgrade in the future without having to knock any of the wall out to put thicker wires behind the scenes. Maybe my next generator will be a bigger one. But if I can get a tablet online with this one, I might not need to. |
| 6ixStringJack: My step-dad gave me a little genny a few years back. It's a dewalt though so it's real dependable and it's a work horse. It's nowhere near enough power to run A/C but I should be able to at least do the sump and the fridge and a few low-watt lightbulbs with it. I don't think I'd want to push the internet and a tablet but I might be able to do that too and at least have some sort of internet as long as that didn't go down too. |
| Brenda: There are 68 fires burning in BC. And about 155 properties up in the Interior on evacuation notice. That corner will be seeing some rain. As for my area over the weekend there is talk of heat into the 90s. |
| Brenda: Now, a big generator to allow you to do that. It would be something. |