Tornado!
-
BTW re the need (or lack thereof), my thinking is that these kinds of problems are going to become more frequent because of climate change, but otoh, we haven’t really lived in this town (let alone in this house) long enough to have a good sense of it…
-
Mom has a wired one and about 10 yrs in had the company out a bunch of times because a light was flashing during the weekly test. It took them a while to find and replace the part responsible. Still worth it for peace of mind for her... and for us! She still has the large generator that my dad got from Costco in the garage. I think our youngest will take that for the house they just bought. Just need a bunch of extension cords and lots of gas cans to run back and forth if the outage goes on for a long time...
-
No question that they are nice because in most cases they kick on and take over seamlessly but they definitely have limitations that people need to be aware of when shelling out close to $10K.
The three people we know who have a standby generator have all had issues with theirs. One couple had to replace their original Generac at about 8 years. It really didn't see a lot of use as most of the power outages that happened were hours in duration. I think there was one two-day outage. Apparently there was a problem with the design of the units around that time, which Generac acknowledged. Our friends got a 25% discount off of a new unit and had to pay to have it installed, not an insignificant cost.
Our neighbor has a Kohler unit, and has had at least five repairs in the 10 years he's had his. And it's noisy as hell. I would totally avoid Kohler.
And the third neighbor bought a house that had an 18 month old Generac that was serviced in September and failed in January. It was a totally weird set of circumstances because a power failure happened the afternoon he closed on the house. He wasn't moving in because he was doing a major remodel before doing so.
Initially the generator went on when the power went out and seemed to be running. The neighbors who knew the house was vacant thought things were ok. What was weird was that the power came back on but his generator kept running. After more than a day of that, the neighbor went over and looked at the unit and saw there was a code on the panel that indicated a problem. It finally shut down due to low oil pressure or some such. He found out weeks later that his basement was completely flooded. This last one shows that despite having a new unit that's been maintained, you can still have a catastrophic event. Stuff happens.
Annual maintenance calls to keep the units in top shape are around $250.
We did the manual transfer switch and portable generator setup in 1999. It was a much cheaper alternative to a full standby setup. It covers us in the case of an extended outage but the downside is that you have to haul the generator out of the garage, hook it up, switch over the circuits, and then feed it gas as needed. But you don't have to run lots of extension cords in the house, nor have to pull out the refrigerator to plug it in. So it's not as convenient as something that does everything automatically, but you can get by with a bit of work.
Mr wtg can't haul it anymore but I can for now. I may have to ask a neighbor to do it if a time comes when I can't. I've considered some kind of outdoor storage unit like @Steve-Miller suggested some time ago but haven't bothered to do it yet. We are home all the time, no travel, so it's a solution that works for us. If that portable unit failed during a winter outage, we would shut off the water to the house, drain all the pipes, and head for a friend's house or to a hotel. It's much easier now that we don't have two cats and three dogs like we did 25 years ago.
In our case, despite the above ground power everywhere, our outages have been of shorter duration. Installation of smart grid technology has improved repair times tremendously.
Not saying we wouldn't revisit the decision in the future, but given all of the above, for now we've decided to skip the standby generator.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
-
@wtg this is all very helpful, thank you! Your comments underscore that I obviously need to do a lot more reading about all of this before I make any decisions. I am pretty sure that my mother's generator (before she moved, her new place doesn't have one) was a wired in gas one. She had zero problems, so I just sort of assumed I get whatever she had. But that's an N of 1, so...
He found out weeks later that his basement was completely flooded.
What's the connection here? Was the generator supposed to power a sump pump, but didn't?
-
Yes, the sump pump not having power was the issue.
We've been in this house for 44 years and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of multi-day outages we've had. The longest outages were three days, on two separate occasions when there was widespread damage. One was an ice storm and the other was after powerful straight line winds took down a ton of trees over a large area. We didn't have a generator of any kind in place for the first one, and we survived pretty much without incident. We just had to haul out a ton of blankets because the house got down to 48 degrees. We had our manual setup in place for the second one, and we survived again, though we could watch cable while most others were in the dark.
It is certainly the case that many people have trouble-free generators, and even the people whose stories I recounted above are still glad that they have them. My cost/benefit analysis leads me to the conclusion that they're not worth the expense. It's a luxury item I can live without.
Anyway, my point, which I'm sure you understand, is that installing one is not a case of "set it and forget it". They are mechanical gizmos, they need to be maintained, and they do fail, sometimes at the worst time possible.
One other thing I'll pass along that I learned is that standby generators should, in theory, not run for days on end.
@Steve-Miller may have a better sense of how reasonable Generac's guidelines are, or if they are over the top.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
-
we could watch cable while most others were in the dark.
That's an interesting comment. We had a power outage in our area a few months ago and while the power to our house was restored within hours, our cable/internet/telephone was out of service for about five days. It turned out that some other locations in our vicinity had suffered longer outages that interrupted power to some nodes of the cable provider and until those received power again, we had no cable/internet/telephone service.
Our longest outage was 40 years ago when a series of tornados tore down major transmission lines near us. It lasted a little over 2 days. I hunted down a source of dry ice which I used to keep the refrigerator and freezer cold. Heat was not a problem because this outage occurred at the end of May. We also had to go buy water because we have a well and with no electricity, we couldn't pump water from the well.
I don't have any direct experience with residential generators. In my previous work, there were emergency generators at most client facilities, usually diesel-powered, and as long as they were periodically tested and maintained, they were very reliable.
Big Al
-
At that time of that outage (2000), very few people had either portable or permanently installed generators. No smart phones and most folks were using desktop computers.
Despite that, Comcast used to come out and put a small generator at the pole where their equipment was and run an extension cord up the pole. They'd even come back and gas the generator up periodically. I always thought it was kind of silly, because of course most homes had no power during an outage and couldn't watch TV or use the internet. After power was restored, Comcast would come back and pick the generators up.
I guess they finally figured out it was sort of crazy. Plus people have mobile phones and can use those for all sorts of things. So now during an outage, whether you have a generator or not, no Comcast cable or internet for you until the power is back on.
Of course if there's a super-wide outage, their central offices could, in theory, be out for longer than the outage in a particular neighborhood. We've been fortunate enough that we haven't seen an outage of that magnitude that has affected us.
-
As expected, power is back on at our friend’s house. Much sooner than 8/14.
-
My cost/benefit analysis leads me to the conclusion that they're not worth the expense.
Yes, this is what I need to figure out for myself.... it's a hard question to answer.
Re the "set it and forget it" part... I always assume that any mechanicals need regular maintenance -- that's how we keep them working. So I don't mind paying for regular maintenance. But I want something that will work when it's needed, be reliable etc.
Anyway, lots to think about. For now, I'm off to read that article you linked!
-
I always assume that any mechanicals need regular maintenance
My "set it and forget it" remark was not only about the annual maintenance but also what needs to be done if the unit is in use during an extended outage. What Generac talks about in the article. I'm sure there are people who run their units for weeks and don't check everything every day as the guidance states. And they're probably fine.
I've just been surprised at how many problems seem to crop up with these things, both the permanent installs and the portable units. My sample set is a bit larger than yours, but still quite limited. And it may well be swaying my opinion about how much I'm willing to spend on these pups.
Yes, this is what I need to figure out for myself.... it's a hard question to answer.
I guess the basic question that needs answering is "what is the worst that could happen if the power goes out for days and what can I do to protect myself and at what cost?" And you go from there...
Good luck!
-
@wtg We have the same manual transfer switch setup - we got it after Hurricane Sandy left us without power for 11 (yes 11!) days. It has come in handy - although most power outages are too short to even bother dragging it out of the garage we've hooked it up for a few 1-3 day outages and once for an 8 day outage after a freak windstorm/tornado thing hit our area in 2019 and took out every power line within a 3 mile radius of our house We learned during that outage that if we are careful and don't turn on too many things at once, we can even run the coffee maker, the microwave, or a hair straightener (oh yeah, did I mention LL#1's SENIOR PROM was in the middle of that outage???!!!)
Anyway, is your generator on wheels? If not, might i suggest you simply store it in something like a wheeled garden cart to make it easier to move around? We just roll ours from our detatched garage over to the transfer switch, plug it in, and turn it on. We bought a dual-fuel model from Costco so it runs on either gasoline or grill-sized propane tanks and we've only ever used the propane - it doesn't gunk up the engine like gasoline does so we don't have issues with gunked up carburators and whatnot that we get with the gas-powered snowblower. We keep like 5 or 6 propane tanks in the garage and one lasts us about 8 hours powering the whole house. (Obviously, we do try to baby it a bit - we can't run the A/C or the oven, but it handles both our refrigerators, our hot water heater, the well and septic pumps, etc.
-
My thing about "set it and forget," regular maintenance etc. is that if I take care of something, I expect it to keep working. And I am one of those people who pays close attention, so knowing I would need to check while in extended use, I would do that. But I don't want a lemon. And I've been discouraged from what I read about newer appliances, like HVACs ... sigh.
"what is the worst that could happen if the power goes out for days and what can I do to protect myself and at what cost?"
Right. 30 hours is one thing, but multiple days is another... It's really hard to come up with a cost/benefit stance here.
But I don't know much about the type that you and Lisa are talking about. I don't think we necessarily need a wired in kind, you know, we don't need the Cadillac of generators! Just something for safety, the fridge, to protect the house (e.g., run the sump etc) may be enough. ...
-
Our generator has two wheels, so you do have to lift up one side to move it. It's a beast (maybe 200 lbs?) and by some strange coincidence it seems to have gotten much heavier as I get older.
But so far I manage ok, and we do have a few strapping young lads as neighbors so I can always ask one of them to move it around to where we place it when it's in use.Like you, we find that we don't bother to haul it out for every power outage. And everything is fine. I think that's one of the reasons I feel like I can live without a standby generator. The number of times you actually need that robust a system is pretty low.
We're the same - we can run pretty much everything in the house, but we do bring things online gradually so we don't stress and overload the generator. Our cooktop is gas, as is the hot water heater. City water, so no well pump.
As long as I can keep the frig, freezer, sump pump and furnace running, along with some lights, I'm a happy camper.
The multi-fuel models started appearing after we bought ours but I would definitely consider that route if we have to replace it. We use a fuel stabilizer and make sure we turn off the fuel supply and run the generator until there's no more fuel in the carb. Really helps with the gunk problem. And we start it three or four times a year and run it for a while to test it and to charge up the battery.
Which unit do you have? How many watts is it?
-
@ShiroKuro said in Tornado!:
so knowing I would need to check while in extended use
If you're comfortable checking oil levels and stuff like that, that's great.
I was thinking more about a scenario where you are gone for an extended period of time and the power outage happens when you're not there. But maybe you don't travel as much as I think you do!
@ShiroKuro said in Tornado!:
But I don't know much about the type that you and Lisa are talking about. I don't think we necessarily need a wired in kind, you know, we don't need the Cadillac of generators! Just something for safety, the fridge, to protect the house (e.g., run the sump etc) may be enough. ...
What @Lisa and I have is a manual transfer switch.
The short version is that you have a big plug on the outside of your house and a hulking extension cord you run from the generator to that plug. Inside the house, near your electric panel, you have a transfer switch unit that lets you switch over some of your house circuits so they are powered by the generator.
The transfer switch is installed by an electrician, and at the time of installation you have to decide which circuits you want to be able to switch to the generator.
It really is the same thing that happens with the standby units, except that nothing happens automatically. You have to get the generator in place, plug it into the transfer switch, switch over circuits, gas up the generator when it runs low on fuel, and reverse the whole process when the power comes back on.
With a standby unit, the generator is always in place, theoretically has unlimited fuel if you're on natural gas, and it turns itself on and off when it senses what's going on with the utility service. They are also much larger capacity and you can get one that will let you run pretty much everything. If you want to be able to use an electric oven and your clothes dryer and the A/C, you'll have to spend more money to get a larger unit. If you pare back, you can get a smaller unit and save money. But otherwise you do nothing but enjoy having power whenever the power goes out.
Here's a much longer description:
https://wenproducts.com/blogs/resource-center/generators-and-transfer-switches-a-comprehensive-guide
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
-
That's super helpful @wtg thanks!
But maybe you don't travel as much as I think you do!
No, we kind of do travel a lot.... it's stressful worrying about the house when we're away. So far, no big problems, but there are no guarantees...
The last time we were away for an extended trip, I had a friend from work come and check on the house regularly, but asking someone to check on a generator seems like a lot... In that scenario, it might almost be better to have nothing.... Except for the possibility of frozen pipes or flooding from a non-functioning sump pump.
Let's just stay home....
-
Frozen pipes aren't an issue if you shut off the water supply, and even better, drain the system. We did that in Door County for years and never had a problem. Then you're covered if your furnace fails (which is what we worried about in DC) and the house temps drop when you are away for long periods of time. Of course now there are monitoring systems that will alert you to temperature drops. Those weren't nearly as common when we first built our vacation home.
And for you, is a non-functioning sump pump really a disaster? I thought you only installed it after you moved in, as the previous owner didn't have one. There was some water down there, and you were correct to install something to deal with it, but it doesn't seem like it would be a huge issue if the water collected in that crawl space for a few days until the power came back on. Unlike our situation, where the drain tile is dumping tons of water into the sump pit if it's raining hard outside. Our basement would flood.
@ShiroKuro said in Tornado!:
Let's just stay home....
That's what we do!!! And we love it...
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
-
We should do a poll and see how many WTFers have standby generators, portable generators, or nothing.
-
Frozen pipes aren't an issue if you shut off the water supply, and even better, drain the syst
I thought about doing that one time when we were away, and at this point I don't remember the details, but I decided I didn't want to do that. I think it was because of the water heater? Although now we have a new water heater...
for you, is a non-functioning sump pump really a disaster?
Probably not, but when you're not at home, you don't know what you don't know. And we had some water problems in our last house, so we're a little gun shy, as it were.
The other thing motivator for getting some kind of generator is just being without electricity for an extended time (when you'e home), and of course worrying about the indoor climate for the piano.
But I will probably drag my feet so much that we do nothing for a good long while!
