We Are All Slaves to the Grid

There is something comforting about turning on a switch and having a light come on. Or pressing a button for the garage door. Or having warm air blow up from the furnace. All simple things we take for granted...until they're gone.

Big pockets of the NE were caught completely off guard by the freak blizzard this past Saturday, and many of us lost power for an extended time. My area in Eastern PA is expected to be without power until friday.

I recently had a whole house standby generator installed and it has been the single best thing I have ever done. I feel lucky that I have been able to help out neighbors by storing frozen food, letting them take hot showers, etc.

But it has given me pause to think how incredibly dependent we are on our power grid. I mean sheer panic by many people. It kind of amazes me that literally no one plans for the unexpected. When power comes back on, people will be back to work, and generators will be the furthest thing from their minds. Spending thousands on something that you may never use is not as much fun as buying a new home theater or ATV, but it really is a critical home system especially if you live in the boonies. I'm surprised more people don't have them.

While most of the area was in total blackout, I was sitting next to a fireplace watching football. PS3 was working, but the cable was down so no online. As long as cable is back up by Nov 8th, all will be well in the world.

I hope the rest of you in the NE are managing without power and hopefully the utilities will be back on in short order.

It is something I have been considering given that I live in New Hampshire, my folks have one so when we are hit by an ice strom we usually go and bunk up there. Luckily my town was spared the wide spread power outages that have plagued the rest of the state, I was trying to play some COD4 on Saturday night and it was lagging bad, I assume from all the grid issues....

fbd....

how much did you spend on it.

About $3k on the generator, $1500 on the install.

Hotel and restaurants for the week would have been about $1500 so I'm a 1/3 of the way toward paying it off already.

Live in the boonies here, but only time I lost power was for a ice storm last year that broke nearly every tree in the yard. Looked at generators and got a big case of sticker shock. Easy to spend 3-5 grand for a unit with juice to run the essentials like fridge and deep freeze and sump pump. THis is not even one that is integrated to the power int he house, but one I could keep in the garage and roll out in the even of loss of power.

Plus last time I had to go to sister in law's place, unload her deep freeze, move the deep freeze to my garage, re load the deep freeze and then reverse the process once the power came back on. Would have rather just brought over the generator...

Jealous.

How many hours of run time on your current fuel capacity?

It runs on propane, and I have a 1000 gallon tank. As of this am, it showed I still had 70% capacity. It is a super efficient Kohler engine.

The portable 5k models will get you by in a pinch, but you have to run wires all over the house, keep the fuel fresh, make sure it starts, deal with the loud gas engine, etc.

Shop around for propane models. I found great pricing at homedepot.com. They don't stock the better ones in stores, just online. Before you buy, google for HD coupon codes. I saved another $500 and got free shipping. Your local propane company will do the hookup and transfer switch.

I'm glad I have Directv. Cable is out too.

Glad to hear your (wise) investment is paying off! I hope they get things back to normal for you soon.

I have a 5K gen (onan) on my RV and its barely enough at times. A/C,microwave, and lights can be a huge load. I can't imagine running a house off of one. It could be done, but you would have to be conscious and conservative. I only have 2- 6 gallon propane tanks and can run about 15 hours per tank depending on the load. With the A/C full blast in the dunes, I can kill a tank in 5-8 hours.