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Electrifying
Sep. 2nd, 2011 01:23 amYay! Power was finally restored a little before noon Thursday. I can finally give the generator a rest. The thing performed admirably, not skipping a beat unless I let it run out of fuel. I would gas it up while running, a no-no as far as safety goes, but I would have to foolishly dump fuel all over the thing to even begin flirting with disaster. The Mayhem Electric Company kept Jeff and I living large 'n' in charge. Odd (and comforting, in my case) seeing our house lit up among a sea of mostly pitch-dark houses and McMansions. As it stands, I didn't even have to touch any of the last batch of fuel we bought, so it will be put in storage as it always has been, maintained and circulated through the various power equipment here with plenty on hand for the occasional emergency.
This little exercise has taught me a bit about how to better handle an extended outage as well as given me some ideas for energy management in the future if/when I decide to install a solar assist/backup system. I have a smaller generator, but it burned out years ago, the big one works well for running the entire household at once, but tends to be inefficient and overkill during minimal use periods. Since I plan to get a decent little portable to take camping with us, I want to segregate "critical" circuits like those for the fridge and freezers and some lighting that can be used with a small, load-adjusting generator as well as a solar backup system. Since refrigerators/freezers do not run continuously, and lights get switched off at bedtime, a generator that adjusts its engine speed according to load will be able to run these critical items for an extended period of time, quietly and far more efficiently than my brute force method. A gallon of fuel can last the entire night. A farm across the road from me put in a huge array of solar panels this summer, quite easily enough to offset much of the electricity used by their dairy and turkey operations during a sunny day. One day I will visit and ask them about their incredible setup. I need to take pictures. Jeff and I will be picking up a "solar powered turkey" for T-Day.
Anyway, I can now sleep in relative peace. In more ways than one.
This little exercise has taught me a bit about how to better handle an extended outage as well as given me some ideas for energy management in the future if/when I decide to install a solar assist/backup system. I have a smaller generator, but it burned out years ago, the big one works well for running the entire household at once, but tends to be inefficient and overkill during minimal use periods. Since I plan to get a decent little portable to take camping with us, I want to segregate "critical" circuits like those for the fridge and freezers and some lighting that can be used with a small, load-adjusting generator as well as a solar backup system. Since refrigerators/freezers do not run continuously, and lights get switched off at bedtime, a generator that adjusts its engine speed according to load will be able to run these critical items for an extended period of time, quietly and far more efficiently than my brute force method. A gallon of fuel can last the entire night. A farm across the road from me put in a huge array of solar panels this summer, quite easily enough to offset much of the electricity used by their dairy and turkey operations during a sunny day. One day I will visit and ask them about their incredible setup. I need to take pictures. Jeff and I will be picking up a "solar powered turkey" for T-Day.
Anyway, I can now sleep in relative peace. In more ways than one.
