[Guest]

Hey Guys,
If your one of those unfortunate people without power because of all that ice, I hope there are better days ahead and hope there is no damage to your house.

Question:
How many of you have back up generators at your house?

I always was going to get around to installing one, because of storms that move through this time of year.
When we get temps in the teens and no power for days, I'd get really scared about my pipes freezing.

I see some run on natural gas, and automaticly kick in when the main power in shuts down.

Any way Good Luck

 

[Happy Guy]

I have a portable welding machine I could bring up to the house if power was ever out very long. Since we are on a rural water system anyway, no need for power for a water well or the heating system. We draw water in cans for cooking etc as long as the tower has a level in it.

I have an Ashley wood stove that I would not take for. That baby heats our whole house. I have my own wood lot to cut from. Biggest problem this time is cabin fever.

 

[Lolead]

Mike, Thankfully we have not lost power here YET. The people South of us in Springfield, Mo were not so luckey. I do have a portable generator that we purchased several years ago for our vendor trailer, so , in an emergency I could put it into service here at the house. I do not have the panel installed to our main service panel, so it would be a rather Rube Goldberg install, but it could be done. I do have a fireplacew with insert, but have not had the flue inspected yetso using it would be a shakey experiment for me. Man, am I ready for SPRING !!! Kruzez, Dave

 

[Alabama IronButt]

We are doing OK here in Alabama. In fact its reached 75 yesterday so Wifey and I went riding

All kidding aside, I hope everyone up on the frozen tundra are fairing OK.

 

[Keghead]

A few years ago we had an ice storm that knocked out our electricity supply. The local electric company said it would be three days before it would be restored... not a good thing in the middle of winter when pipes can freeze quickly when your heat is knocked out. I spent half a day calling and visiting various stores until I found one that had a generator in stock... their last one. I bought it and was literally a block from the store when my son called my cell phone and told me the power was back on. I brought it home anyway as I live in an area where things can go bad quickly in the winter. That was three years ago and I haven't used it yet.

That being said, I have the generator ready to go, which gives me peace of mind. As a reminder to those that have a generator, it's best to run them monthly in order to burn out the nasty gas and keep the carburator from gumming up. I let mine run for 30 minutes per month. That might seem extravagent but won't when you need it to run.

 

[Roadking522]

It's been extraordinarily warm here in Ohio to date this winter. 50's But a couple years ago, an ice storm left us W/O power for 4 days. We live in the country and have a woodburner in the basement that is sufficient to warm much of the house. We also have kerosene Hurricane lamps and a large Kerosene heater, upon which we can cook - and did. We stayed warm and occupied. Could have gone on much longer but was glad when the power came back on. Most grateful to have the microwave running again

 

[ChuckR]

We had a lot of ice Fri. night and lost power for a couple of brief periods. The second wave hit Sat night but wasn't as bad. Temps increased Sun into the mid to upper 30's and melted most of the ice. Lots of rain Sun. night and temps now headed into the teens. I have a generator but wouldn't be able to power a furnace and haven't really needed itwith this storm. A close call!

 

[twyn]

Glad to hear you're OK, Chuck. We've been out since Saturday AM and now at my Mom's until it comes back on. I've seen a lot of out of state utility trucks working on getting folks power back. At least the roads were warm and didn't freeze.

 

[Timmer]

We were without power for 6 1/2 days and we live in the city! Now we've been iced and snowed in for a week with more to come tonight. I feel your pain. Now we have a 13hp, 7k watt generator for future outages.

Normally by this time of year I have at least 1k miles on the Wing, but I have only put about 100 miles on it on a NYD ride.

 

[cheesehead]

I live in Oklahoma City, and we missed the brunt of the ice storm. We received some freezing rain and up to 3" of sleet, but not like the folks in the southern, southeast, northeastern parts of the state.

When this is all done, there'll be a lot of 'firewood' available...from all the downed trees!! Stay safe.

 

['KC']

Normally by this time of year I have at least 1k miles on the Wing, but I have only put about 100 miles on it on a NYD ride.
_________________
Tim Bowman

Tim, I know what you mean. I should have had about 2K on mine by now, and only have about 500.
But we'll get going again soon.

 

[magenta]

generator

i live in central pa,we dont get a lot of ice storms to cut power however a few years back a hurricane put me out of power for three days,that did it,i had an electricion come in and wire in a generator box and i went out and bought a portable 8500 watt generator,that runs my whole house except for the central air,i keep 20 gallons of sta bil treated gas in the garage,then once a year i burn it in my pick up,get fresh gas in the cans and i am set.once a year i fire up the generator and let it run the house a few hrs for exercise,then i disconnet it and let it run out of fuel.I AM READY FOR THE NEXT BIG OUTTAGE.OLE YELLER MBG PA

 

[kikker]

This will be the second day of everything being iced over. No power outages yet but it's not over yet. It's 22 degrees here in Southeastern Oklahoma at 7:00 a.m.

Here's a picture of what it looked like around here yesterday evening.

 

[drvr02silver]

We got the ice yesterday, taking it's toll on alot of trees in the area. In the area I am in, we didn't loose power, but about 5 miles from here they did. had our house completly remodeled last year and at that time we had all new electric put in the house, with 200 amp service, and yes we had a generator back up system installed also, I would hate to loose all my venison and wild pig. :biker:

 

[Sid Moen]

Sunny and melting today. Freezing rain the last couple of nights. No damage to us but you wouldn't know it listening to the local news.

 

[csherrill]

Ice brought down a Television tower in Abilene. The fact it was overloaded didn't help that situation! Roads clearing 70 miles to the south
where I am located, just started snowing! Expecting 1-4 inches if you can believe the forcasters.

 

[Happy Guy]

Hey Kikker, what is that thing in your picture that has the white lines on it?
We have not seen a bare road since last Friday afternoon. You must be living right. From what I hear about the SE part of the state, it is really bad for power outages.

I have a deer camp in Atoka County that is probably in a heep.

 

[pshivers]

If you see a couple of guys in short sleeves near the IBM campus in Austin freezing their rears off, Be nice, understand they are from California and that they got sent to Austin at the last minute this week for some technical training we needed here in Pasadena, California. It has only been getting down to the low 30's here, warms up to almost 70 every day,clear blue skies too!

I sure am glad I was number 3 in line for that class!

 

[BobsGL1800]

We haven't even had any snow yet which has set an all time record.
When I was having this house built up here 6 years ago, I was told that the area does experience power outages due to weather. So I had a generator hookup panel installed in the garage and purchased a new Honda water cooled 8500 watt generator whicj can power most of the house minus the central a/c. Now since I've been up here, the power has gone out for the longest amount of time of 6 hours. But I'd rather look at the generator, then for one if I didn't own it. Matter of fact, when I move this year, I'm going to take the thing with me no matter where I relocate to. No where is safe.

 

[HiYoCheeto]

If you want to see a spectacular light show, have an icy branch fall across the high power lines in your backyard. This happened twice last night before the power finally went out at 9:30 last night. Sure wish I had gotten pictures. :shock:

The house was down to 51 degrees by 9:00 am this morning, and only 19 degrees outside. My crawlspace was probably 10-15 degrees below that. Because I have a boiler with water based heat I was really worrying about frozen pipes. Somehow I managed to snag the last 1800 watt generator at Home Depot and get my boiler and refrigerator running by 11:00 am.

Even though power was finally restored by 4:00 pm, I'm keeping the generator just for peace of mind.