Generator and who is laughing now

campclose · 10-28-2012, 04:37 PM

Okay I was telling my hubby that he was crazy to spend $350 on a generator hook up. I said we don't need it, we don't lose power hardly ever here. Well we are in Upstate NY and we could be losing our power in the next couple of days. I hope we don't but if we do I'm thankful that he was smart enough to get the hook-up for the generator. This way our entire house will still have power.

dinosaur · 10-31-2012, 09:25 AM

campclose, you are indeed a sterling woman to admit that you were wrong.

jason · 10-31-2012, 12:24 PM

How did you make out? A generator is one of those things you hope to never have to use but is invaluable when you do have to use it.

wvbreamfisherman · 10-31-2012, 02:08 PM

ME- I'm the one laughing! I went out Friday and bought a 3.5 kw generator for $320 at Cabelas. Bought a 25 foot 12/3 extension cord and made up a double male adapter so I can plug in to my outdoor receptable.
Yesterday afternoon at 2:30 the power went out at the house. I fired up the generator, turned off the main breaker and plugged in.

The generator powered the lights we needed, sump pump, furnace, fridge and deep freeze easily. We spent the evening warm and cozy watching DVD's.

The one I'm laughing at is my brother. I texted him about the deal, and even offered to spot him the $$, but NOOOO- he had to buy new tires for his van (to be fair- his tired look like they belong on a dragster). Anyhow, he lost power too, so I couldn't resist a tease...

Oh yeah- the power came back on about 10 pm last night, so we got lucky.

campclose · 11-01-2012, 02:51 PM

Wow wv - sucks that you had to use yours! Great you had one. I think my husband was a bit bummed! We did not lose power! We had terrible wind and some flooding but our power stayed on. He was ready and raring to go too! I said, well there is always the next storm. I'm glad we were ready though!

wvbreamfisherman · 11-01-2012, 02:54 PM

Glad you didn't have to use it! That reminds me- need to pick up some fuel stabilizer...

Pathfinder1 · 11-01-2012, 06:53 PM

Hi...

Would you believe this...??

Visited our local PD yesterday afternoon to to see what was happening, Sandy-wise.

After chatting, they told me that they had to get a generator running on the sidewalk outside the Police Station, and run a cord in through a window just to run their 911 system working...!!

I told them that I thought that all the Police Departments had standby generators. Boy, was I wrong...!!

wvbreamfisherman · 11-01-2012, 07:48 PM

Wow! When I first got on the FD here(1982), we had the station wired with an ancient Civil Defense generator of 1960's vintage. It finally got to the point it wouldn't run reliably, and in 2000, when I was on City Council, we replaced that one and got one for the Police Department that run on natural gas (or propane) and cut in automatically.

Since then we've upgrade the radio equipment at the Fire Dept, and we can now dispatch the Western end of our county in case the Metro dispatch center goes down.

Out county actually has three alternate dispatch points (no 911 calls or CAD, but we can comminicate with all county units).

Out state is in the middle of implementing the interoperable radio system for the entire state, but it still isn't complete.

I should be in the post-disater critique of the response to the snow events in a few weeks. It will be a good test of our communications.

Scotty · 11-02-2012, 06:08 PM

I would love one but I haven't been able to afford one yet. I do intend to get one when I can, even if I don't have to use it for a while. I would rather have power to the fridge and deep freeze to keep things in good shape. I have too much meat in there to lose now.

wvbreamfisherman · 11-02-2012, 06:44 PM

I lost all the food in the fridge this past summer when we lost power for 5 days as a result of the derecho. The freezer was almost starting to thaw when we got power back. Got lucky there!

Of course, if it's cold you can always put the food in coolers and set it outside, can't do that in summer.

On the other hand, I can get by without A/C a heckuva lot easier than I can without heat...