Power Outage..

[svauto-erotic855]

So who was watching his house. He knew about the rollout blackout. Was he not worried about his home freezing???

Ted Cruz is not wealthy and he lives in a normal neighborhood in a normal house. Has it crossed your mind you may have simply turned off the water and then opened up a hose bib outside to drain water out of the structure? The man is not a dummy.

[bubbaearl]

we head in to winter each year with a full tank of propane , 2 cords of wood and enough diesel to run my generator all winter . my well house is insulated plus i have a wick type heater in there just in case . we can set it out for several months without leaving the farm . old country values come in handy . this should be a wake up call for folks . hope you all got through this with min damage .

[Jimbo]

It was not a big deal. Inconvenient and a little uncomfortable, but if you cannot figure out how to survive a few days like this, and are relying on a government to save you, then you have much bigger things to worry about than politics.

Agreed. That said, here is hoping all of you came out of this without too much hardship.

[ram57ta]

Oh, also a weather radio and a cell signal booster. Holy shit I never realized that we had garbage service here via Verizon until wifi went down. lol

We could text, and once in a while we could get IG to refresh, but forget about getting on actual websites. :/

I'll probably end up getting a small-ish 12v TV too, like something for an RV. I can use it with my van battery bank in these scenarios (rather than trying to power the 70") plus I can take it camping. MAYBE a generator and extra fuel, though I really didn't 'need' it. It would have been nice to be able to run the house heat (gas) as the gas fireplace didn't heat shit. I mean, not 24/7 but just to take the chill off here and there.

I have a USB HD TV tuner with FM radio I carry with my laptop so I can always get TV if I really need it. As for Wifi..my Spectrum service went down on day 2 so I tethered to my Galaxy S8 by USB...damn near as fast as my Spectrum internet.

[ram57ta]

Agreed. That said, here is hoping all of you came out of this without too much hardship.

Water main blew at the end of my street on Monday and the city tore the street up and had it repaired within a few hours so technically I COULD have water...except for the fact I have 3 broken pipes and am waiting on a plumber. Power was out for the most part from Sunday evening thru Wednesday morning with the occasional 1 or 2 hours of power back on. Used my generator to cook and make coffee.

[lincolnboy]

Ted Cruz is not wealthy and he lives in a normal neighborhood in a normal house. Has it crossed your mind you may have simply turned off the water and then opened up a hose bib outside to drain water out of the structure? The man is not a dummy.

So, did he do that?
We did that to our neighbor across the street as they don't live in the house. Even emptied out the water heater incase gas went off.

[lincolnboy]

I am considering getting a larger battery bank. Right now I just have this Yeti 400 setup, though I have added a couple extra batteries. The batteries are 33Ah each, so I have just under 100Ah. I wouldn't mind getting close to 200Ah.

The sun wasn't the greatest so my 100w solar was only giving 50 watts or so, but it still worked fine. We also have a couple portable batter packs (from 10,000mAh to 30,000mAh) that we used for the cell phones.

Does it make a difference if using marine or auto batteries?

[Chili]

Does it make a difference if using marine or auto batteries?

You definitely want deep cycle, a standard auto battery isn't a great choice. Lithium is better than these (AGM) but is also expensive. But you also need a lot of other things to make it all work, which is why I am using this Yeti as a go between, since it has all of the other stuff built in (charge controller, inverter, monitor, etc).

There are many ways to do it, so if you're interested do some youtube searches for off grid battery banks or 'house' battery systems..

[juiceweezl]

It was not a big deal. Inconvenient and a little uncomfortable, but if you cannot figure out how to survive a few days like this, and are relying on a government to save you, then you have much bigger things to worry about than politics.

This! I never fired up my generator because our power came back on Tuesday for good. I have a 4K watt peak dual fuel and plenty of propane bottles to run it with. Our water was never a problem, but I filled 5 gallon water bottles right away and the guest bathtub. I have filtration system ready if needed, plenty of chem lights, portable batteries for phones, power inverters, etc. I do need to get solar panels for charging the smaller stuff at times.

We were lucky at my house, but had it been worse, I had food, water (beyond what I stored right away), batteries, wood, etc. if needed. Instead, I ended up loaning to several others who did not have. If you wait until you need it, you're too late. If you wait until someone comes to save/help you, well, you should really take a look at your priorities...

[Gasser64]

I am considering getting a larger battery bank. Right now I just have this Yeti 400 setup, though I have added a couple extra batteries.

Heh I was using this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=professional+battery+jumper&t=ffnt&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fabestpro.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F08%2FJump-N-Carry-JNC660-1700-Peak-Amp-12V-Jump-Starter-296x300.jpg

Recommended to me a couple years ago by the garage journal. They said it's the one all the tow trucks carry. It's been a hell of a good unit but it's kinda heavy. Not really but, kinda.

Anyway I need to find the best inverter I can, to match it. It's got a little cigarette lighter hole, and I charged our laptops and stuff off of it using a 200 watt inverter. Need to find out what the biggest inverter I can use is.

we head in to winter each year with a full tank of propane , 2 cords of wood and enough diesel to run my generator all winter . my well house is insulated plus i have a wick type heater in there just in case . we can set it out for several months without leaving the farm . old country values come in handy . this should be a wake up call for folks . hope you all got through this with min damage .

I'd like to get a diesel generator, but I want to keep enough diesel on hand so I don't have to worry about fuel for years. Therein lies the problem. How long can the life of diesel fuel be extended? Something tells me it would be dead after a year had gone by, even with those additives. So I think I'm gonna go with propane instead. A Kohler 20Kw unit, and a big ass propane tank oughta solve the problem.

[davbrucas]

So who was watching his house. He knew about the rollout blackout. Was he not worried about his home freezing???

I’m sure that he has a back up generator that would power his home during power outages.

[davbrucas]

I am considering getting a larger battery bank. Right now I just have this Yeti 400 setup, though I have added a couple extra batteries. The batteries are 33Ah each, so I have just under 100Ah. I wouldn't mind getting close to 200Ah.



The sun wasn't the greatest so my 100w solar was only giving 50 watts or so, but it still worked fine. We also have a couple portable batter packs (from 10,000mAh to 30,000mAh) that we used for the cell phones.

I have two yeti 1000s that I used. They worked pretty well. They both lasted the 48hrs without needing to be charged.
My house in MS has a Generac Guardian 22kW generator setup. Unfortunately, we were in Texas through this...and we are leasing.

[The King]

Have a Generac (16 kW) here as well.

[Strychnine]

Doesn't affect you guys since you have them already, but Generac is out to a 38 week lead time now.

[Strychnine]

i you cannot figure out how to survive a few days like this, and are relying on a government to save you, then you have much bigger things to worry about than politics.

It's funny, all i took away from all of this were a few ideas i could implement to be more comfortable should this happen again.

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