THTF - Trees Hitting the Fan...

[busy_squirrel]

Make sure you have the main shut off before plugging the generator into the house line, if you are using an all-house gen set. Most (all?) states require a master switch that opens the main when switching in a permanently mounted generator, but a jury-rigged system might not have this type of master switch.

If you're out shopping and looking to buy one of these, the proper name to tell the sales associate is a "transfer switch." As he said, manufactured ones will let you turn on power to the house from the utility OR from the generator, not both at the same time.

 

[WeedWhacker]

Always have plenty of: [...] non-parishable food

Yes, I also highly recommend having plenty of food on-hand NOT made from the flesh of Christian believers. ;D

My addition to this: anyone else know of any currently-produced AM/FM/NOAA/SW hand-crank (and other) powered radios? The Kaito KA007 seems to be the only choice for such a thing, now that Radio Shack doesn't seem to be making their model 12-803 any longer... for that matter, a small, portable HAM/amatuer set, now that the FCC has dropped the Morse requirements completely...

 

[rwc]

anyone else know of any currently-produced AM/FM/NOAA/SW hand-crank (and other) powered radios?

Eton FR300. here

A few of us were discussing the shake or crank flashlights on the ferry this morning (still lots of folks without power). It seems the ones sold a few years ago were not very reliable but they've gotten quite a bit better.

 

[WeedWhacker]

None of the Eton radios have ALL the capabilities of the old RadioShack one, nor the KA007 - that is, those don't have shortwave capability. For the paranoid, being restricted to one gov't's radio broadcasts just isn't cool.

 

[Arcticfox]

Weed Whacker

Yes, I also highly recommend having plenty of food on-hand NOT made from the flesh of Christian believers. ;D

Don't quit your day job

 

[AStone]

Well, I subscribed to this thread the night of the Pacific NW storm.

Sure am glad I was south of Portland, and not in Seattle.

Da'um. SEA got beat up by momma nature. Shu' we!

OK, THTF preparedness.

As a mountaineer type, I've been working on this one for years (having been slammed by storms above the treeline on expeditions for many years).

1) Warmth. This is a no brainer (for all except some modern suburbanites who have no experience with camping). If your power goes off, and you've got no way to power your heating system, just put on extra clothing. Extra clothing? Ditch the cotton in all except summer. For the other three seasons, get multiple layers of polyester fleece. If you must be outside in precipitation, wear breathable raingear. For sleeping, have two down sleeping bags per person: one rated to 20-40 *F (warm season), the other (winter) rated to -5*F or -25*F (depending on where on the mountain you live). You'll sleep like a baby.

2) Water. I'm looking at 100 gallon vertical storage tanks. Bladders can be good, but take up a lot of floor space. If all else fails, yeah, the bath tub with good stoppers will work.

3) Food. My supply currently is 3 months worth; mostly grains (polenta, rice, quinoa, oats, wheat, flax), beans, canned goods, and LOTs of sugar. Don't forget beer and wine. I'm working up to 2 years. If I run short of meat for the pot (to add to all that grain), the .22 LR and (soon to come) .30/30 could help with that. (Never know what the future could bring, but I'm quite sure it's going to be MUCH more extreme than what we got now. The wise will prepare accordingly. Word up.)

4) Light. Batteries for flashlights. (Enough for two months.) Tons of candles. Kerosine/oil lanterns rock. (Several gallons of lamp oil and kerosine.) Nuff said. I also agree with ZeSpectre about the importance of ventilating when using kerosene lamps and lanterns.

5) Entertainment. Two years worth of reading in the form of your favorite books that you want to read but don't have time for now. Add one hot intimacy partner. You're good to go.
_________

Speaking of generators for THTF situations, I've got a used Honda ES 6500 (6500W) generator for sale that has less than 150 hours total run time. It's in excellent condition: new battery, new oil/filter, new spark plugs, 240V and 120V recepticles. It puts our enough power for a very large house, several adjacent houses, or a business.

Price is a fraction of a new one. Send me a PM if you're interested. Like I said, I'm a couple of hours south of Portland.

Nem

 

[Cesiumsponge]

We lost power for three days, not too bad. It was pretty surreal going to work Friday with powerlines strung 6' above and across the road and needing to drive across downed trees. Definitely not car-friendly, I picked up a slow flat and the roads were so full of debris, you couldn't see asphalt.

I just used a camping sleeping bag and an extra blanket to stay warm for sleeping. Wore a jacket around the house and long pants. Hand crank-type radio is useful for keeping up with news and doesn't consume batteries. I am not sure if they have a TV set that uses that method. Solar would be nice but there wasn't very much light available in the winter.

Batteries are obvious but I avoided using flashlights whenever possible just because they aren't very good at broad lighting for doing stuff. LED-type flashlights or lanterns would be much better as they are easier on batteries. We also had a rechargable 1M candlepower spotlight for long distance peaking and plenty of lithium 123-type weaponlights. Pretty much any rechargable item should have a car charger adaptor handy (or a power invertor in the car).

Cheap tea-candles in 100pk bulk work great and are dirt cheap, last about 4 hrs each. Low light output so don't expect to read with it but you can use several and place them in lamp reflectors for higher output.

We have a gas range and water heater so we could cook and get hot water without power. Of course if gas went out, we wouldn't have that option but a gas range with gas is pretty doggone convenient.

A generator would be nice but we don't have room for endless jugs of fuel storage to run it extensively. At most, we'd probably only run it an hour a day to bring the freezers and fridge temps back down, watch some TV for news, recharge rechargable gear like flashlights, and run the blower on the furnace for some heat.

We have some oil radiating electric heaters which are nice since after turning them off, they'd stay hot for several hours. I would bet radiant flooring-type heating or any type of non-air-heating type heat source would keep things warm for a while too when intermittently.

An extra jacket or blanket goes a long way though and fairly cheap. The only real concern I had was for the family pets. They don't really fit in jackets.

 

[Tokugawa]

We were gone to NY, that lovely garden state for the storm. Flew back Mon. at 11PM. Roads had been cleaned up, moatly. Had no power till thur. So 4 or 5 days out? One thing I learned- our boiler controls got sort of haywire from the voltage surge - We ran it off the generator but I had to jump a bunch of wiring to get the pumps running. And the wood stove was nice cause a radiant floor warms up about 1 degree per hour- thats a lot of time when your are starting at 40 degrees. We built this house to run with very little power oil heat, gas stove, etc. I can remember at least three times we have los tpower for a week or so.