To All The Members On the East Coast and In The Northeast

[adallak]

I must say we here in upstate NY must be in a bubble. We got very lucky as considering what happened elsewhere it was like any other day here. Thank god. We have lucked out many times and I thank god for that. I send my prayers to all that have been less than fortunate.

Thank god my power did not go out. I run 10 aquariums, including 3 salt and 7 fresh. I keep 4 car batteries on trickle chargers and have inverters that run my pumps. but days would not be good at all.

Ten aquariums. Wow! I used to have about 150 aquarium fish. A lot of fun, work and responsibility.

[the gold2]

To all you who are residing in the affected areas, glad to hear that most are physically fine except for being very inconvenienced by the post-storm logisitics.

My brother lives in Trumbull CT. and as far as I know they are OK except for the busted up trees etc. His wife's sister however lives practically ocean front (Westbrook CT, west of Long Island), so they boarded up the house in preparation but I am sure they are dealing with flooding damage.

Best to ya !

[PAUL T]

Mike I hope you stored up on gas for the generator. I had the same problem back in July when the last bad storm went through. People lined up for blocks trying to get gas. Stations were running out and did not know when they would get more. Glad your o.k..

[BodybyFisher]

Mike I hope you stored up on gas for the generator. I had the same problem back in July when the last bad storm went through. People lined up for blocks trying to get gas. Stations were running out and did not know when they would get more. Glad your o.k..

Paul this is exactly what is going on right now, I have been looking for gas all day, line are blocks long, we are going out now to find gas, the stations are running out, we are going to go to neighborhoods that have power.

Thanks, Mike

[JohnnyG]

I had the same problem back in July when the last bad storm went through. People lined up for blocks trying to get gas.

I went through that storm too, but we were only without power for two days.......It SEEMED like a lifetime!

Back when I was working for Marathon Oil, I went to the local Emergency Management meetings and tried to tell them the same thing. They would not commit to having standby generators for local gas stations. I tried to impress upon them the importance of having fuel for emergency vehicles as well as for the public, I was ingnored. Marathon explored the idea of having generators for oil terminals, but the cost, environmental regulations, and upkeep were just too expensive, then if the stations didn't have backup power, we couldn't sell the fuel anyway.

The only local station that had gas was one that was built recently by BP, and they brought in a generator, sold cash only since there credit card machines wouldn't work. It got people through for a few days anyway, but that was nothing like what you are going through in NJ/NY.

Remember this, there is plenty of food, fuel, and empty motel rooms in Western PA as well as down here. You may just need to leave.

[Cadillac Jim]

I'm just now back. The power was out for over two days, but the neighbor's tree lost a limb that crashed our phone lines. Verizon was swamped, of course, and just now got out to fix it.

[BodybyFisher]

Still out, they are working on trees and poles, according to the news availability of fuel will begin to get better

Next major purchase is a state of the art generator, the one I am hooked up to uses 5 gallons every 9 hours because it only has two 20 amp lines and its always running under a high load, my neighbors has 6-20 amp lines gets 16 hours on 5 gallons, big difference same 12 horsepower engine

[Cadillac Jim]

My ancient EE curriculum was heavy on "Power" and I learned enough as an undergraduate to figure out that a DC generator-motor automatic transmission would be so heavy as to be impractical for a 300 hp car (like, about 1000 pounds, if memory serves), and, there is no substitute for copper and iron when it comes to efficiency in motors, generators, and transformers. A closely related consideration is cooling; without a good thermal design, your design is impractical, and the thermal design is the most difficult part of the project. The effectiveness of both copper and iron decrease rapidly as temperature increases, so keeping temperature rise down is supremely important for efficiency as well as output.

[adallak]

Oh boy... another storm... Looks like we need to make this thread a sticky!

[BodybyFisher]

Yep another storm, 3 inches of snow, high winds mid to low 30 degree weather and the power went out for about 3 hours and was flickering all day yesterday.

I bought a 9000 watt, 60 amp, 12 hp generator from costco a few days ago and it is fantastic, it calms down when there is no load, has an electric starter, remote (overkill), and digital readouts for volts, frequency and run time, next I am going to look into a transfer switch, see this from Reliance Controls, it looks like the way to go. Next I need to buy about 3 more 5 gallon cans and fabricate some 10 gauge extensions

http://www.reliancecontrols.com/

Here is a video that shows how its installed very cool

http://www.thisoldho...0581468,00.html

[adallak]

Sounds like a cool stuff. Do you have a stove, fireplace to warm up the living room a bit or you gonna use electric heaters if needed?

[BodybyFisher]

I direct wired my gas forced hot air heater directly to the generator and it worked fine

[adallak]

You are all set. The comfort will cost a lot though. That generator will justify the investment in a couple of storms.

[JohnnyG]

next I am going to look into a transfer switch, see this from Reliance Controls, it looks like the way to go. Next I need to buy about 3 more 5 gallon cans and fabricate some 10 gauge extensions

I priced 10 ga. extension cords at Lowe's after our July "deratio" storm. Buying them seperately, say in 25 or 50 foot lengths is a waste of money. I purchased a 100' 10 ga extension cord for about $110.00, and two sets of 20 amp cord recepticle ends. Cut the new cord into lengths I can use and a couple of 12 ga. multi-outs. I ran a Main from my Honda (30 amp out) to a gang box using 10 ga. SO cord, the extensions plug in there, inside the house. Now I can wire my house in about 10 minutes and supply my refrigerator, hit a mullti tap and carry on that cord to the furnace, the second line can be used for a smal window air conditioning unit in the bedroom, or used for other purposes if it's winter.

The Honda was very expensive, but includes an inverter @ 3000 watts for exceptionally quiet, clean power for laptops and electronic thermostats and furnace controls. Not all generators are kind to modern electronics.

I think the run time at part load is 20 hours on 3.5 gallons of fuel, automatic throttle engaged.

[PAUL T]

I have had a back-up generator for about 20 years. I usually run extension cords to refrigerator & freezers and other essentials. I have contemplated putting one of those transfer switches in for years. One year we were without power for 10 days and I wired a plug on my FAG furnace. I also tied into a circuit in my basement and had lights and a few outlets. The main thing is not to overload your generator. I made a mistake this year and used a long extension cord on a cord reel for a short run leaving about 50 feet still on the reel. Long story short, it overheated, shorted out and knocked out the generator. I knew better but I got careless and it could have burnt the house down. I am also glad I had a low oil shut off on my generator. That save it this year. Stay safe Mike, It sounds like you have a nice generator.

[BodybyFisher]

I agree Johnny about the dirty power, it knocked out the electronics in a touch sensitive lamp we have. I used a filtered surge protector on my computer to try to prevent any damage to sensitive electronics. I need to look into the inverter you are talking about. I like the idea of buying the 10 gauge extension and modifying it. I bought the last extension at Lowes it was a 12 gauge 15 amp 100 foot extension from them for this storm.

Paul explain what happened to the long extension what gauge was it, and why did it overheat? I borrowed a generator that used enough oil that it shut down in 9 hours, that was shocking. Thanks for the info guys

[Cadillac Jim]

Extension cords have voltage drops and dissipate power. Sometimes they are warm to the touch, sometimes not so much, depending on the gauge of the wire and the load. So long as they are used with recommended limits (15 Amps for 12 gauge wire, 20 Amps for 10 gauge wire), exposed to the air they won't heat up.

For the electricians and engineers, at 20 C, 10 gauge wire has a resistance of about 1 Ohm per 1,000 feet, or 0.1 Ohms for 50 feet, two-way (total of 100 feet of wire, plus ground, in a 50-foot extension cord). A current of 15 Amps will have a voltage drop of 1.5 Volts and the wire will dissipate about 22.5 Watts of power. If you use 12 gauge wire, multiply everything by 1.6. For higher currents, voltage drop is proportional to the current but power is proportional to the square of the current.

A power of 22.5 Watts is OK spread along 50 feet of cord exposed to the air, even though the insulation keeps the heat in the wire as well as insulates the electricity. Wrapped on a reel, the heat that does get through the insulation has nowhere to go inside the wound-up portion, which slowly heats up. Resistance increases as the wire warms up, too. At 100 C the resistance is about 30% higher, dissipating about 70% more heat at the same current.

For a really good time, look at the 1966 NIST copper wire tables at

http://library.bldrdoc.gov/docs/nbshb100.pdf

[BodybyFisher]

Thanks Jim, I didnt understand that wrapped in a reel made a difference

[Cadillac Jim]

Thanks Jim, I didnt understand that wrapped in a reel made a difference

That's a very easy thing to miss. I wouldn't have thought of it myself unless it was mentioned in the data sheets that come with the reel.

[BodybyFisher]

Its funny, NOW, I understand why my neighbor said, that the AIR would cool the 100 foot 14 gage cable his neighbor ran to his house (that was overloaded)....

The learning never stops..

[PAUL T]

I also heard that a coiled extension cord also produces an electromagnetic field. Anyway the heat from the coil melted the insulation in several places in the roll, it was a 12 ga. cord.

[Cadillac Jim]

A coiled extension cord produces more of a magnetic field, which can cause a hum in electronic equipment such as phones, radios, Walkmans and iPads and such. But since the current flows in both directions in the coil that tends to cancel out the field, both when the cord is laid out on the floor and when it is coiled up.

If the conductors are gently twisted inside the insulation, as many are, that reduces the magnetic field even more. Some exterior-grade and other premium Romex cabling for permanent wiring has a stranded ground line that is distributed to form a shield, which reduces the field even more, as well as provides a barrier for rodents and accidental damage to the outer insulation.

[JohnnyG]

I used a filtered surge protector on my computer to try to prevent any damage to sensitive electronics. I need to look into the inverter you are talking about.

Keep in mind that the inverter I am referring to is built in to my Honda Generator. You may consider buying a small additional inverter equipped model just for sensitive electronics. I could have almost bought a whole house backup power system for the price of this unit, but didn't have a good place to install it outside.

http://powerequipment.honda.com/generators/models/eu3000is

[BodybyFisher]

Thanks Johnny