Woke up this morning with no electricity. Not too unusual where we are in northern Michigan. We live in three different places and switch back and forth. One place is off-grid solar but the other two rely on grid-power. Here where the power is out this morning, we have one neighbor in sight and his power is working. I have not been able to figure out how, during these outages, the neighbor's never seem to lose power but we do.
To my surprise, our little electric co-op has an on-line power outage map that is updated every 5 minutes. Kind of neat if a person can use it when their power is out.
Everytime this happens, I get thinking - suppose it is just us? But so far, it has always been a distant problem that the power company has to come and fix, and just about always on a holiday or Sunday where workers have to be called in.
Power company crew just showed up. Pretty fast response time for a rural area on a Sunday morning (less then 1 hour). I quizzed them and found out our pole is a separator spot between two high-lines. I never knew. So we are the last on on line, and our neighbor is the last on another.
So power is still out and the power guys are searching for problems down the road somewhere.
Funny thing is -we have two brand new propane and gasoline powered backup systems with transfer switches and neither is hooked up yet. Both are 8500 watt but right now, we are running on a 4400 watt portable generator and backfeeding into a 50 amp welder outlet (yeah, I know, a "high" crime). Main breaker is off and I also turned off the electric hot-water and freezer. So just outlets, lights, deep-well pump, computer, phone, Internet server and one refrigerator and all works fine on the one generator except the microwave is a little slow at making breakfast.
Generator that is running our house right now started out as a Homelight 4000 watt(4400 watt surge) unit with an 8 HP Briggs gas engine. I got it new from Central Tractor in 1980 for $399. Last year, I ditched that Briggs (never ran right), and stuck on a new Subaru HD telecom engine that has electric start and runs on propane. 7 HP maybe? I know power is derated when using propane instead of gasoline. So this is the first time I tried to use it. I am impressed. Ran our 3/4 horse, 220 volt well pump and all else just fine.
Guess I have to get my big genset and transfer-switch hooked up. I keep putting if off thinking we won't have any power outages in such nice weather?
Note the big truck muffler I stuck on the Subaru engine. Works great and clamps right over the OEM muffler.
To my surprise, our little electric co-op has an on-line power outage map that is updated every 5 minutes. Kind of neat if a person can use it when their power is out.
Everytime this happens, I get thinking - suppose it is just us? But so far, it has always been a distant problem that the power company has to come and fix, and just about always on a holiday or Sunday where workers have to be called in.
Power company crew just showed up. Pretty fast response time for a rural area on a Sunday morning (less then 1 hour). I quizzed them and found out our pole is a separator spot between two high-lines. I never knew. So we are the last on on line, and our neighbor is the last on another.
So power is still out and the power guys are searching for problems down the road somewhere.
Funny thing is -we have two brand new propane and gasoline powered backup systems with transfer switches and neither is hooked up yet. Both are 8500 watt but right now, we are running on a 4400 watt portable generator and backfeeding into a 50 amp welder outlet (yeah, I know, a "high" crime). Main breaker is off and I also turned off the electric hot-water and freezer. So just outlets, lights, deep-well pump, computer, phone, Internet server and one refrigerator and all works fine on the one generator except the microwave is a little slow at making breakfast.
Generator that is running our house right now started out as a Homelight 4000 watt(4400 watt surge) unit with an 8 HP Briggs gas engine. I got it new from Central Tractor in 1980 for $399. Last year, I ditched that Briggs (never ran right), and stuck on a new Subaru HD telecom engine that has electric start and runs on propane. 7 HP maybe? I know power is derated when using propane instead of gasoline. So this is the first time I tried to use it. I am impressed. Ran our 3/4 horse, 220 volt well pump and all else just fine.
Guess I have to get my big genset and transfer-switch hooked up. I keep putting if off thinking we won't have any power outages in such nice weather?
Note the big truck muffler I stuck on the Subaru engine. Works great and clamps right over the OEM muffler.
