"Jonathan Grobe" wrote in message
...
We just had a ice storm and I had no electricity for 22 hours. I
was mostly unprepared and didn't like the experience at all.

What are you doing to prepare for this?

Thanks.


We experience one or more "major" outages every few years. It all depends
on how severe the winter is. Some years we only have the short ones. If
the crews are not overloaded, my co-op is good at getting the power back on
within a few hours. We get both ice and wind storms that take out the
power. When the big storms hit, it's anywhere from 3 to 5 days as the norm.
The wind storms usually are a single event. The ice storms can linger,
causing repeated outages. In that case, it's normal to have 3-5 days out,
followed by a day or two of power before it goes out again.

As for the preparations: We have a 8.5kW generator. I keep at least 25
gallons of gasoline on hand in the winter. I rotate the supply through my
car so it is only a few months old at the most. In the summer, I only keep
5 to 10 gallons since it spoils faster in the heat. I recently upgraded it
with an electric start generator because the old one was too hard for DW to
start. I have it wired into the main panel outside so I can feed any
circuit if I want (it has an interlock, so no nasty flames please). My
biggest mistake was not having a propane furnace put in the house during
construction. I requested a heatpump - with our low electric rates a
heatpump is MUCH cheaper to operate. But if I spent the extra $800 to put a
propane furnace in with the heatpump I would have full backup heat when
powered by the generator. To go and replace the air handler with a propane
unit would be MUCH more expensive now. If it's not real cold, portable
electric heaters can keep the house comfortable. If it is real cold, they
can keep the house plumbing from freezing.

My backup in case the generator fails or when the house gets too cold is my
RV. I keep the propane at least 1/2 full, and I have a couple more bottles
of propane for emergency supply. No problem staying nice and warm there.

At any time, we have at least a month of food.... let alone the proceeds of
our garden, plus beef and pork that's in the shed freezers.