Dorothy wrote:
On Jun 7, 11:08 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
Dottie wrote:
I live in Florida and have accumulated a large collection of
batteries for use in case of power outages. The expiration date on
most of them say 2012 to 2013. Is there a device I can get to test
these - without having to take them all out of the package and put
them in a flash light or something . I need to feel safe and sure
that they are in good working order and would feel a lot better if
I could test them. Asked in the hardware and auto section of
Walmart and they didn't carry them ... hadn't seen them.... I just
assumed there was such a thing. I know there used to be. Any
suggestions would be
appreciated.

Feeling secure is probably best accomplished by having spares. If,
in the emergency, the replacement battery doesn't work, toss it and
use the backup battery*. Repeat until you get one that works.

-------
* Don't toss the problematic batter too far... it might be the bulb
that's bad. Or the switch.



Thanks. I have lanterns that require the large ones and then lanterns
that need four D size. The TV takes 6 D size. There are several of
those small round lights (4 AA each) ... one of each room. Weather
radio that can be recharged by turning the crank plus it takes plain
AA batteries in addition to the rechargeable one.

Last year I bought a generator but we have very little experience
actually running it - and that's fine with me. I want to be prepared
in case of several days without power - and not rely too much on the
generator. Everything appears to be working fine as long as the
battteries are still good.

Good-O on the generator, but here's one more tip:

I'm in Houston and have a big honkin' generator for the office. The
generator is normally backed up with five gallons of gas (enough for about
six hours of run-time). We were, we thought, prepared for Hurricane Yikes.

Who knew that EVERY GODDAMN GAS STATION FOR SIXTY MILES would be without
power ! And the gas stations STAYED that way for over a week !

Now we have eight six-gallon gas cans to be filled when the next storm
approaches.