On Sat, 25 May 2019 07:06:17 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 9:50:01 AM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , says...

I have to do some more checking, but mostly the fridge is the big value
thing to keep going. Gas range and grill takes care of cooking, city
water.



By living in Florida I guess that you do not have to worry too much
about keeping warm or pipes freesing in the winter and bursting.

You power outages would probably be mostly in the warm parts of the
year. So you would just need to run a generator for say an hour every
couple of hours .

You can go a lot longer than that, unless you need to use something that
runs on electric. A fridge that's not being opened can easily go for
6, 12 hours or more. You can open it less frequently by putting
frequently used stuff, eg beverages, in a cooler with some ice.
The basement freezer here went a week during Sandy and I didn't lose
anything. I did put extra containers of water in there when the storm
was coming, to add additional ice to increase the capacity.
And after about 4 days, I removed them and put in bags of ice a couple times.
At the end of a full week, stuff had partially defrosted, but it was
all still good.

That is a good point about the thermal mass. I pack every nook and
cranny of the fridge and freezer with bottled water putting it in a
little at a time over the week before a storm. Then you have that
thermal mass and when it is all over you still have the water.

With gas to cook with an no water problems you are
good to go for a while.

Where I am at , I have a heatpump so do no try to power that. I do have
a wood stove for heat if needed. Also have one of the propane camp
stoves to cook with. Being on a well for water, I need a generator
large enough to power that.

Mentioned it before, just try to use the ethanol free gas on whatever
you get. Run the generator empty and drain the tank if you do not plan
on using it for a few weeks or longer. I have only used my generator a
few times so keep it drained of gas. It has started with one or two
pulls of the cord. I have a tiller that I only use once or twice a
year. I let it run empty and the next year fill it with gas and it will
fire off with just one or two pulles of the cord. In the past I had
left some of that ethanol gas in the generator for about 2 months and it
gummed up the works and would not start.Had to clean out the carborator
each time.

Buying a spare carburetor and having it on hand would be a good plan
too. There are cheap ones for many engines on Ebay. But Ed has nat gas
and for sure I'd get a generator where there is a conversion kit so that
it can run on nat gas. One thing to keep in mind there is that on nat gas
the max output will be somewhat less, need to take that into account when
sizing.


I really don't see that. What happens is fuel consumption goes way up.
5.5WW generator
I used a GE convection oven for a load
http://gfretwell.com/Propaneproject/Load.jpg
This is a convection oven running on propane.
volts 230, amps 23.48, watts 5402.7
http://gfretwell.com/Propaneproject/Onpropane.jpg

This is on gasoline
http://gfretwell.com/Propaneproject/Ongasoline.jpg
Same output
The wave form stayed the same too.
http://gfretwell.com/Propaneproject/Waveform.jpg

I also doubt there is enough distortion in that output to show up in
any electronics as a problem. I wonder if the inverters are even true
sine wave and not a stepped wave deal, particularly the ones from
China. (Harbor Fright)