On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:53:09 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 2:49 PM, Han wrote:
Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.


There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD
Gravity furnaces. Still a few in use around here - along with "floor
furnaces" with only one heat outlet - like a space heater in a hole in
the floor. Don't step on the grate bare-footed!!!!!!

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:10:07 +1100, terryc
wrote:

On 05/11/12 08:07, Gunner wrote:

The 150 watt inverters work fine for things like camera battery
chargers, electric shavers and the like..but thats about all.

Depends on the make and model. Better quality inverters quote their
running watts, but have a much higher motor start(peak) rating.
When's the last time you saw a "quality" 150 watt inverter??

On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)

On 11/4/2012 10:51 PM, Gunner wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 21:05:34 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 8:52 PM, Mark wrote:
On Nov 3, 7:41 am, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:



On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.

Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...or-accessories...

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady.


if the load varies, you will need some kind of a governor to adjust
the throttle to keep the speed and hence voltage and frequency
constant.

Mark


True, that's why I asked about his friend's homemade genset and what it
used for a speed governor to regulate the frequency of the output
voltage. ^_^

TDD

I called him and he said he hogged up a tach with a servo arm to pull
or release the throttle. He breadboarded it a couple times till it
served him properly and he then etched a board and built the final
unit(s) several actually. He built gensets for his inlaws and brothers
and sisters. Handy guy to know. G

Gunner

--

I was thinking that a lot of vehicles with TBI and FI use a little servo
on the throttle body and those should available from any junkyard
or parts house. The things were designed for automotive use and adapting
them to your own controller shouldn't be a problem. Heck, I was looking
at commercially available electronic governor units and they're designed
to interface with a number of different manufacturers gensets. The
electronics don't require microprocessors to regulate the speed and
frequency of the genset, simple analog electronics will do just fine and
are easier to repair in primitive conditions. When I was working out in
the middle of The Pacific back in the 80's, the 20kw GM Delco diesel
genset on our crew boat failed and it turned out to be the voltage
regulator. I took it to the island's TV repair shop and replaced a bad
FET on the circuit board with one for a TV set and got
the genset back in operation. If it had been a microprocessor control
unit, I would have been SOL. O_o

TDD

On 11/4/2012 9:45 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)


You mean the furnace panel insulation or the house too. Most of those
old houses had/have no insulation in the walls. ^_^

TDD

On 11/4/2012 9:41 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:53:09 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 2:49 PM, Han wrote:
Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.


There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD
Gravity furnaces. Still a few in use around here - along with "floor
furnaces" with only one heat outlet - like a space heater in a hole in
the floor. Don't step on the grate bare-footed!!!!!!


We had them in our home in the 1950's and my younger siblings often
wound up with waffle brands on various parts of their bodies. Ya know,
the things we survived around as children are not allowed anywhere near
kids today. O_o

TDD

On Nov 4, 6:44*pm, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote :









On 11/4/2012 11:12 AM, Han wrote:
bob haller wrote in
:

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
* *www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator
indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their portable
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery
and let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt
inverter, for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking
it up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ,
07410). *Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. *The
inverter hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine running, of
course. *It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. *Will
be looking ...

150 watts looks a bit small to me for running a furnace. Are you sure
it wasn't a 1,500 watt unit? O_o

TDD

I am sure. *The furnace only needs electricity to run a small circulating
pump, plus power up a solenoid for the damper. *Plus, it did work grin.
But I don't like to sacrifice my only vehicle for this if I can avoid it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

If you can do it, the best solution is a small wood burning stove and
some wood in store.
The gas can go off too you know. You can get stoves with a hotplate
to cook on.
You can always get more wood if the outage turns out to be a long one,
getting more petrol/gas might be difficult.
That is what I have, along with a five year stock of wood.

Saw all the long queues for petrol on the box over here. Those folks
should have bought and stored a bicycle.

These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt them.
They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have the wit
to do it?

On 11/5/2012 5:30 AM, Gunner wrote:
On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 00:30:49 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Nov 4, 6:44 pm, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote :









On 11/4/2012 11:12 AM, Han wrote:
bob haller wrote in
:

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator
indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their portable
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery
and let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt
inverter, for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking
it up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ,
07410). Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. The
inverter hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine running, of
course. It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. Will
be looking ...

150 watts looks a bit small to me for running a furnace. Are you sure
it wasn't a 1,500 watt unit? O_o

TDD

I am sure. The furnace only needs electricity to run a small circulating
pump, plus power up a solenoid for the damper. Plus, it did work grin.
But I don't like to sacrifice my only vehicle for this if I can avoid it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

If you can do it, the best solution is a small wood burning stove and
some wood in store.
The gas can go off too you know. You can get stoves with a hotplate
to cook on.
You can always get more wood if the outage turns out to be a long one,
getting more petrol/gas might be difficult.
That is what I have, along with a five year stock of wood.

Some places..there is no wood. Seriously. Burning 2x4 scraps ..they
burn fast fast fast.

So Cal is a perfect example of No Wood. The stop and robs
occasionally sell a tiny bundle of manzanita or mountain oak for
something like $11 for folks to take to the beach or burn in a
fireplace for "accent" when the chicks come over.

Saw all the long queues for petrol on the box over here. Those folks
should have bought and stored a bicycle.

These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt them.
They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have the wit
to do it?

Most of those houses that were damaged/destroyed..were built in the
30s-50s..as summer cottages. Boarded up in the winter and only opened
in the spring-fall. Living in them year round..was not in the design
criteria 50-70 yrs ago.

Gunner

--

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

TDD

wrote in :

If I had a furnace, it would have a cord and plug connection to the
blower, thermostat transformer and igniter

I am planning on doing that. Thanks for your opinion. I will use it as
reference (grin).
{We plan on being carried out of the house, feet first, toes up. No sale
of the house will happen before then}

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Gunner wrote in
:

On 05 Nov 2012 01:00:15 GMT, Han wrote:
Gunner wrote in
m:
On 04 Nov 2012 19:37:30 GMT, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
news:k76faa :

That's right, you did write that it is circulating hot water. I
assume it doesn't have a draft inducer blower like many
boilers/furnaces. Is it one of those small Taco pumps? They don't
use very much power. ^_^

Yes, a Taco, 1/25 hp, using it says 0.76 Amps.

You were right at the limit of that inverter. Just a heads up.

Gunner

That's why I didn't really like it, but it worked.
120 Volt 0.76 Amps equals 91.2 Watt, or 2/3 of the inverter's
capacity.

Not counting start up surge...which can be at least 50% more.

G

Gunner

Apparently, the inverter didn't mind, at least with the car engine
running it did not ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Very possible, the earlier storm. I remember that
in the late 1960s, there was a north east black out
that crippled NYC for a couple days. I want to say
1967.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There are
extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment). High tide
lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm with sufficient
strength and the right location and directionality to push up the water
into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore and Long Island. Make
those fairly unlikely events occur at the same time as happened with
Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January 31,
1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made up their
Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some ecological
hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are continuing to
fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue to rise, plus
Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an article
about the really bad shape of some buildings that were flooded in lower
Manhattan.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

wrote in news:kdde981nb52os17ik6cj7ncm36p0vv1dar@
4ax.com:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:10:07 +1100, terryc
wrote:

On 05/11/12 08:07, Gunner wrote:

The 150 watt inverters work fine for things like camera battery
chargers, electric shavers and the like..but thats about all.

Depends on the make and model. Better quality inverters quote their
running watts, but have a much higher motor start(peak) rating.
When's the last time you saw a "quality" 150 watt inverter??

Quality or not, I bought this thing last year, didn't use it until last
Friday.

Newegg:
1 x ($24.99) Inverter 150W Rosewill RCP-E150C

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

wrote in news:kdde981nb52os17ik6cj7ncm36p0vv1dar@
4ax.com:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:10:07 +1100, terryc
wrote:

On 05/11/12 08:07, Gunner wrote:

The 150 watt inverters work fine for things like camera battery
chargers, electric shavers and the like..but thats about all.

Depends on the make and model. Better quality inverters quote their
running watts, but have a much higher motor start(peak) rating.
When's the last time you saw a "quality" 150 watt inverter??

Mo
http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-RCP-E150C-Sized-Silence-
Inverter/dp/B003YMIUD0

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 11/5/2012 7:41 AM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There are
extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment). High tide
lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm with sufficient
strength and the right location and directionality to push up the water
into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore and Long Island. Make
those fairly unlikely events occur at the same time as happened with
Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January 31,
1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made up their
Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some ecological
hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are continuing to
fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue to rise, plus
Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an article
about the really bad shape of some buildings that were flooded in lower
Manhattan.


Our family farm is on top of a mountain in Northeast Alabamastan and I
don't remember tornadoes ever threatening the farm although its high
mountain location does expose the buildings to high winds every now and
then and forest fires are easily controlled with fire breaks. I don't
remember any huge weather calamity outside of a few ice storms affecting
the area for a long time. I survived The Blizzard of 93 that paralyzed
Birmingham while those Damn Yankees laughed at us over all the problems
we had dealing with a few feet of snow. We have severe thunderstorms and
tornadoes but with all the damage those weather events cause, it never
seems to put us out of business for very long. I really feel for my
cousins in the coastal areas of the country when the ocean decides to
visit because it seems to wipe out everything on a much larger scale
than even the floods caused by The Mississippi river showing its power
to destroy. It looks like the only folks with a really safe home are
those who moved into the old missile silos. ^_^

TDD

On 11/5/2012 11:05 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 06:55:22 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/5/2012 5:30 AM, Gunner wrote:


Most of those houses that were damaged/destroyed..were built in the
30s-50s..as summer cottages. Boarded up in the winter and only opened
in the spring-fall. Living in them year round..was not in the design
criteria 50-70 yrs ago.

Gunner

--

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o


Hurricanes in the NorthEast are far from rare, no matter what the
global warming people say

This is just the first one recently that made that hook into Ny/NJ but
the dip in the jet stream that caused that is pretty normal/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...and_hurricanes


People have such a short memory. They're like an ant hill that gets
kicked from time to time. O_o

TDD

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:35:56 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 9:45 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)


You mean the furnace panel insulation or the house too. Most of those
old houses had/have no insulation in the walls. ^_^

TDD
Just the boiler insulation or in this case, firebox and plenum
insulation.

On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 00:30:49 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Nov 4, 6:44Â*pm, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote :









On 11/4/2012 11:12 AM, Han wrote:
bob haller wrote in
:

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
Â* Â*www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator
indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their portable
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery
and let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt
inverter, for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking
it up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ,
07410). Â*Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. Â*The
inverter hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine running, of
course. Â*It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. Â*Will
be looking ...

150 watts looks a bit small to me for running a furnace. Are you sure
it wasn't a 1,500 watt unit? O_o

TDD

I am sure. Â*The furnace only needs electricity to run a small circulating
pump, plus power up a solenoid for the damper. Â*Plus, it did work grin.
But I don't like to sacrifice my only vehicle for this if I can avoid it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

If you can do it, the best solution is a small wood burning stove and
some wood in store.
The gas can go off too you know. You can get stoves with a hotplate
to cook on.
You can always get more wood if the outage turns out to be a long one,
getting more petrol/gas might be difficult.
That is what I have, along with a five year stock of wood.

Saw all the long queues for petrol on the box over here. Those folks
should have bought and stored a bicycle.

These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt them.
They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have the wit
to do it?
Floodproof? in Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens???? You are
dreaming, Harry. Out in the "sticks" they could (and some do) put them
up on stilts, but even Noah's Ark may have had a close call with
Sandy. It did take down the Bounty.

On 11/5/2012 1:20 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:35:56 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 9:45 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)


You mean the furnace panel insulation or the house too. Most of those
old houses had/have no insulation in the walls. ^_^

TDD
Just the boiler insulation or in this case, firebox and plenum
insulation.


Johnstone Supply sells "Kaowoll" to replace the old insulation. ^_^

http://www.johnstonesupply.com/store...028327-p1.html

http://tinyurl.com/br8hb2y

TDD

On 05 Nov 2012 13:41:02 GMT, Han wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There are
extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment). High tide
lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm with sufficient
strength and the right location and directionality to push up the water
into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore and Long Island. Make
those fairly unlikely events occur at the same time as happened with
Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January 31,
1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made up their
Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some ecological
hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are continuing to
fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue to rise, plus
Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an article
about the really bad shape of some buildings that were flooded in lower
Manhattan.
In some cases, Mother Nature just "pulled the chain" - now if only
the city had the will and the cash to do "urban renewal" properly in
those areas.

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 13:26:22 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/5/2012 1:20 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:35:56 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 9:45 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)


You mean the furnace panel insulation or the house too. Most of those
old houses had/have no insulation in the walls. ^_^

TDD
Just the boiler insulation or in this case, firebox and plenum
insulation.


Johnstone Supply sells "Kaowoll" to replace the old insulation. ^_^

http://www.johnstonesupply.com/store...028327-p1.html

http://tinyurl.com/br8hb2y

TDD
You mean KAOWOOL - it isRockwool. You need to get rid of the Asbestos
first - and while you are into the project that far you may just as
well get rid of the old "dragon" and put in a real furnace.

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:33:03 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:24:23 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 00:30:49 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Nov 4, 6:44Â*pm, Han wrote:


These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt them.
They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have the wit
to do it?
Floodproof? in Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens???? You are
dreaming, Harry. Out in the "sticks" they could (and some do) put them
up on stilts, but even Noah's Ark may have had a close call with
Sandy. It did take down the Bounty.

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore houses
will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey is like
NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will build back at
grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again... when the next
storm comes.
Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases. How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

On 11/5/2012 3:46 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 13:26:22 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/5/2012 1:20 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:35:56 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/4/2012 9:45 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:19:34 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

And MOST of them have a lot of that nasty asbestos on them as well -
in it's worst form (wool)


You mean the furnace panel insulation or the house too. Most of those
old houses had/have no insulation in the walls. ^_^

TDD
Just the boiler insulation or in this case, firebox and plenum
insulation.


Johnstone Supply sells "Kaowoll" to replace the old insulation. ^_^

http://www.johnstonesupply.com/store...028327-p1.html

http://tinyurl.com/br8hb2y

TDD
You mean KAOWOOL - it isRockwool. You need to get rid of the Asbestos
first - and while you are into the project that far you may just as
well get rid of the old "dragon" and put in a real furnace.


Lots O folks is PO rite now an aint gots no money FO no new stuff. O_o

TDD

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:55:54 -0500, wrote:

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore houses
will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey is like
NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will build back at
grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again... when the next
storm comes.

Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases. How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

.... The best idea I've read about years ago was to use 12" steel
I-beam for the pilings, welded cross members with a flat deck.

If the house (single story) blows off the pilings, it is easy build
back upon. The I-beams are better than wood pilings.

wrote in news:risf98hn095cjvig7r1k0k30k09jo2eqj3@
4ax.com:

If I was doing this, I would replace the single gang handy box the
disconnect switch is in with a 4x4. Put a cord grip connector in one
of the knockouts with a short 14ga line cord. Put a single receptacle
and the disconnect switch in that box with the line side feeding the
switch, then the receptacle and the cord connected to the load side.

I'm not an electrician, so I will really need to parse that properly. In
addition, I have to examine the wiring I have carefully, since there is
an "on-off" switch on the furnace that is between the furnace and a
junction box that feeds both the switch and furnace as well as the
thermostat and the damper relay. This junction box (A) is where we
replaced the romex feeding into it with a wire and plug. When that was
connected to the car inverter, the whole shebang worked properly,
thermostat and all. There is another switch at the stairs that looks
like the switch for killing an older furnace. I'll have to test whether
that switch does anything. Stairs and breakerbox are far from each other
at diagonally apposed corners of the basement.

I was thinking that I would wire a cord and plug into the above junction
box (A). Then place a single gang handy box near the junction box from
which box A is fed. Wire that new box up with outlets that (separately)
get fed by the old romex and by new romex that gets fed from the
generator I just bought (Honda EU2000i) - expensive but quiet, and it
should be sufficient for fridge/freezer plus furnace and a few lights or
laptops. The genrator would then be grounded through the housewiring
grounds to the grounding rod put in when we upgraded the electrical
panel.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Gunner wrote in
:

On 05 Nov 2012 13:29:09 GMT, Han wrote:

Gunner wrote in
m:

On 05 Nov 2012 01:00:15 GMT, Han wrote:
Gunner wrote in
m:
On 04 Nov 2012 19:37:30 GMT, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
news:k76faa :

That's right, you did write that it is circulating hot water. I
assume it doesn't have a draft inducer blower like many
boilers/furnaces. Is it one of those small Taco pumps? They
don't use very much power. ^_^

Yes, a Taco, 1/25 hp, using it says 0.76 Amps.

You were right at the limit of that inverter. Just a heads up.

Gunner

That's why I didn't really like it, but it worked.
120 Volt 0.76 Amps equals 91.2 Watt, or 2/3 of the inverter's
capacity.

Not counting start up surge...which can be at least 50% more.

G

Gunner

Apparently, the inverter didn't mind, at least with the car engine
running it did not ...

Ill bet it wont last very long if it happens again several times.
Shrug. Most of those tiny inverters are as I said..useful for small
small static loads over a relatively short period of time.

Ive a 400 watt inverter mounted on my Comm rack in my pickup truck and
it is used only for small stuff. It struggles with a trouble light.
And its a name brand unit. Ive got a 3000 watt Xantrex mounted in the
work van, but Ive got two BIG batteries mounted. One for starting, the
other for all other needs.

Anybody needs one..Ive got a big..big Heart/Xantrex inveter...6000
watts/7500 surge Id be willing to sell. It came out of a brand new
land yhaght that burned partially being delivered to its new owner.

Gunner

I bought a generator, small one, as detailed in a reply to gfretwell.
The inverter might still be used to charge laptops, or just for the
laptops when we travel.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 11/5/2012 7:41 AM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research
it but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a
storm back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There
are extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment).
High tide lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm
with sufficient strength and the right location and directionality to
push up the water into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore
and Long Island. Make those fairly unlikely events occur at the same
time as happened with Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for
disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January
31, 1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made
up their Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some
ecological hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are
continuing to fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue
to rise, plus Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an
article about the really bad shape of some buildings that were
flooded in lower Manhattan.


Our family farm is on top of a mountain in Northeast Alabamastan and I
don't remember tornadoes ever threatening the farm although its high
mountain location does expose the buildings to high winds every now
and then and forest fires are easily controlled with fire breaks. I
don't remember any huge weather calamity outside of a few ice storms
affecting the area for a long time. I survived The Blizzard of 93 that
paralyzed Birmingham while those Damn Yankees laughed at us over all
the problems we had dealing with a few feet of snow. We have severe
thunderstorms and tornadoes but with all the damage those weather
events cause, it never seems to put us out of business for very long.
I really feel for my cousins in the coastal areas of the country when
the ocean decides to visit because it seems to wipe out everything on
a much larger scale than even the floods caused by The Mississippi
river showing its power to destroy. It looks like the only folks with
a really safe home are those who moved into the old missile silos. ^_^

TDD

This storm wasn't all that ferocious, but it was HUGE, and collected half
the Atlantic to hurl at the NY and NJ shores. It's now been a little
over a week and even in this area where we just lost a whole bunch of
trees and pretty much wiring, while an occasional home got some damage,
the crews still haven't reconnected every home. It's not expected to be
finished before the 9th. NYTimes said that some highrises in lower
Manhattan will take months. My former colleague at the VA said the
hospital is out of business for at least a month. Many (or perhaps all)
samples we collected and stored in a -80C freezer are gonzo. Years of
work. I could cry, or go at the chief engineer ...


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

wrote in
:

On 05 Nov 2012 13:41:02 GMT, Han wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research
it but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a
storm back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There
are extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment). High
tide lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm with
sufficient strength and the right location and directionality to push
up the water into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore and
Long Island. Make those fairly unlikely events occur at the same time
as happened with Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for
disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January
31, 1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made
up their Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some
ecological hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are
continuing to fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue
to rise, plus Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an
article about the really bad shape of some buildings that were flooded
in lower Manhattan.
In some cases, Mother Nature just "pulled the chain" - now if only
the city had the will and the cash to do "urban renewal" properly in
those areas.

Oh, stuff will get rebuilt. Highrise office and residential towers will
get cleaned up. I'm sure the beachfront real estate will get rebuilt as
well. Not my cup of tea for my home, but there are plenty of people who
want to. And some of those communities are very, very closeknit.
Whether it makes investment sense is a different question ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

A LOW COST source of excellent inverters is discarded UPS units.

When UPS batteries die often people discard the entire thing. Smart
people collect the discarded units, perhaps add a car battery or two,
of jumper cables to attach to your car battery.

often these UPS units espically the costly ones provide nice clean
power

On 11/5/2012 8:29 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 11/5/2012 7:41 AM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research
it but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a
storm back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There
are extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment).
High tide lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm
with sufficient strength and the right location and directionality to
push up the water into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore
and Long Island. Make those fairly unlikely events occur at the same
time as happened with Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for
disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January
31, 1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made
up their Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some
ecological hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are
continuing to fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue
to rise, plus Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an
article about the really bad shape of some buildings that were
flooded in lower Manhattan.


Our family farm is on top of a mountain in Northeast Alabamastan and I
don't remember tornadoes ever threatening the farm although its high
mountain location does expose the buildings to high winds every now
and then and forest fires are easily controlled with fire breaks. I
don't remember any huge weather calamity outside of a few ice storms
affecting the area for a long time. I survived The Blizzard of 93 that
paralyzed Birmingham while those Damn Yankees laughed at us over all
the problems we had dealing with a few feet of snow. We have severe
thunderstorms and tornadoes but with all the damage those weather
events cause, it never seems to put us out of business for very long.
I really feel for my cousins in the coastal areas of the country when
the ocean decides to visit because it seems to wipe out everything on
a much larger scale than even the floods caused by The Mississippi
river showing its power to destroy. It looks like the only folks with
a really safe home are those who moved into the old missile silos. ^_^

TDD

This storm wasn't all that ferocious, but it was HUGE, and collected half
the Atlantic to hurl at the NY and NJ shores. It's now been a little
over a week and even in this area where we just lost a whole bunch of
trees and pretty much wiring, while an occasional home got some damage,
the crews still haven't reconnected every home. It's not expected to be
finished before the 9th. NYTimes said that some highrises in lower
Manhattan will take months. My former colleague at the VA said the
hospital is out of business for at least a month. Many (or perhaps all)
samples we collected and stored in a -80C freezer are gonzo. Years of
work. I could cry, or go at the chief engineer ...



Heck, it's the sheer size of the storm as you pointed out and the
population density which is much greater than here in the Southeast.
New York city has a population almost twice the population of my whole
state and the Birmingham Metro Area consisting of a number of smaller
communities is a bit over a million. It's impossible for folks from here
in The Southeast to comprehend the number of people packed into such a
small area as New York City. We're used to open spaces here and when
a tornado hits it's more likely to tear up unpopulated spaces than to
hit densely populated areas. I can't even imagine the number of people
in other "bigger" cities of the world and how natural disasters would
affect those people. O_o

TDD

On 11/5/2012 8:44 PM, bob haller wrote:
A LOW COST source of excellent inverters is discarded UPS units.

When UPS batteries die often people discard the entire thing. Smart
people collect the discarded units, perhaps add a car battery or two,
of jumper cables to attach to your car battery.

often these UPS units espically the costly ones provide nice clean
power


I took a load of bad UPS batteries to a recycler last week and got 28
cents a pound for them. I had over 200lbs of the old sealed lead acid
batteries. ^_^

TDD

On Nov 5, 7:24*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 00:30:49 -0800 (PST), harry









wrote:
On Nov 4, 6:44*pm, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote :

On 11/4/2012 11:12 AM, Han wrote:
bob haller wrote in
:

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
* *www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator
indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their portable
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery
and let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt
inverter, for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking
it up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ,
07410). *Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. *The
inverter hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine running, of
course. *It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. *Will
be looking ...

150 watts looks a bit small to me for running a furnace. Are you sure
it wasn't a 1,500 watt unit? O_o

TDD

I am sure. *The furnace only needs electricity to run a small circulating
pump, plus power up a solenoid for the damper. *Plus, it did work grin.
But I don't like to sacrifice my only vehicle for this if I can avoid it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

If you can do it, the best solution is a small wood burning stove and
some wood in store.
The gas can go off too you know. *You can get stoves with a hotplate
to cook on.
You can always get more wood if the outage turns out to be a long one,
getting more petrol/gas might be difficult.
That is what I have, along with a five year stock of wood.

Saw all the long queues for petrol on the box over here. Those folks
should have bought *and stored a bicycle.

These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt them.
They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have the wit
to do it?

*Floodproof? in Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens???? You are
dreaming, Harry. Out in the "sticks" they could (and some do) put them
up on stilts, but even Noah's Ark may have had a close call with
Sandy. It did take down the Bounty.

As whole neighbourhoods are demolished, raising the new houses would
be no problem
The lower floors have only garages and other non-habitable rooms.
Boundary walls are substantially constructed and form flood barriers
with watertight gates. Removable watertight barriers can be fitted to
doorways


Buildlings are of masonry construction and the lower parts of walls
and floors are tiled to swimming pool standards.
There can be no basements.
Electrical wiring is all run from the top down, there are no low level
outlets
The lower part of staircases is of concrete construction.
Fixed furniture is (eg kitchen) of metal.
There is high level easily accessible storage for high value items.
Skirting/baseboards are plastic fixed with brass screws
Arrangements are made to drain floodwater as it recedes.

On Nov 6, 12:49*am, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:20:38 -0800, Oren wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:55:54 -0500, wrote:

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore houses
will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey is like
NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will build back at
grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again... when the next
storm comes.

Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases. How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

... The best idea I've read about years ago was to use 12" steel
I-beam for the pilings, welded cross members with a flat deck.

Steel and salt water don't go all that well together.

If the house (single story) blows off the pilings, it is easy build
back upon. *The I-beams are better than wood pilings.

Don't believe it.

Ships are made out of steel. Any immersion is only brief.

wrote in
:

On 06 Nov 2012 02:21:36 GMT, Han wrote:

wrote in news:risf98hn095cjvig7r1k0k30k09jo2eqj3@
4ax.com:

If I was doing this, I would replace the single gang handy box the
disconnect switch is in with a 4x4. Put a cord grip connector in one
of the knockouts with a short 14ga line cord. Put a single
receptacle and the disconnect switch in that box with the line side
feeding the switch, then the receptacle and the cord connected to
the load side.

I'm not an electrician, so I will really need to parse that properly.
In addition, I have to examine the wiring I have carefully, since
there is an "on-off" switch on the furnace that is between the furnace
and a junction box that feeds both the switch and furnace as well as
the thermostat and the damper relay. This junction box (A) is where
we replaced the romex feeding into it with a wire and plug. When that
was connected to the car inverter, the whole shebang worked properly,
thermostat and all. There is another switch at the stairs that looks
like the switch for killing an older furnace. I'll have to test
whether that switch does anything. Stairs and breakerbox are far from
each other at diagonally apposed corners of the basement.

I was thinking that I would wire a cord and plug into the above
junction box (A). Then place a single gang handy box near the
junction box from which box A is fed. Wire that new box up with
outlets that (separately) get fed by the old romex and by new romex
that gets fed from the generator I just bought (Honda EU2000i) -
expensive but quiet, and it should be sufficient for fridge/freezer
plus furnace and a few lights or laptops. The genrator would then be
grounded through the housewiring grounds to the grounding rod put in
when we upgraded the electrical panel.

It sounds like you are in the right box. You can just swap that one
with a bigger one, add a receptacle on the load side of the disconnect
switch and it sounds like you have the cord in the right place. Get
one of those cord grip connectors to clean that up (like a romex
connector with a rubber ring and a collar). They have them at the home
store.

Thanks for that last piece of advice - I'd have used a regular romex
connector, good to know there is a different one.

I'll be moving (rather, adding) a junction box since the 2 are weird ones
and rather inaccessible behind piping from the new furnace.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

wrote in
:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:00:09 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:


Heck, it's the sheer size of the storm as you pointed out and the
population density which is much greater than here in the Southeast.
New York city has a population almost twice the population of my whole
state and the Birmingham Metro Area consisting of a number of smaller
communities is a bit over a million. It's impossible for folks from
here in The Southeast to comprehend the number of people packed into
such a small area as New York City. We're used to open spaces here and
when a tornado hits it's more likely to tear up unpopulated spaces
than to hit densely populated areas. I can't even imagine the number
of people in other "bigger" cities of the world and how natural
disasters would affect those people. O_o

TDD

I see 4 factors.
Houses built before a flood or wind code existed,
A storm that hit a huge area with a lot of people.
A bunch of people who just did not believe it was going to happen to
them.
About a million trees that should have been trimmed or just cut down.

My only damage in Charley came from a 40 foot mango tree falling on my
screen cage..
I rented a crane and 3 Latino gentlemen with chain saws and we did
some tree trimming while the hort pickup was free. I filled up an 18
wheeler and a half.

The crane I rented was pretty popular in the neighborhood too.
Everything was falling tree damage.

FPL got real aggressive about cleaning out the right of way too.

All correct. PSEG did a bit of tree trimming after Irene and the freak
snowstorm, but you can't trim against some things, such as 3 ft diameter
oaks toppling over.

They will rebuild on the barrier islands, just like they rebuilt (how
many times) Galveston. The Jersey shore as it is called is like a
religion for quite a few people, and a huge source of tourist dollars.
IMNSHO, they all should be rebuilt on pilings of 10ft, so the sea can
flow under in the next big storm, but I'm not sure they'll do that.
Most people will forget that Sandy was a warning and a promise of more
to come.

The fact that the NY/NJ/CT metro area is sort of densely populated (this
to TDD) should not be an excuse for lax rules and regulations regarding
buildings and infrastructure. On the contrary. Also, IMNSHO, mandatory
evacuation orders should be accompanied by conserving first responders'
efforts until it isn't dangerous for them anymore.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

harry wrote in
:

On Nov 5, 7:24*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 00:30:49 -0800 (PST), harry









wrote:
On Nov 4, 6:44*pm, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote
innews:k76
:

On 11/4/2012 11:12 AM, Han wrote:
bob haller wrote in

.co
m:

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank
wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
* *www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your
generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their
portab
le
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car
battery and let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a
thousand watt inverter, for lights, radio and a tv if the load
isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help
hooking it up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in
NE NJ, 07410). *Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot
water. *
The
inverter hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine
running,
of
course. *It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. *
Will
be looking ...

150 watts looks a bit small to me for running a furnace. Are you
sur
e
it wasn't a 1,500 watt unit? O_o

TDD

I am sure. *The furnace only needs electricity to run a small
circul
ating
pump, plus power up a solenoid for the damper. *Plus, it did work
g
rin.
But I don't like to sacrifice my only vehicle for this if I can
avoid
it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

If you can do it, the best solution is a small wood burning stove
and some wood in store.
The gas can go off too you know. *You can get stoves with a hotplate
to cook on.
You can always get more wood if the outage turns out to be a long
one, getting more petrol/gas might be difficult.
That is what I have, along with a five year stock of wood.

Saw all the long queues for petrol on the box over here. Those folks
should have bought *and stored a bicycle.

These sort of things are going to become more frequent.
Their houses will be near worthless now after they have rebuilt
them. They could and should flood proof them. I wonder if they have
the wit to do it?

*Floodproof? in Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens???? You are
dreaming, Harry. Out in the "sticks" they could (and some do) put
them up on stilts, but even Noah's Ark may have had a close call with
Sandy. It did take down the Bounty.

As whole neighbourhoods are demolished, raising the new houses would
be no problem
The lower floors have only garages and other non-habitable rooms.
Boundary walls are substantially constructed and form flood barriers
with watertight gates. Removable watertight barriers can be fitted to
doorways


Buildlings are of masonry construction and the lower parts of walls
and floors are tiled to swimming pool standards.
There can be no basements.
Electrical wiring is all run from the top down, there are no low level
outlets
The lower part of staircases is of concrete construction.
Fixed furniture is (eg kitchen) of metal.
There is high level easily accessible storage for high value items.
Skirting/baseboards are plastic fixed with brass screws
Arrangements are made to drain floodwater as it recedes.

Doesn't seem designed to withstand the real force of water. The only way
to withstand that is to let it pass, Harry. Build on pilings, high
enough, sturdy enough and deep enough to keep the building wayabove the
wall of water that can come rushing in. The only thing that kept the
Dutch flood of '53 from being way worse is that there were so many old
dikes that slowed and held back the sea when the first line of defense
was broken. Ther is absolutely nothing like that in the NY metro area.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

harry wrote in
:

On Nov 6, 12:49*am, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:20:38 -0800, Oren wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:55:54 -0500, wrote:

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore
houses will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey
is like NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will
build back at grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again...
when the next storm comes.

Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases.
How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

... The best idea I've read about years ago was to use 12" steel
I-beam for the pilings, welded cross members with a flat deck.

Steel and salt water don't go all that well together.

If the house (single story) blows off the pilings, it is easy build
back upon. *The I-beams are better than wood pilings.

Don't believe it.

Ships are made out of steel. Any immersion is only brief.

Come on harry, you're not that dense, are you? These houses are built
on/in dunes. It always blows salt around there. Good thick steel will
last a while, but sitting in the soil in salt water year round can't be
good for them.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 23:42:02 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Nov 6, 12:49*am, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:20:38 -0800, Oren wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:55:54 -0500, wrote:

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore houses
will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey is like
NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will build back at
grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again... when the next
storm comes.

Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases. How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

... The best idea I've read about years ago was to use 12" steel
I-beam for the pilings, welded cross members with a flat deck.

Steel and salt water don't go all that well together.

If the house (single story) blows off the pilings, it is easy build
back upon. *The I-beams are better than wood pilings.

Don't believe it.

Ships are made out of steel.

And get painted regularly.

Any immersion is only brief.

Most beach property has a rather high water table.

How did you get out of my killfile?

Jim

On 11/6/2012 5:08 AM, Han wrote:
wrote in
:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:00:09 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:


Heck, it's the sheer size of the storm as you pointed out and the
population density which is much greater than here in the Southeast.
New York city has a population almost twice the population of my whole
state and the Birmingham Metro Area consisting of a number of smaller
communities is a bit over a million. It's impossible for folks from
here in The Southeast to comprehend the number of people packed into
such a small area as New York City. We're used to open spaces here and
when a tornado hits it's more likely to tear up unpopulated spaces
than to hit densely populated areas. I can't even imagine the number
of people in other "bigger" cities of the world and how natural
disasters would affect those people. O_o

TDD

I see 4 factors.
Houses built before a flood or wind code existed,
A storm that hit a huge area with a lot of people.
A bunch of people who just did not believe it was going to happen to
them.
About a million trees that should have been trimmed or just cut down.

My only damage in Charley came from a 40 foot mango tree falling on my
screen cage..
I rented a crane and 3 Latino gentlemen with chain saws and we did
some tree trimming while the hort pickup was free. I filled up an 18
wheeler and a half.

The crane I rented was pretty popular in the neighborhood too.
Everything was falling tree damage.

FPL got real aggressive about cleaning out the right of way too.

All correct. PSEG did a bit of tree trimming after Irene and the freak
snowstorm, but you can't trim against some things, such as 3 ft diameter
oaks toppling over.

They will rebuild on the barrier islands, just like they rebuilt (how
many times) Galveston. The Jersey shore as it is called is like a
religion for quite a few people, and a huge source of tourist dollars.
IMNSHO, they all should be rebuilt on pilings of 10ft, so the sea can
flow under in the next big storm, but I'm not sure they'll do that.
Most people will forget that Sandy was a warning and a promise of more
to come.

The fact that the NY/NJ/CT metro area is sort of densely populated (this
to TDD) should not be an excuse for lax rules and regulations regarding
buildings and infrastructure. On the contrary. Also, IMNSHO, mandatory
evacuation orders should be accompanied by conserving first responders'
efforts until it isn't dangerous for them anymore.


In this are there are a lot of trailer homes and regulations for proper
tie downs and such have come about due to losses during tornadoes and
high winds which will toss them around like toys if they're unsecured.
It ALWAYS takes a disaster for prudent measures to be put in place by
law but the rule makers always seem to go overboard with regulations to
show they're doing something and satisfy their lust for power over you.
Rahm Emanuel, a famous P.L.L.C.F. once said something to that effect,
"Never let a good crisis go to waste." I see the politicians in the area
affected by the storm doing the typical behavior whenever the peasants
run to the king and demand protection. Perhaps I'm just cynical but I've
seen it all before. There will be a lot of wasted tax dollars, graft and
corruption in the years/decades after The Sandy Disaster. O_o

TDD

On Nov 6, 11:42*am, Han wrote:
harry wrote :









On Nov 6, 12:49 am, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:20:38 -0800, Oren wrote:
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:55:54 -0500, wrote:

If they actually follow the FEMA rules, all of the Jersey shore
houses will be built on pilings when they put them back. If Jersey
is like NOLA they will allow them to ignore the law, they will
build back at grade and we will buy them new houses ,... again...
when the next storm comes.

Even houses on pilings didn't withstand the storm in many cases.
How
tall do you make the pilings? And how well do you crossbrace them?

... The best idea I've read about years ago was to use 12" steel
I-beam for the pilings, welded cross members with a flat deck.

Steel and salt water don't go all that well together.

If the house (single story) blows off the pilings, it is easy build
back upon. The I-beams are better than wood pilings.

Don't believe it.

Ships are made out of steel. *Any immersion is only brief.

Come on harry, you're not that dense, are you? *These houses are built
on/in dunes. *It always blows salt around there. *Good thick steel will
last a while, but sitting in the soil in salt water year round can't be
good for them.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

There are steel framed buildings in New York are there not?
There are steel piers in the UK more than a hundred years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Piers_Society
Here is an iron and steel building right by the sea in the UK more
than 100 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool_tower
With only paint protection.
Here's another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_bridge
There are lots of things can be done to prolong life even more
nowadays.

Aside from that, American houses are ****. Steel would easily outlast
them.