Hurricane Ida

[Ronstar]

I had a portable generator for a few years. Survived a 4 or 5 day storm caused power outage where I was using about 10 gallons of gas a day to run it.

I had to alternate hooking up well pump and water heater because it only had 1 240 volt outlet. And I had the fridge and water pressure tank connected to 120V.

It was a lot of work keeping it gassed up and alternating well pump/ water heater connections.

So I later I installed a full time natural gas powered 16KW Generac. Worth every penny.

[mebden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire-early A generator that can run on propane is more useful. Propane doesn't "go bad" like gasoline.

The only problem with that or natural gas when you loose pressure those go down to as people are having issues as low pressures down here people can’t keep their generators running

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mebden I’m just letting everyone know I’m all good in Houma for having the eye come right thru my back yard and having no power or water and hit or miss cell phone signal I took a ride today thru most of Houma and power lines are down all over roads I can’t even get out of my sub division from 2 ways as power poles laying across the exits this place looks like a war zone I never seen so much damage I feel greatful my house only lost shingles and a blown out garage door theirs people here that have trees thru their living rooms or no roof at all this area looks like 50 plus tornados went thru here at the same time and I’ve seen what those can do to

Good to hear you are alive without catastrophic damage to your house.

What did you do with the food in your fridge and freezer ?

[Alan]

Great to hear from you mebden

[disneysteve]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harllee You don't have to live on the coast to be impacted by a hurricane. I am in the NC mountains and Ida is impacting us right now-- it is raining heavily here and there is a flash flood warning. Two weeks ago Fred came through and we had 10 trees down on our street, we had a 2 day power outage and the main road into Banner Elk NC washed away. There are very few places you can live that do not have some weather/natural disaster issues.

Yep. I’m in western NJ just across the river from Philadelphia. Ida is hitting us right now. Torrential rain. Flash flooding. Strong winds. We won’t see the sort of damage the south got but we won’t be spared either. Other hurricanes like Sandy did tremendous damage around here. Just a few weeks ago there were 4 tornadoes in this area. We even get the occasional earthquake albeit minor ones but they still do a little damage.

[Car-Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mebden I’m just letting everyone know I’m all good in Houma for having the eye come right thru my back yard and having no power or water and hit or miss cell phone signal I took a ride today thru most of Houma and power lines are down all over roads I can’t even get out of my sub division from 2 ways as power poles laying across the exits this place looks like a war zone I never seen so much damage I feel greatful my house only lost shingles and a blown out garage door theirs people here that have trees thru their living rooms or no roof at all this area looks like 50 plus tornados went thru here at the same time and I’ve seen what those can do to

Thanks for the update. I hope things get back to normal for you guys sooner rather than later...

[mebden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset Good to hear you are alive without catastrophic damage to your house. What did you do with the food in your fridge and freezer ?

Sunset I’m lucky I have some great neighbors the family 2 doors down from me has a Hugh diesel generator and he let me run a extension cord to his house so I’m able to have refrigerator, some fans and basic electricity for phones and today I’m getting temporary patches on my roof to keep rain out and now that I’m getting some internet may try to figure out hook up off generator to my house service as I’m somewhat mechanically inclined

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mebden Sunset I’m lucky I have some great neighbors the family 2 doors down from me has a Hugh diesel generator and he let me run a extension cord to his house so I’m able to have refrigerator, some fans and basic electricity for phones and today I’m getting temporary patches on my roof to keep rain out and now that I’m getting some internet may try to figure out hook up off generator to my house service as I’m somewhat mechanically inclined

Great news overall.

[folivier]

One thing to understand with the large transmission towers damaged is these cross marshy areas where there is NO solid ground. Often they need large airboats to tow the equipment and personnel in to repair these. This happened after Katrina and it took weeks to get these repaired and replaced. Just part of living here.
Another problem is years ago creosote treated wooden power poles were impossible to get due to environmental concerns. So most of the poles now are treated poles and do not last as long. After Katrina most of the poles that were damaged broke at ground level due to rot and were the treated poles. Most of the older creosote poles were still in good condition.
Here is a website that shows satelite photos of areas that were hard hit and taken after Ida. It might help people to see how much damage their houses have.
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/i...9668/-90.72577
As mebden said natural gas generators won’t be useful as the natural gas supply dwindles. Most of the offshore and inshore production was shut down as Ida was approaching. It may take a while before production is back up. It’s a huge mess with no quick resolution.
Thankfully the loss of life looks to be minimal.

[NW-Bound]

You would need a ground-mounted horizontal propane tank of 500 gal. It looks like a fat submarine, and is 10' long.

[mebden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound You would need a ground-mounted horizontal propane tank of 500 gal. It looks like a fat submarine, and is 10' long.

Yes if I ever put in a whole house generator I would definitely have back up propane but I’m watching the neighbors natural gas generator and he doesn’t seem to be having any trouble with his I will ask him when I get a chance

[ShokWaveRider]

Nice to hear our affected members are doing OK. Not sure what Parish WR2 is in. MedBen sounds like a very lucky member. Great news all round.

[GTFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound You would need a ground-mounted horizontal propane tank of 500 gal. It looks like a fat submarine, and is 10' long.

Out of curiosity how long could a full tank power a 10kw or so gen? Sounds like you'd need a month given the extensive transmission line damage there. Propane is the main heating fuel in the sticks here btw, we have family west of the ATL that uses it. They have a whole-house propane gen.

I lived in Houma as a teenager, my stepbrother still lives there. He evac'd to my Dad's house in the FL panhandle, don't think he'll be back to Houma soon. Was sad to see that the eyewall was only 5 miles or so east of there.

[Souschef]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire-early A generator that can run on propane is more useful. Propane doesn't "go bad" like gasoline.

True, but I us e a stabilizer in my gas.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTFan Out of curiosity how long could a full tank power a 10kw or so gen? Sounds like you'd need a month given the extensive transmission line damage there. Propane is the main heating fuel in the sticks here btw, we have family west of the ATL that uses it. I lived in Houma as a teenager, my stepbrother still lives there. He evac'd to my Dad's house in the FL panhandle, don't think he'll be back to Houma soon. Was sad to see that the eyewall was only 5 miles or so east of there.

Well, internet says that a gallon of propane provides 27 kWh, consider efficiency... wait.

This site:

https://www.generac.com/generaccorpo...sheet-2017.pdf

rates consumption for 9/11KW units as ~ .9 to 2 gallons/hour at 1/2 and full load. So ~ 1G/hour for a 10 kW unit at half load, 500 hours, 20 days! More than I thought. An I doubt people would run it 24 hours, as noted you can run a freezer 50% of the time and it should maintain temps pretty well, that's about how often they cycle normally.

Ahh, so efficiency is 5kWh/27kWh, 18.5% overall (and would have been about my ballpark estimate) - not bad for something designed for intermittent use, IMO. You need to diesel to get much higher I think.

edit/add: Oddly, the larger 11KW unit is less efficient than the 9 KW unit? In each case it uses ~ 44% more fuel, for ~ 22% more power? A higher compression ratio on the larger unit (9.5 vs 9.0) should help efficiency - but the larger is two cylinder vs one. Hmmm, so that means more combustion chamber surface area to absorb heat away from useful work, leading to lower efficiency (and also more friction loss with 2 cylinders)? Can any of the car guys (or gals) confirm that?

-ERD50

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShokWaveRider Nice to hear our affected members are doing OK. Not sure what Parish WR2 is in. MedBen sounds like a very lucky member. Great news all round.

Not sure the context of your question, but here's the answer:

We are in east Jefferson Parish, a few blocks from Lake Ponchartrain and 1-2 miles from the 17th Street Canal (which is the official New Orleans City & Parish boundary line, and also the exact location where the flood walls broke during Hurricane Katrina). Very urban part of the New Orleans area, which is to our advantage I'd think since that might give our neighborhood a bit higher priority than some as the restoration of power and water progress.

Elevation of my house is 2.4 feet below sea level, which is higher than was previously thought until recent surveys. This is actually one of the very highest elevations in the entire region. We are also within the New Orleans flood protection system and levees, "in the soupbowl".

[ShokWaveRider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Not sure the context of your question, but here's the answer: We are in east Jefferson Parish, a few blocks from Lake Ponchartrain and 1-2 miles from the 17th Street Canal (which is the official New Orleans City & Parish boundary line, and also the exact location where the flood walls broke during Hurricane Katrina). Very urban part of the New Orleans area, which is to our advantage I'd think since that might give our neighborhood a bit higher priority than some as the restoration of power and water progress. Elevation of my house is 2.4 feet below sea level, which is higher than was previously thought until recent surveys. This is actually one of the very highest elevations in the entire region. We are also within the New Orleans flood protection system and levees, "in the soupbowl".

Thanks for the answer, that is what I meant. I was simply curious. Really glad you are all good (as can be under these circumstances)

I was looking at the affects on different parishes and wondering where you were. That is all.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShokWaveRider Thanks for the answer, that is what I meant. I was simply curious. Really glad you are all good (as can be under these circumstances) I was looking at the affects on different parishes and wondering where you were. That is all.

Thank you. From what I'm told, most of my suburb was hit pretty hard and we were just lucky. Well, maybe. We haven't actually *seen* our houses in person yet. It's always possible that there is more damage that Frank's sister didn't notice.

Also, I meant to say that the 17th Street Canal is the official New Orleans City & Orleans Parish boundary line. The Parish that includes New Orleans, and nothing more, is called Orleans Parish (not New Orleans Parish), but I phrased it incorrectly. Oops.

[38Chevy454]

Quote:

rates consumption for 9/11KW units as ~ .9 to 2 gallons/hour at 1/2 and full load. So ~ 1G/hour for a 10 kW unit at half load, 500 hours, 20 days! -ERD50

Just clarification, propane tanks are only filled to 80%. So 400 gal is full on a 500 gal tank.

[NW-Bound]

If I were to set up my home for long periods of power outage, I would have a smaller generator of perhaps 2-5 kW charging a large lithium battery, which then feeds inverters.

It would be similar to the 34-kWh battery I have now, and 4 inverters of 2.4 kW each. The reason for so many inverters is so that they can handle the momentary load when multiple appliances happened to be turned on simultaneously.

Even in hot days with a high of less than 110F, my 24-hour consumption is only 50 kWh or less, with air conditioning provided by 2 mini-splits (5-ton central AC turned off). It means a 2.5 kW generator running constantly will be enough, with the lithium battery serving as the storage buffer. A smaller generator will be more efficient in terms of gallons of fuel per kWh. However, a generator larger than 2.5 kW will allow me to turn it off at night, because it produces in excess of usage during the day, and builds up the charge in the battery.

And in an emergency, I am sure I can manage to get by with less than 50 kWh/day.