meierlde
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Actually if you have natural gas then if you buy such a generator run it on the natural gas. It takes serious flooding like New Orleans in Katrina to take the natural gas system down.
Hurricane Matthew
- Thread starter ShokWaveRider
- Start date
Actually if you have natural gas then if you buy such a generator run it on the natural gas. It takes serious flooding like New Orleans in Katrina to take the natural gas system down.
Sarah in SC
Moderator Emeritus
We've considered the whole house generator, but honestly would probably benefit most from being able to rig an outlet to the well pump (220V) to run it from the genny we have. It is a pretty good one, IIRC I had REWahoo help me pick it out a number of years ago. If I had to add up what we'd want to run next time, it is really just the well pump, the fridge, and the water heater, plus a few lamps.
The other issue with the whole house generator is that it would logically be put under the house next to the main incoming panel/meter, and that would lend itself to flooding concerns. Our house is on concrete piers, about 12-13 feet off the ground. The portable one was fine hefted up to the porch--I always figure that if the generator is closer to my ears than the neighbors, I'm less likely to run it too late or too early.
We don't have any kind of gas out here, as we chose not to have a tank in the yard, so all electric for us.
The other issue with the whole house generator is that it would logically be put under the house next to the main incoming panel/meter, and that would lend itself to flooding concerns. Our house is on concrete piers, about 12-13 feet off the ground. The portable one was fine hefted up to the porch--I always figure that if the generator is closer to my ears than the neighbors, I'm less likely to run it too late or too early.
We don't have any kind of gas out here, as we chose not to have a tank in the yard, so all electric for us.
Ah, I didn't know the house was up on piers. The only way around that would be to put the generator up on piers too, which would probably make the installation costs prohibitive. Or at least not make sense.
What I did was have a transfer switch similar to this one installed. This allows us to plug the generator into the house and then pick what circuits we want to use and leave others turned off for load shedding (the generator will not power the whole house) and also disconnects the generator from the utility lines. That protects linemen from electrocution from feedback from the generator. If you did that, then you could pick when to power the water pump and when to shut that off and run other appliances like a hair dyer or coffee maker that draw relatively high power. I think the transfer switch was ~$100 to have it installed 13 years ago or so.
What I did was have a transfer switch similar to this one installed. This allows us to plug the generator into the house and then pick what circuits we want to use and leave others turned off for load shedding (the generator will not power the whole house) and also disconnects the generator from the utility lines. That protects linemen from electrocution from feedback from the generator. If you did that, then you could pick when to power the water pump and when to shut that off and run other appliances like a hair dyer or coffee maker that draw relatively high power. I think the transfer switch was ~$100 to have it installed 13 years ago or so.
FIREmenow
Full time employment: Posting here.
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- May 9, 2013
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I am just north of the badly hit (flooded) areas in NC.
Your words "went well" should be "going well". It's taking, and will take, a LONG time for any sense of normalcy to return to that area.
