Horrible Storm Last Night

[crackshot]

Well fellas, survival preparedness has come to my area.
Last night we were supposed to get a little rain.
I was listening to my weather radio and storm alert came across the band within an hour. It was a severe warning, 70 mph winds, ground blizzards, incredible and seen nothing like it before. This was one of the worst storms I have seen since living here for 15 years.
Warnings were to find strong shelter and stay away from windows. Crazy nasty storm.
It the sky was lit up of lightning and snapped power lines
It put 4500 people without power and I am one of them.
Power went out at 9:30 pm last night and still out of power. It is 12:30 Sunday afternoon.
I got up at 4:30 am this morning and cranked up generator so food does not spoil.
So far, I am running two fridges, a chest freezer, my laptop, DSL modem.
Have 15 gallons of gas in barn, full tank of propane for grill, probably 70 gallons of water in pressure tank from the well. We are conserving our pressurized water. I also have six, 6 gallon jugs of water in basement.
So far, food is still frozen and fridges still cold.
Wood supply is good for the wood stove and keeping warm.
So far so good, although I smell bad, but thats the breaks.
My wife is glad we stockpiled and invested in equipment.
I hope Randy made it home ok to SLC.

[roadrider]

great taht you guys are ok!

i was chatting with randy last night, and he appeared to be doing ok.

( sorry if i'm speaking for you randy, but i'm just saying )

[handyrandyrc]

WOW didn't realize the storm was going to hit THAT hard.  We were going to stay in thru Sunday (today) but decided to leave early once we heard that snow might fly Saturday night.

We got out about 3 pm yesterday -- I've never seen skies so black and ominous as they were over the Idaho sky yesterday.

Glad we got out -- would not have been fun going over Malad pass in that weather.  Neither would it have been much fun being in a motel room with no power.

Power back for you yet?  Glad you're so prepped for emergencies, I bet!

[galahad]

:D   Feels good, I bet!!!!   And it's better to stink than to be hungry and cold.

[RedRyder21]

I know alot of people like talk about end of the world stuff, but events like storms and such are 99% of the reason why I stock up on certain items.

[Morg308]

Crackshot-if your generator will produce 240v, I can run you through how to convert it to run the well. I'm an electrician and all you need is some basic cheap material so you can run the pump. Then you can disconnect it and run the other stuff if you have to once you take showers and build up the pressure again. Just something to think about for next time. I'd be happy to help.

[crackshot]

Well it is 3:15 pm and power just came back on. Food did not spoil and everything is ok! Approx 18 hours without power.

handyrandyrc : You made it out just in time. This thing hit a little after 8:00 pm. The repost said "Travel was impossible and zero visability".
Glad you made it to your destination ok.

galahad: Yeah, might be stinkin', but warm and fed!  :D

RedRyder21: You bet. Rather to have the stuff, than not!

Morg308: My generator is a 3500 watt, 300v, 10 amp type with four 110 outlets and one 220v outlet. I don't know if it has the nads for startup on a 1- 3/4 HP pump but if possible yeah I would take suggestions.

[Morg308]

It should definitely run the pump as pump motors are capacitor start usually. You may or may not be able to run everything else at the same time, but like I said, you're freezer/fridge isn't going to spoil food in the amt of time you'll be doing this.

Basically what I would do is run some Type UF 10/2 from your generator location to the pressure switch. REMEMBER TO TURN OFF YOUR BREAKER TO THE PUMP AT THE PANEL

I say that because if the power comes back on, and you are energizing the pump from BOTH the panel and the genny you'll have ummm, well, problems.

You should see two lines running away from the pressure switch. One is going to your well (load) the other is the power in (line).

The quick and dirty way would be to disconnect your LINE coming from the panel (AFTER turning the breaker off and testing it LOL! Live cats work well for this purpose...) Then cap it with wire nuts. Run the new temporary line to the same terminals and make sure they are tight. Don't worry about a strain relief or anything-this is an EMERGENCY measure. The other end gets a 240v plug that matches your generator. There is a Nema # such as L6-30R on the receptacle if you look closely. R stands for receptacle. What you need is an L6-30P (for Plug) to fit it.

Once you've double checked everything, plug it in and flip on the little circuit breaker (if it has one.)

There are other, more permanent ways to do this that would be better, but I'd really have to draw you a picture. The best thing to do is put a 50amp panel right next to your other panel and run a line from that to your generator. Then when the power goes out, you flip a 50A two pole breaker with a safety kit on it in your MAIN panel, which disconnects the subpanel from the service while you are using your generator. Basic lights and fridge, well and freezer get jumpers from the main panel to the sub so that they can be run either way. This is really a job for an electrician, but is well worth it in the long run. This way you simply plug in a heavy extension cord to your generator (in a shed outside?) and plug it into a weatherproof twistlock receptacle on the outside of your house to backfeed the subpanel when the power is off.

The reason for the 'safety kit' is basically it's two 50 amp breakers, one above the other, and with this simple switch, flipping one flips the other off. I did a lot of these conversions around Y2K.