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Home Generators (or How DTE Energy Ruined My Holidays)
We are among the thousands without power in the northeast. Day four actually, and we've decided to look into generators so that next year's New Year's doesn't involve fears of frozen pipes bursting and hypothermic babies and cats. At the very least we just need enough juice to run the furnace blower, but if we're going to lay down the cash I'd like to know what it would take to get a little more power ... like enough to run a fridge, router, laptop and lightbulb. I know nothing about this sort of thing, but figure there are more than a few experts out there so I call out to the wisdom of the mob. What am I looking for? How difficult is the wiring? What will it cost me? On the extreme edge, what would it take to get off the grid entirely? (And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks.)
I'd like to know what it would take to get a little more power... like a fridge
This coming from the can't-feel-my-toes department? Put it outside!
router, laptop and a lightbulb.
Laptop first. It is marginally useful without the router. The router is useless without the laptop or some other computer. It also provides all the light you should need (though maybe not all your wife needs)
I suggest you go and get a small generator immediately. Murphy's Law (or something like it) demands that power be back on before you get home or immediately after you get it hooked up.
This is CmdrTaco -- he's saving electricity by turning off the spellchecker to conserve power, while running off of battery backup. Obviously.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
... I object to your derrogatory and inflamatory efforts to drive my net asset value down.
hypothermic babies and cats
mmmmmm, frozen tacos - yum
/Homer
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
... I object to your insistent and endless efforts to drive my home value down and to give hypothermia to my cat.
Make sure that your natural gas generator is running a genuine copy of Microsoft Windows Vista. You will find that your generator is much more reliable with Windows Vista as long as you keep your system up to date and have anti-virus, spyware protection, and firewall utilities installed.
This is also a great time to have kids.
Not much else to do with the power out, amirite?
i don't know, they way some offenses performed this past weekend, I can see quite a few linemen winding up on people's hitlists.
Now that's what I'm talking about! On my wishlist for next Christmas :)
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Or you could prove how large your penis is with a real man's home generator from costco.
* Most people just use a male to male plug, ...
Those of us with for-real electrical backgrounds call such a contrivance a death trap.
What, you mean running two 12ga male-male cords to two outlets (to feed both phases) is a hazard? What's wrong with feeding a 100amp panel over 100 feet of 14ga 40's-era rag wire? (snort)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.