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.)

Comments

Re:tips

[cayenne8]

"No way man - you don't need anything nearly that complicated. Since you're just covering an occasional power outage, you don't need anything permanent. Just put the generator outdoors, and run a long extension cord (or a few) inside.

Make sure the generator is in a locked location, or at least chained down. They have a tendency to sprout legs during emergencies."

I 100% agree! That's how most everyone along the coast does it durning hurricane season when they hit and take power out here. I was at a friends house during Gustav near Baton Rouge...and he had one generator we did fine on. I'm not sure the size, but, will try to ask and come back with an answer.

But, with this one generator...we kept a window unit AC going (hot and muggy is our problem during that time of year)...we could run his 50" LCD flatpanel tv...along with DVD and stereo for entertainment...we'd also plug in cell phones, charge computers...etc. I know we had to unplug something occasionally to plug the fridge(s) and chest freezer in, to keep food good, but, over all it worked well.

The things get pretty darned LOUD tho....but, I've heard that the Honda ones...at a premium price, and very, very quiet. Just make sure to have plenty of gasoline stocked up, and oil. We actually ran through our gas supply...and built a little dc pump out of a fuel pump, hooked to a hose and run off a car battery...to siphon gas out of their large Surburban SUV. Now..I am not a fan of SUV's....but, the thing did serve well as a tanker truck for quite a number of days. After the gas stations got back online, and actually got gas delivered to them...we filled up all our tanks...and the SUV tanks to brimming....and had plenty to last us till the electricity came back on.

Thank goodness for gas to cook on, as well as for the water heater....and we also used the propane gas grill outside s few times too....kinda turned into a fun camping trip with them!