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maxandgeorgia · 12-13-2007, 07:28 PM

Juel, our power has been off and on repeatedly through this, after the first 18 hour long outage. Even today, with the first glimpse of sun in a week, we had another hour long outage. It truly may take a while for all broken limbs to come down and lines drug along with them. We still have thick ice on tree limbs and on the ground. We saw some sun for about two hours before sundown and some of the ice on the ground started melting and running. We are forecast to be clear tomorrow and then 2 to 6 inches of snow overnight. One positive: sunlight on the ice was purely gorgeous today. Keep your batteries fresh and let's hope for a fast moving snow storm through our midwest! Keep us posted...~G

safari57 · 12-13-2007, 09:20 PM

Good luck with the lousy weather you guys. Hopefully by Christmas break things will have settled down for those traveling, and for you folks to have a good uninterrupted Christmas.

Barry

vswingfield · 12-13-2007, 09:30 PM

Best of luck,

Missed you at Branson. Will keep you in my thoughts. I have been through the icestorm thing here in 2000. My old Audi blew up on the way home in the middle of the night and I bought my current TV, an F150. With the purchase this year of a 34' Excella, a 3/4 ton is in the future.

Keep warm!

juel · 12-13-2007, 10:48 PM

Wow...a 34ft. I thought I had hit the big time with a 31ft. Glad you missed this storm, but you surely would have had a place to hide out in style. This whole thing is depressing enought, but think about the clean up coming as the weather improves. UGH!

billberk · 12-14-2007, 05:31 AM

Sure looks like the view from our window back in January of this year. Of course we never got the snow that you're about to get. Hope you have had time to prepare for the second round.

I had a neighbor with a pretty good sense of humor during our big ice storm, or at least this struck me as funny.

Bill

Cracker · 12-14-2007, 04:10 PM

In anticipation of the nor'easter expected Sunday here in Maine I decided to exercise my Onan 6.5 kw standby generator. Wouldn't you know - in spite of faithfully exercising it monthly it absolutely refused to start (---keeps flooding!) I ramped it up in the truck and took it to my local repair shop - where I was told not to expect it back before Tuesday. Looks like I'll have to use the pair of Hondas if worst comes to worst - but they don't hook up to the house receptacle without investing in an expensive pigtail. That leaves the furnace out of service. I guess that this is yet another example of "Murphy's Law!."

clancy_boy · 12-14-2007, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cracker

In anticipation of the nor'easter expected Sunday here in Maine I decided to exercise my Onan 6.5 kw standby generator. Wouldn't you know - in spite of faithfully exercising it monthly it absolutely refused to start (---keeps flooding!) I ramped it up in the truck and took it to my local repair shop - where I was told not to expect it back before Tuesday. Looks like I'll have to use the pair of Hondas if worst comes to worst - but they don't hook up to the house receptacle without investing in an expensive pigtail. That leaves the furnace out of service. I guess that this is yet another example of "Murphy's Law!."

A word of caution, and I am in no way implying that most of you don't already know this. Be careful connecting your generator to your house without FIRST disconnecting your house from the electrical power grid. The life you save may be the power company guy who is out there in horrible weather tryng to restart the flow of electricity to you.

Backfeeding to the grid had injured a few linemen after Katrina and made hot allot of lines in neighborhoods that were thought to be dead.

BTW - you can make a cheap pigtail from parts at Home Depot and connect to your dryer plug. Just remember to throw your main breaker to the OFF position.

Generators are like the 14 year old son - they know it's grass mowing day and refuse to get started doing it...........

Cracker · 12-16-2007, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clancy_boy

A word of caution, and I am in no way implying that most of you don't already know this. Be careful connecting your generator to your house without FIRST disconnecting your house from the electrical power grid. The life you save may be the power company guy who is out there in horrible weather tryng to restart the flow of electricity to you.

Backfeeding to the grid had injured a few linemen after Katrina and made hot allot of lines in neighborhoods that were thought to be dead.

BTW - you can make a cheap pigtail from parts at Home Depot and connect to your dryer plug. Just remember to throw your main breaker to the OFF position.

Generators are like the 14 year old son - they know it's grass mowing day and refuse to get started doing it...........

A good reminder for all - but I do personally have a properly installed generator panel and exterior connection. My problem is that the exterior connection that connects to the 6,500 kw generator is different from the 30 amp connector on the parallel connector of the Hondas. I priced out what it would take to make the connection work and it was over $100 for parts. As for the bloody darn Onan generator, it started right up after sitting overnight in the heated repair shop! The shop owner drained the carburetor before he tried to start it - which I had already done two times. I think the third draining may have been the key - possibly serving to finally get rid of any remaining water in the system. He also said that he had been seeing a lot of water in the fuel this year - which surprised him. Anyway, for $10.00 and a bit of aggravation the generator is ready to run again. I hope that I don't need it!

vswingfield · 12-16-2007, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juel

Wow...a 34ft. I thought I had hit the big time with a 31ft. Glad you missed this storm, but you surely would have had a place to hide out in style. This whole thing is depressing enought, but think about the clean up coming as the weather improves. UGH!

I sympathize with your upcoming cleanup. As you can see in my avatar, there are no trees in my yard to fall. It’s a disadvantage in the summer sun, though.

As for hiding out in the Excella, I live in it anyway. It is in style, though.

juel · 12-22-2007, 05:31 PM

Cost us $570.00 for two men working till dark each day of four days to cut up tree limbs, cut down trees and haul everything away. I would have paid double. It feels good to look out and not see that mess. Really, really depressing news is that the 31ft Sovereign now has two dent in the front end cap. I can hardly stand to walk out and look at it. When it gets better weather we'll try to pull them out. If that fails, then the inside end cap (that I just redid) will have to come out and we'll try to push and roll them out.

maxandgeorgia · 12-22-2007, 05:45 PM

Yea for the clean up crew! Bummer about the dents

We'll be "pulling" for you when it's time to pop those dents back out next spring. Here's a toast to a milder winter ahead...,, but first, Merry Christmas! ~G

Wabbiteer · 12-22-2007, 07:08 PM

Biggest thing I've found is buying fresh gas as they do seasonal blends; summer blend won't atomize correctly in cold carburetors.

I found a close-out manual 'furnace' generator switch-over box and powering the natural gas blower and thermostat transformer will be the dedicated function of my Kipor 2600W suitcase generator; everything else will wait for heat for sure!

Sugarfoot · 12-22-2007, 07:55 PM

Juel, so sorry about your Airstream dents, but I'm glad for you the clean-up is done. What a mess you and so many others had to endure.

overlander63 · 12-22-2007, 08:21 PM

A quick and dirty solution to the generator hookup problem, is to buy a good extension cord, buy a male end, cut off the female end, install the male end. Hook up to an outlet on the same leg as the refrigerator (furnace?), turn the main breaker and all other breakers off (especially the main), start the generator. Then turn on the breaker to the circuit (s) you want to power. It isn't perfect, but we got by for several days with this solution after multiple hurricanes.

Aria · 12-24-2007, 09:13 AM

To All Merry Christmas. Looking forward to 2008 and Airstream Travel.
Stay well and happy.

Mikethefixit · 12-24-2007, 01:37 PM

Jeul
Best of Luck to U and your dents hope they are not to severe. Thanks for the great pic's, they let us know just about what U went thru. I personally just had 1 tree removed because It was rotten and going to either fall on the house or our TV's so we opted for the take down.
We have a Briggs powered Coleman 7500 watt Gen and a Briggs&Strattion Emergency Power Transfer System. Just plug the gen in outside and throw the switches and we are good. The same gen is to be used with the AS.Someone mentioned starting and fuel I treat all my fuel for gen and other motorized things here with STA-BIL. I never have a problem starting because of old fuel even if it sets for a year.
juel MERRY CHRISTMAS
Roger