Backup power

carb850

carb850

New member
With so many people losing power this week in the area, I'm curious how many of the locals use some backup feature in case of outages?

I do not, but I don't have a tank setup at the moment either. I'm leaning toward getting one of the devices for the Tunze powerhead which you can use a DC battery for backup power to them. But what about everyone else?
 
Lana and I are tankless at the moment as well but when we had our aquariums we used our 2500 Watt generator during power outages. It would power our essentials on the tank plus a light, the fridge and the TV. The down side to it was everything was manual which is OK if you are home when the power goes off. The other bad thing was the generator would only run about 1.5 hrs on a tank of gas. Fortunately for us we were always home when the power went off or shortly after a power loss and did not lose any livestock.
 
I have a generator that I bought about five years ago "just in case". I haven't even put oil in it yet however I am a firm believer in the fact that it is better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it.

If anyone has an emergency I would be more than happy to loan it out.
 
I, too, have a small generator. Power went off in the Strawberry Road area Monday night and I did not hesitate to get it rolling ... before the tank temp had a chance to drop. I didn't want the heater to have to warm things up if the temps fell too far. Stability is key in our tanks. Lit lots of fragrency-free candles in the room to keep the room warm, and covered the tank with blankets. We were lucky. Only 2 hrs w/o electric.
 
My parents still don't have power but they are too stubborn to borrow my generator or to come over to my house.
 
I went 16hrs without power/heat through the storm. My tank was out for 6 of those hours. I finely got to my dads and got his generator and hooked both of my tanks to it just running the heaters and main pumps. Everything seems to have pulled through fine. A generator is a nice thing to have, saved the tanks and hooked up a lamp.
 
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Jeff I'm glad you came through all right hope everybody else is as lucky.

Another vote for a generator although we didn't need one this time. Like Joyce said with winter storms I'd be as worried about lack of heat as I would circulation.
i keep meaning to get a generator, but i keep not having the money...
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Adkins Hardware in South Ashland rents generators if you are ever in need. Since the owner's my tank sitter you'll be in line behind me :D but he has several.
 
I hear the Honda's are nice and quiet but geez do they ever cost a lot. For the occasional (hopefully never) use I would probably be better served with a more moderately priced model, even though the entire neighborhood will know it.

The entire house diesel or natural gas generators would be the ticket. Where did I put that lottery ticket?
 
I have a heavy duty extension cord and a couple 6 way power strips. Looks ugly but when the power is out it's too dark to see the mess.
 
Looks don't worry me ;)

I was just wondering about powering the blower motor of the furnace. Also, just the logistics of powering various items in different rooms. Someone told me you can plug the generator into an outlet and it will put power to all outlets but you have to be careful for it not to sending power back to the line from the pole. I wondered if tripping the main breaker would fix that problem.Other
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14282834#post14282834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by carb850
I was just wondering about powering the blower motor of the furnace. Also, just the logistics of powering various items in different rooms. Someone told me you can plug the generator into an outlet and it will put power to all outlets but you have to be careful for it not to sending power back to the line from the pole. I wondered if tripping the main breaker would fix that problem.Other
Click to expand...

If you have a generator big enough to handle your house you can do it that way. If you think about it the big hole house generators that kick in automatically work kinda like this. They use a big relay to switch between the main coming from the poll and the generator. The down sides to doing it yourself is 1) doing it yourself, 2) power coming back on in the middle of the night and you not knowing till morning, and 3) if you just plug the generator into 1 outlet then only the receptacles and appliances on that phase of the breaker box will get power. So if you look at your breaker box only the breakers on one side would have power and everything on that side could be pulling current even the 220V appliances which adds up quick. Some people have tried switching breakers so all the 220V appliances are on one side of the breaker box and all the 110V appliances are on the other but this creates an imbalance on the box and can burn down a house! Plus if an inspector ever sees it he would make you hire an electrician to re do everything in the box and certify it meets code. If you really want to simplify stuff and not invest in a hole house generator the safest way would be to add a sub panel off of your main breaker box and connect the essentials like your furnace blower, reef heaters, pumps, house lights etc. that you need during a power outage to it then put in a switch to switch between the main circuit and a special receptacle outside that you can connect your generator to.
 
Good points.

I want a new breaker box anyhow at some point and would like to upgrade my service from 100amp to 200amp. I have seen some boxes prewired for a generator but I still think it is a manual thing. So the only way you would know power is back on is keeping an eye on neighbors houses.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14282834#post14282834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by carb850
Looks don't worry me ;)

I was just wondering about powering the blower motor of the furnace. Also, just the logistics of powering various items in different rooms. Someone told me you can plug the generator into an outlet and it will put power to all outlets but you have to be careful for it not to sending power back to the line from the pole. I wondered if tripping the main breaker would fix that problem.Other
Click to expand...


DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!
You could seriously injure or kill someone. Even if you open the main on your box there is a chance of power getting back fed to the line. The problem is the fact that your breaker only breaks the two power leads and does not break the neutral circuit. In certain circumstances this can lead to the electricity flowing along the neutral back to the line and through the transformer where it would be stepped up to line voltage. Do the right thing and either use extension chords or have a proper switch installed.
 
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