I think our final step to be ready for winter in Missouri was to get the generators set up and where we needed them to be. That’s done. We’ve learned that for us, the best way to have power when the power is out is with several small generators. We’ll never have a whole house generator again – they’re fine for some but for us, the cost just isn’t worth it. We have have municipal water so we don’t have to run a well pump. We have a propane ventless heater in the downstairs garage (and a carbon monoxide detector in there, as well as several others in the house). When Vince was in Texas in horribly cold weather without power for most of five days, he ran the small gas generators to keep the freezers frozen and with it being so cold in the shop, he didn’t have to run them much; he ran the well pump as needed to get water in the house when he needed it. That’s it. He kept a fire going in the fireplace, cooked on the gas stove, made coffee on the stove and was able to charge the cell phone when the generator was running for the freezers. We don’t need everything in the house to be working. He does have batteries he can charge via the generator to be able to run his CPAP.
Vince sold the gasoline generators he had and now we have “dual fuel” generators but we’ll run them off propane. The generator downstairs will run the heater as needed to keep the pipes from freezing. “Pipe central” is in the ceiling above the downstairs garage and that garage is insulated, heated and cooled but, of course, with no power, there’s no heat. That generator will also run the fridge/freezer downstairs, as well as the water heater so we can take showers – but we wouldn’t run all those things at the same time.
The generator upstairs will run the freezers and we can charge cell phones, Kindles, etc. from that one, though without the router, we won’t have internet and without the internet, there’s no data but we have plenty to keep us busy.
We had the electrician make sure everything was ready to be plugged in and run off the generator and he and Vince calculated how much we can run at one time off these small generators so we’re all set.
Let’s hope we don’t lose power but . . if we do, we’re ready.
Jill says
Just curious Judy what the significant costs are for whole house generators, other than the initial installation?
judy.blog@gmail.com says
If you’re using propane to keep it running, and everything in the house is running, it’s easy to go through 250 gallons of propane in 4 – 6 days. Since they only fill the tank 80% full, that’s about $530 per tank so for one week, if the electric heat or a/c are running, that adds up quickly. Plus, in a real disaster, the propane trucks may not be able to get here to fill the tank. I have friends in Louisiana who emptied their 250 gallon tank every 4 days and sometimes the propane truck couldn’t get there for 3 or 4 days so they’d have power for a few days, then not have power for a few days.
For us, it’s easier to figure out how to live without electricity in an emergency situation. If it’s a short time, that’s pretty easy. If it’s a long time, we probably couldn’t afford the propane.
During the time in Texas last winter when so many were without power, the stations were out of gasoline, the propane companies ran out of propane and couldn’t get more.
If the power goes out because a car hits a pole and the whole house generator kicks in, that’s not a big deal. When there’s a hurricane and the power is out for 5 weeks, it’s a struggle to get fuel and it’s outrageously expensive.
If you have the generator hooked up to natural gas, that’s different. We had that in Kentucky and due to a tornado, we were without power for over a week. Our gas bill was very high. Neither of us remember how much but I’m thinking that the tornado was in January and our gas bill was normally about $150 per month and it was $900 that month and that was over 20 years ago.
Here we have a basement that stays cool in the summer and comfortable in the winter. Just the few cold days we’ve had here, Vince watches TV in the basement and when he comes upstairs, he’ll always say “It’s 10 degrees cooler up here!”
Everyone has different wants, needs and comfort level. With us having the basement, and having the gas stove, we’re ok without power and not having a whole house generator isn’t something either of us feel like we need.
Jill says
Thanks for your response, I really appreciate it! My Mom has just started using oxygen and she is considering a whole house generator using natural gas. Your experience is very helpful.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Yes. If we were using some life saving equipment that required electricity or if we were older and didn’t want to mess with fueling generators or pluggin in one thing before unplugging something else and it was important that we have cell phones charged at all times, I’d definitely go with a whole house generator.
Cindy F says
I mentioned your generator solution to my husband and he had questions…lol. Wondering if you run an extension cord from your fridge to the generator or did you have the electrician make a sub panel with everything you want the generator to run and have those appliances moved to that new panel. He was considering a whole house generator but I pointed out that we wouldn’t need everything to run. We have a gas stove, gas fireplace upstairs, wood-burning one in the basement. Stays cool enough down there during the summer that if we had to we could be without an air conditioner. So really we just need power for both fridges and to power our phones and/or tablets. Guess we also need to get battery back-up for our son’s bi-pap.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
We run extension cords. The generator sits about halfway between our two freezers and neither are very far away. We actually have four fridges now but the newest one is in the basement garage. One generator is in there because we have the backup heater in there to keep the pipes from freezing if we had no power. The fridge in there would be easy to run with the downstairs generator and surely we could combine everything into that one fridge, or at least everything we really wanted to save.
We use the solar charges for our phones/tablets.
Cindy F says
Thanks for the info! I’ve been meaning to get a solar charger for our phones and need to look into it. We get a lot of sunshine here even in winter so it would work great here. Don’t know why we haven’t purchased one yet!
JoAnn R says
Judy, I have questions about Vince’s cpap. What kind, and what batteries does he use? My husband has a cpap and we lost power during Henri this year, fortunately, it was only 1 night, but for the future, we need something to keep the cpap going in case of a longer outage.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I’ll get with Vince and send you an email but I do know you can buy the whole setup at Amazon but it’s pretty pricey. Vince bought an inverter and uses a marine battery. He had to use it in Texas but hasn’t had to use it before or after. One problem is that if batteries completely discharge and then stay discharged for a long time, they go bad. In Texas, we used solar batteries on several things so we were always changing them out. Vince may need to re-think his plan here but I’ll get him to give me the details of what he uses and I’ll send you an email probably tomorrow.