No force, as Sir Thomas Malory would say. I’ll suspend participation in’Dry January’ for the weekend, so there is homemade mead and fire.
An Icy Time
Power was out this morning before dawn due to ice on the lines; it came back, but then went out again due to a vehicle sliding off the road and taking out a power pole. It was barely above freezing at dawn, and is scheduled to fall all day and night to be near zero by morning. Snow is blowing, but so far not sticking.
I hope your electricity is back soon.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is a good time to discuss backup generators for homes. I'm looking to get one. Does anyone have suggestions?
Also, Grim, I meant to ask if you do anything to flavor your mead. I brewing channel I watch suggests dried orange peel. Any thoughts?
I have a generator, but I never use it. I start it once a year, change the fuel, but I don’t really need electricity for a day or two.
ReplyDeleteI usually flavor my mead with nothing. If you use a champagne yeast it develops a simple floral flavor. There are many variations, though. I do sometimes make a mountain berry mead flavored with blueberries and raspberries gathered wild up here. You can use lots of stuff, and many variations have Greek names because mead is very old. Even modern varieties do: cascomel is mead flavored with chiles (casco from the Greek for capsaicin, and Mel from the Greeh for honey).
FWIW, get a standby gen-set that's powered by natural gas or propane (whichever you have on your property.)
ReplyDeleteGenerac's systems are made in the USA (mostly in Wisconsin.) Last quote I heard for one with a transfer switch, pad-mounted, enough to run refrigerator, freezer, and spare reefer plus furnace or air conditioner was around $8K. That number may have gone up in the last 12 months, and (obviously) your nearby dealer may charge more or less.
Thanks, Grim. I'm guessing the type of honey (i.e., what blossoms / blooms the bees fed on) makes a difference as well. I'm going to wait for warmer weather, maybe start my first batch in March.
ReplyDeleteDad29, thank you. I found a Generac dealer near me and will contact them.
In the Big Texas Freeze & Blackout of Feb 2021, I was without electricity for 3 1/2 days. Half the condo complex lost power for only 1 1/2 days. Those of us in the condo complex who lost power for 3 1/2 days were connected to a transformer that got damaged in the snow and ice storm. Luck of the draw.
ReplyDeleteDry January?!?!?! What an awful idea. Only an evil masochist would advocate no drinking in the month of January. How else are we to endure the bleakness of January without the friendly fortitude of alcohol?
ReplyDeleteFavor a propane- over a gas-powered generator. The natural gas will be available only as long as there's electricity for the natural gas pumps. Lay in a supply of propane, but not too big a supply--no more than a couple of bottles--just enough for a few hours. And don't depend on an electric starter for the generator, unless it's a battery-powered starter, and you test the battery periodically.
ReplyDeleteAlso, some grunt work: don't just settle for a generator that's claimed to power the whole house for some period of time. Do the grunt work of IDing what equipment you really need to have power and what other equipment you really want to have power. Add up the total, and that plus some engineering slop is the size generator you need. Also know what circuits have the needed equipment and the wanted equipment. The former is what the generator needs to power, it's possible (within total load limits) that you can move some of your wanted equipment onto those circuits, if the generator can't be installed to power all those circuits.
Lay in a supply of wood for your fireplace, against the possibility of longer power failures. Most fireplaces in today's houses are deucedly inefficient, but they're better than nothing.
Preaching to the choir, I expect, but exhaust the fire-powered generator to the outdoors. Into the garage is not sufficient.
Full disclosure: the forgoing is the result of our own exploring getting a generator; we don't actually have one. We're spring-loaded to wood-burning after we heated our Las Cruces house through 8 winters with a wood burning stove. The way we had things set up, a cord of wood would last us two winters, doing routine heating. Our power failures were frequent, but short-lived. The power company resembled a third world operation.
Like Gringo said, that Texas blackout lasted days for lots of folks. We got lucky in Plano; we appear to be on the same macro circuit as the nearby fire station and separate, but nearby, police station, so we didn't lose power.
Eric Hines
“Dry January?!?!?! What an awful idea. Only an evil masochist would advocate no drinking in the month of January.”
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with you, Joel. I hate this every year, but I do it every year. I tell myself that it’s a demonstration of self-mastery over the temptations of alcohol, but maybe it’s just masochism.
IMO,Keeping the well pump working, and the freezers cold is job one for a generator.
ReplyDeleteSecond is heat, and if one is fortunate, the main source of BTU's is petro , not electric.
In this case a small generator may do to power a fuel pump or a water pump (if radiant heat).
We built our place with oil fired boiler and radiant floor heat, and a propane fueled cook top and a wood stove. And LED battery lanterns. Weeks without power or water, in the snow in a singlewide trailer was a good lesson.
So the generator only has to put out a bit of power- ^in this case, 5000 watts.
An inverter type has the great advantage of being able to run at a lower rpm and still deliver 60 hz power- that is a big fuel savings if the demand is low, but power is still necessary. Say you want to have some lights on, etc.
But they are spendy.
Ours runs on gasoline, alcohol free gasoline. And there is a simple transfer switch, I need to go start the genset, turn the switch and plug in the cord. Not a hassle really, but not something to do in the middle of the night in the snow. If the house has much thermal mass it can stay warm for several hours before the temp gets uncomfortable, or the pressure tank runs down, or the freezer warms up. We usually just wait till the power comes back on, normally it is under 8 hrs. Sometimes if it is real windy we fill a five gallon bucket just to have something to flush the toilet with without having to go start the generator.
First step is add up the necessary loads- (and voltages- even if it is a cabin with a few lights and needs almost no power, the well pump is likely 240volt and that is only available in generators 5000 watts and up in this country)
There is a whole arena of whole house automatic-on types, about which I know nothing.
I think the ladies tend to be fond of this type.
We have a whole-house generator, 16KW, powered by propane that we store in a 375-gallon tank. That's enough propane to run the AC on full in summer for the better part of a week, I think. After Hurricane Harvey, we found it a bit of a challenge to refill the propane tank constantly, so we replaced it with a bigger one, the better to wait out supply-line glitches. The smaller tank worked OK after the storm, but at the cost of our keeping a nervous eye on resupply every couple of days. Luckily the propane guys were good about resupplying the nearby fire department and so were available to top up the tanks in our immediate neighborhood. There's an automatic switch, which has worked perfectly so far.
ReplyDeletePeople in this county who relied on municipal natural gas during the Big Freeze found their supply cut off and their generators useless. We didn't ever lose power (didn't even have to use the generator), but we kept the heat setting very low to spare the grid and used the fireplace gratefully.
Water doesn't move around here, of course, we're so flat. No hydro for us. I know only a few people who use windmills or solar.
I do value our septic system and rainwater cistern. In this respect, too, my county neighbors have not fared well, as municipal water systems always seem to be going on boil-water notices. After Harvey, we had pure water, sewer, lights, and AC, unlike almost everyone else. Even the jail had to scramble for water. That's nuts. They should have a safe backup tank.
Thanks, Eric, raven & Tex! I'm taking notes!
ReplyDeleteMy area is tornado prone. Back in the 90s the neighborhood I was living in got hit with an F4 or F5 which destroyed several entire blocks of houses starting half a block from mine. Since the utility poles had been ripped up and thrown around, we didn't have electricity for 5 or 6 days. I'd like to have a generator and enough fuel to handle something like that.
IF you're looking at a multi-fuel generator, note that not all fuels generate equally- an example of output differences based on fuel input differences copied from a tri-fuel generator spec sheet:
ReplyDeleteOUTPUT
Running Watts 7500(Gas) 6750(LPG) 5500(NG)
Starting Watts 9400(Gas) 8450(LPG) 6900(NG)
This is important.
ReplyDeleteTex said- "People in this county who relied on municipal natural gas during the Big Freeze found their supply cut off and their generators useless."
I read on the market ticker that most of the natural gas pipelines switched from natural gas powered pumps, to electrical pumps- likely due to green initiatives, but with the bonus feature of failing when power was lost.........at the time of most need.
Good point about using propane!
ReplyDeleteThere is some confusion about the gen-sets. Pad-mounted standbys (like owned by Texan99) are not the same as those cute little buzzy-noise jobs you can push around with your feet (and which MUST be placed outside.)
Yes, pay attention to "starting" wattage!!
Most housing in Wisconsin--by far--has traditional furnace heat. I suspect that's true for almost all of the snow-belt. Many are fitted with (or retro-fitted with) wood-burners. But in an 1800++ SF ranch configuration, a single wood-burner won't cut it.
Our local natural gas failure didn't result from pump power failure, apparently--I think the valves just froze up. Our very small local gas company on my little peninsula maintained service by going out and warming the valves manually.
ReplyDeleteAnother point about generators: I always forget which is stand-by and which is back-up, but one is meant to run continuously over long periods while the other is meant only as a temporary expedient. Our 11KW model strained after Harvey, when it had to run 24/7 for several weeks. It had a tendency to overheat and needed its oil changed frequently (a good trick, when there was no easy way to buy oil within a county or two and no mail or any kind of delivery for many weeks). We replaced it with the current 16KW model, still not technically meant to run continuously for long periods, but oversized enough that it will do better if we lose power for weeks again someday. It's clearly good enough for the occasional loss of power for a few hours.
My wife and I use the generator only for a few hours a day- keep the freezers and reefers cold, fill the well tank, maybe have some lights for a while. Mostly just to conserve fuel. It may be a sign of the times but when power goes gone, my very first thought is "is this it?" AKA will it ever come back on? Even under normal situations, being at the end of a dead end road means being the last to have power restored. Fortunately our climate is temperate, nothing like the north or the south.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone. I've learned a lot here. I'm really glad I asked this question.
ReplyDelete