After 13 days, I have POWER!

[CheezeFlixz]

Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.

True I don't mind roughing it, but I prefer to do it on my own terms when I'm in the mood to cook out over a open fire etc.

On the up side, I'll have a lot less leaves to get up next fall. And since I smoke a lot of hams, chickens, turkeys etc I'll have plenty of wood for that ... I'll have maple, oak, hickory, pecan, cherry and apple. So there will be a nice variety of woods to use, each having there own unique flavor. So that's a plus, not to mention the mountains of firewood.

For the most part it wasn't that bad, I could fire up the generator and get online or watch TV for a awhile, I have a gas stove and a kerosene pump stove, kerosene lamps and lanterns, but the novelty did wear off rather quickly ... what was annoying was been surrounded by all the modern toys and convinces and not being able to use them. I had a 10,000 kilowatt generator wired into the house, and let me tell you 10,000 kilowatts isn't that much on a 400 AMP house.

You really tend to take simple things like flipping a light switch and nuking some food to for granted until it's not there.

Below a rare image of me 2 weeks after the storm still cutting wood.


Another small simpling of limbs and trees down ...


My best buddy when the temps dropped to ZERO ... and today it was 72

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

Kurtwood Smith!

[CheezeFlixz]

Kurtwood Smith!

I'm ugly but not that ugly.

[CheezeFlixz]

If you had no power, what was running your computer ?

A hamster in a wheel....

It's called a generator ... 10,000 watts of gas fed electricity.

[Menaaard!!!]

Kurtwood Smith!

I'm ugly but not that ugly.

Get some glasses.

[CheezeFlixz]

Kurtwood Smith!

I'm ugly but not that ugly.

Get some glasses.

I'd run the risk of seeing you.

[Andrew]

Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.

Well, now you are, what with the Internet and fax machine and everything.  I like being in the 21st, but can at least function easily from day to day so long as I am in the 20th.  It's the 19th and earlier that get ya.

I've mentioned it before, but the one thing I've told Katie that we should do to the house is put a small addition on the kitchen and use that space to install a modern wood stove.  That could make a big difference if we ever end up with an ice storm like you had to weather.  Having a fair sized generator that is wired into the house, like you have, would also be really nice. 

[CheezeFlixz]

Actually I'm in the 21st Century now ... I was in 19th century for a while.

Well, now you are, what with the Internet and fax machine and everything.  I like being in the 21st, but can at least function easily from day to day so long as I am in the 20th.  It's the 19th and earlier that get ya.

I've mentioned it before, but the one thing I've told Katie that we should do to the house is put a small addition on the kitchen and use that space to install a modern wood stove.  That could make a big difference if we ever end up with an ice storm like you had to weather.  Having a fair sized generator that is wired into the house, like you have, would also be really nice. 

Being in the country I have a fireplace and wood stoves, the wood stove is great for cooking on as I have mostly cast iron and the all important Dutch Oven Oh I advise on the wood stoves I have two, one requires the blower to run when in use or the flue pipe will get red hot (even triple wall), no electricity, no blower, the house burns down, very bad. The other has a blower on it, but is not required and the stove will operate fine without a blower, it's a Vogelzang. Always keep a pan or teapot of water on the stove, wood heat is very dry and the moisture will save your sinuses.
I keep a good store of seasoned wood in the barn and garage during the winter. In two weeks I used a little over a cord of wood. That's was burning a fireplace and wood stove about non stop.

I'd also recommend kerosene lamps (I used the old antique one I had around the house) they are far cheaper to run than propane lanterns, I have a kerosene lantern too, a little more trouble to lite but puts out 650 lumens which is brighter than propane. FEMA handed out 20 gallons of kerosene for free (well my taxes will pay for it) also you can get a kerosene pressure stove like this I have one but didn't use it...

Propane bottles are about $5 a piece and only last about 6-8 hours a gallon of Kerosene will last for days and fuel several lamps. I'm not a fan of kerosene heaters, to easy to catch things on fire, or be over come by carbon monoxide. 

As for a generator I have a 11,500 (to be exact) watt but I'm looking at upping it to 25,000 or 30,000 watt 100 amp I think I can run the house fairly normally with that, the 11.5Klw you had to pick and choose what you ran and heating a 60 gallon hot water tank was not cost effective. I had to divert nearly all power to the tank and it took 2.5 hours to heat and used 3+ gallons of gas. Boiling /heating water on the stove took less time and was far cheaper.

Hard wire your generator into your house and use a switch box to disconnect of the power lines so you're not feeding back into the system. If both wasteful for you and deadly for the line workers. I just use an old switch/breaker box I took out of a house. You can also wire directly into the box and just trip the main.

Have ready to eat food like MRE's, Ravioli, Fruit bars etc ... and water, when the power goes off all you have is what ever is left in the water tower if it's a 100% outage like we had. I got water back running in 2 days and I also have a well I could pull from if needed. Some folks here are going on week 3 with no power and no water.

I even had to break out the John Wayne ... those cans don't open very well without electricity and I have no idea if I had a manual can opener other than pulling the John Wayne (P-38) off my old dog tags. It seems silly to fire up a generator to open a can. The JW still works great ... who knows how many 25 year old C Rats where fossilized on it.

I was fun dusting off the old Marine Corps skills for a couple of days then it was just annoying. I'd also suggest sending the family to the grandparents house if they have electricity ... to much "together" time in that situation can be stressful, tempers flare.

What else ... oh a air mattress, radio, flashlight and batteries! I got a C Crane wind-up radio like this one ...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001F51GXE
It's all right does AM/FM/Weather has a flashlight, cell phone charger some other stuff.

I was fairly well prepared, but I'll be better prepared next time. Live and learn.

[Allhallowsday]

All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! 
Sorry about the trees. 
Some folks are deaf to pleas. 
Glad you didn't freeze, 
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! 
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! 

Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... 

[Mr. DS]

All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! 
Sorry about the trees. 
Some folks are deaf to pleas. 
Glad you didn't freeze, 
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! 
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! 

Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... 

Guys don't tease...

[Allhallowsday]

All hail the return of the mighty CHEEZE!!!!! 
Sorry about the trees. 
Some folks are deaf to pleas. 
Glad you didn't freeze, 
Somebody stop me PLEASE!! 
SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks, I needed that.
Glad to see you back, buddy! 

Yeh you get a bit cheesee, it's so cold I'm like Sneezee, glad too he dint no freezee, these rimes be gittin' sleazy, but I'm like... breezy, cozza' no... CHEEZEE, King a no weezee, beetz da crap outchoo eezee... 

Guys don't tease...

don' teezee... don' teezee...!!

[CheezeFlixz]

oh Pleazee sayth the Cheezee