Just my two cents: I live in central FL and have been through multiple power outages from hurricanes. When the power goes out, park the microwave, air fryer, electric pressure cooker, etc. Do as much of your cooking/heating on fire as you can, including boiling water for tea/coffee and cooking. We keep three full 20 lb. propane tanks in addition to the one on the grill. I write the date on them with a grease pencil on the day I get them filled and when the one on the grill runs out I swap it out for the oldest one in inventory (FIFO), then take the empty for refill. We do cook with the grill two or three times a month all year, so we rotate through them. 2) get a camping stove and canisters of fuel. Over time we have built in redundancy with mutiple fuel options: small propane bottles, butane, and isobutane. Consider stocking up on cans of chafing dish fuel (ethanol/methanol). Finally, get a cheap fire pit, or build one with bricks/pavers and stock up on firewood. The more you can do with fire, the more you can preserve your generator power for protecting your refrigerated/frozen food stocks and recharging your comms/tech (phone, computer, radios, etc.) and other things you can't power with fire. Ok, that was longer than $0.02.
Good info. I’m in Florida as well. During outages we never use the stove or microwave. We have multiple 20lb propane tanks for our grill and generator, use a 2-burner portable Coleman stove with tons of those green 1lb gas canisters and have a few Ecoflow solar generators / power banks as backups. We have battery-powered lamps and fans and smaller power banks to charge phones and tablets. People always wait until the last minute, but it’s easy and less stressful to get prepared during the off season.
I like the butane single burner stoves you find at Asian stores. The fuel is also super cheap, although less common than propane. It burns super hot, the canisters last a while, and you can use it indoors no problem. I use it regularly to get a really good sear on steaks outside so I don't smoke up the house.
Yup. Generator is for keeping chest freezers at temperature ONLY. Have a small solar setup for charging devices, and limit device use to limit charging demands. People have no clue how to live anymore.
Coming from a military background this video is a perfect example for the need to run drills/exercises…make it fun for the family…try 48 hours of no external resources…only what you have on hand! Shortcomings will make themselves apparent! Also a good adage…2 is 1…1 is none!!! Spares of everything for every family member and maybe even to share with neighbors. Rotate consistently everything…food, fuel, batteries etc etc etc! The time to prepare/practice is NOW 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I just posted about the 2 is 1 and 1 is none thought process myself. I have two generators because if one goes down, I can switch to the other and either figure out what's wrong with the first one or get it checked out afterward. A generator is way too critical of an item to only have one.
I'd aim for diversity , not necessarily 2 of the same type e.g. I have gas canisters and alcohol burners and electricity storage as it's difficult to predict the scenario. The situation may be a grabbag not necessarily a safe home of stockpiles.
At the community level you don't necessarily have to aim for 2 of everything as you can share. I have 2 of everything but find I'm loaning to someone with zero. If at the community level there was 1+bit of everything there's less waste. I agree with other comments of diversity of supply as you can't rehearse for all situations. E.g. a generator can't be carried on foot out of a situation Complementary diverse supply is the way to go, beginning with EDC, grab bag, vehicle, and home. If there's enough of those in a community then the ones who couldn't be bothered or not capable have local help.
I tell my grown kids what’s the use of having preps if you don’t practice. Your life could depend on it. Some preps are materials some are skills, practice the skills.
@@LilyoftheValeyrising Wise words. But also different simulated scenarios, countless times it's the "not the problem we expected". It could be the house which is damaged, not just a power outage. 1/3 of the time you're asleep.
Yep. Make sure your generator is a "duel fuel" type that will run on gas or propane. You want to keep your options open, and having a large propane tank can really save you a lot of hassle. During my 8 days without electricity, I used my lanterns all the time. I used hurricane lanterns from Feuerhand, the last maker of hurricane lanterns in The West. Traditional oil lanterns are exceptionally safe, and you can fuel them with diesel, kerosene, or "lamp oil'. They're all the same thing, just different levels of purification. The diesel and kerosene might have engine additives in them, but it's still perfectly safe for use in a lantern. What I found with the "modern tech" was that it crapped out for one reason or another. Even with solar power and batteries, you're tied to the manufacturing chain. When Helene came through here, all the stores were out, and the roads were clogged, so you had to hope that you stockpiled enough "energy" for your flashlights and such. With the hurricane lanterns, they provided a ton of light, really warming the place up (visually), and used almost no fuel in the 8 evenings I used them. I think I might have used a full quart of lamp oil, plus whatever was already in the tanks. Every battery-powered widget was DOA due to dead batteries or corrosion ruining the connections, but my Feuerhand hurricane lanterns performed flawlessly even though they'd also sat a year without being used. While you can buy vintage lanterns on the secondhand market, that can be touchy because you never know if they'll leak at the seams. You can buy brand new Feuerhand lanterns, in a wide range of colors, and make them part of your life, using them every week just to create a nice ambiance on the back deck or for family game night. In those Days of Darkness, my "old tech" worked perfectly. Axes, handsaws, bbq grill, hurricane lanterns.... It was the new stuff that failed at every turn, not the old. There's a lesson there if folks want to learn it. And, yeah, I'm hunting for more lanterns!
I own hurricane lanterns too. Love them. But no, you can't run them on diesel. I tried it since kerosene and "lamp oil" is so expensive. Clogs the wick fast. Feel free to try it but I'm telling you it won't work long.
I have 5 Honda portable gas generators that I test every June and then run for a few minutes every few weeks until Hurricane season is over in November. I but only non- ethanol gas very June and then use in in my vehicle when hurricane season is over. I have lots of oil on hand as well s other supplies for emergencies.
@@thedangerson That's the truth. I love shopping for them, and just going to flea markets in general. I don't want any that are made after 1980 or so, the quality having dropped off considerably. Feuerhand lanterns are the only ones made to a decent standard today, and that's because they're still made in Western Lands. That's why I recommend them - people can buy a new lantern and trust that it'll be worth what they paid, rather than buy something "vintage" and hope that it doesn't leak.
I started using usb string lights for emergency lighting. They sip electricity and can run off usb battery packs for days. Thanks for sharing what you learned!
Yes, USB string lights or even battery string lights. I had a battery wreath that has a timer and lasts for months at 6 hours per night because it has D batteries. It lasts my whole Christmas season on one set of D batteries.
Just some thoughts for folks to consider. 1. Trying to store gas long term seems to be a losing battle regardless of what some say. Much better to keep several cans of treated fuel on hand and just rotate through them. 2. Running the generator 24/7 is probably not necessary in most situations. Depending on ambient temps, run the generator a couple of hours a few times a day to cool off the refridgerators and freezers - it will be fine. Run them for a few hours before bed time and then turn them off. You'll save a lot of gas as well as wear and tear on the generators. 3. If you can't afford a transfer switch for the electrical panel (those things are fantastic for many reasons), consider getting some heavy gauge twisted copper line and building your own four outlet extension cords. Keep the cords as short as you can manage to minimize voltage drop.You will want to plug in refrigerators and freezers one at a time to avoid having them all trying to start up at once. 4. We have used candles quite a lot (the ones that come in the tall glass cylinders) and have never had a problem. But really the solution is not trying to light the whole house as If the power is still on. Use them as need for area lighting, but learn to be okay with just a little dim light. Use a headlamp for task lighting. 5. A battery pack/power station is fantastic for charging electronics, etc. We ran Starlink with ours for 7 days (using the generator to recharge it.) That said, the Honda 2200i produces clean, sine wave power and uses very little fuel. It almost makes the battery banks un-needed. 6. You did not comment on water, but without water, things get very bad, very quick. Have a plan for water for drinking, bathing, and flushing toilets. Best regards.
I prefer the 3-wick candles in short jars. Light one wick or add more as you need. Much more light than a single wick and the wider jar is less prone to tipping over.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 Gas formulas have changed. The Ethanol in modern gas is the problem. While it is true that Ethanol Free gas can go bad; I believe it lasts much longer. Many of us always try to buy ethanol free gas for small engines. The main problem with ethanol in gas is that ethanol gels and attracts water.
Installed a manual transfer switch for our generator myself. Electrician quoted about $1,000. All told, it was about $250 which included the heavy duty 240 volt power cable from the generator to the breaker panel.
Just a note; if you are on municipal sewage, you do NOT want to be flushing your toilet more than once if the water is not working, neither is the sewer, electricity is used for pumping and powering them. Otherwise the sewage will back up very quickly and you do not want the health risks associated with that. Where I live the authorities say to flush only once and then bag your waste or use a dry toilet in an outhouse.
Those WERE mistakes with the generator. We only used ours to run our fridge and freezer in short bursts and once to check on the computer. We went without everything else. Y ou cannot expect to use all of your appliances in an emergency situation. Get a French press or a drip coffee maker and forget the microwave and toaster oven.
Just saw this comment after I posted. 100% agree! Thanks for beating me to it. We also use a camping percolator coffee pot, and/or a french press for making coffee, although the very first pot I made after Hurricane Milton knocked out our power was with the electric brewer while I was warming up the generator. We keep thermal carafes from our old coffee pots so we can keep coffee/water for tea warm without needing a burner after brewing.
@@daveb7408 People have to think creatively, as there are alternatives. A funny story I tell is about when we had a major ice storm some years ago that knocked power out regionally. My son had 2 very small girls and hooked his generator to his whole house, yet he was using it prudently. We still had landlines and when he called me, he told me that his wife had made eggs over their kerosene heater. Since we had the same kind, I asked to speak with her. I asked her how she did it. She didn't answer for some seconds, then she said, "I'm savoring this, YOU asking ME for cooking advice!"
@@tonette6592 You used the computer during an emergency? Wow, aren't you bougie!! My oh my, aren't you judgmental. And also assuming everyone's situation is like yours. Wanting to use the microwave is silly? Why? A generator can easily run that. We're not talking about running an electric dryer or charging an EV! Some people (like myself) have electric everything, including the water. No electricity = no water coming out of the faucet = can't flush a toilet = unlivable house. What about the person that needs electricity to run their oxygen? Or keep their meds cold? Or run their stair lift so they can actually get up and down a flight of stairs? Great, YOU only needed a generator to run the fridge and freezer. Don't assume everyone's situation is like yours.
Buy solar yard lights and remove the stems They recharge during the day and make for cheap light at night versus a candle or other light source. Theyre not the only lightsource you need but they should be part of your plan.
Upstate SC here, also 8 days without power...spot on video. my biggest mistake was also my generator (5 years old). first 4 days...Sparkplug, low oil shutoff, carb rebuild, debris removal from fuel tank (rubber cap gasket dry rotted and fell in pieces into the tank clogging the fuel line)... My new title is the Ill prepared Prepper...
Which is why you should have more than one generator. And you should run them once a month for 20 minutes or so, give them so load and know they're ready.
Concur with others regarding no need to run genset constantly for refrigerator/freezers. Run for 4, off for 8. Cuts your run time/fuel use by 2/3's and food stays just fine as long as you minimize door openings. Every time we have an extended outage I learn some new lesson that better prepares me for the next outage.
While you don't have to run it 24/7, no way I'd do on 4/off 8. I work from home. No power = no internet = I can't work. Also, no, tv, air conditioning/heating, water (I have a well pump), basically an unlivable house. You can certainly cut it off at night. For those who sleep with a CPAP machine, get a Jackery or something like that to power it. At night, you're probably using less than 500watts an hour. No need to run a huge generator for that.
Don’t run a generator at night because if you don’t open your refrigerators and freezers, they’ll be fine until morning. It’s quite generous to run it at night if you’re not awake.
I’ve read this a million times. I actually checked the temp in our Samsung refrigerator (JUNK) when power went out after Hurricane Helene. The temp inside of it climbs past the 40˚ safe zone, after less than an hour. In 2 hours, it was in the low 50˚s. Keep an eye on your refrigerator temps when the power goes out. Refrigerators aren’t coolers. They have a minimal amount of insulation, because they’re constantly cooled.
Flashlight enthusiasts have a term for that, it's called candling. Turn the flashlight down from highest power to prevent frying the head if it's a high power flashlight. As long as you can still tough it, it's fine.
I bought a portable generator in 2004 and had to use it only three times since for anything from a couple hours to a few days. Here're a few tips: Check the oil level at every fueling. Use only non-ethanol gas. Add the recommended amount of a fuel stabilizer. Don't store long term. I stock up at the beginning of hurricane season and what isn't used at the end of the season goes into the vehicles. movers, etc. Test run the generator prior to each season. I use about a quart of gas to test run it. Check the power output and then let the gas run out. Never leave gas in the tank or carburetor. After 20 years, mine will still start on 1-2 pulls every time.
John, thank you for having the humility to talk about your mistakes so the rest of us can have the grace of learning from your experience. I live in the panhandle of Florida and sat hunkered down wondering if Helene was going to hit me. I was prepared in every way I knew how, but I didn’t know about frequent generator oil changes. I learned something valuable from you without having to pay the price.
Great video. I already thought about these things and just had my fears confirmed. I give you big kudos because not a lot of people can admit their mistakes, let alone put them on the internet. Keep up the great work! 👍
Remember, when planning, having a backup is important. The phrase is "one is none, two is one." If you only have one of something and it fails or is lost... If you have the funds, getting a solar generator that can be charged from a gas generator can make the gas you have last longer.
In a pinch your flashlight can become a lantern by cutting a milk jug bottom off and putting flashlight inside. Having fatwood, birch bark or lighter fluid may help with fire starting. Buy 12 gauge or better and don’t buy 100 ft if 25 or 50 will do. Longer the cord more voltage drop. We use to turn off power every once in awhile to test our preps but only did 24 hours max. I should do some longer tests. Loved yhe tips…thank you.
Just a few additional tips for you so you’re better prepared for the next time. 1. Start your generator monthly and let it run for 15 minutes. When you get ready to shut it off turn off the fuel valve and let it keep running until it shuts itself off. This way your burning up all the fuel in the carburetor and preventing the jets from getting all gunked up. 2. Use fuel stabilizer in ALL of your gas cans. Obviously keep them inside and cycle out your gas every 6 months. If you don’t use it then just fill up your car and refill your cans. 3. Instead of having extension cords all over the place you should consider having a transfer switch hooked up to your electric panel. That or have a 30 or 50 amp outlet hardwired into your panel with an inter-lock switch installed. This way you can just run a 30 or 50 amp cord from your generator/inverter to the outlet and run selected items straight from your panel. You can determine your load and choose and mark which circuits you want to run. I’ve got a Predator 9500W from Harbor Freight and I can run every single thing (central a/c included) in a 2300sq ft house all at once except the dryer. 4. If you have to use Ext cords just remember that the longer the cord the more power loss you’ll experience. 5. Propane grills are your friend. Invest in some 30lb propane tanks for about $80/ea. You can cook or whatever with that. Or get a Coleman camping stove and keep about five 1lb propane canisters on hand. All easy to find at Walmart. 6. Keep at least six 5gal cans of gas on hand. 7. Get a good gas powered chainsaw. 8. Keep a fire starter kit on hand. Simple things like birch bark and cotton balls dabbed in Vaseline are great. Just keep in a dry place. 9. Lots of batteries. Flashlights. Lanterns. Head lamp. 10. A small propane heater like a Mr. Heater for $75 is always good to have in case of power loss during the winter. 11. ALWAYS have lots of water on hand. If severe weather is forecast fill up your sinks and shower. I keep five 5gal jerry cans of water on hand. But if my inverter is up n running that means my well pump is running which means I have running water & toilets. 12. And remember to keep it ALL together. The last thing you wanna do is run around looking for propane here, Ext cords there, gas cans over here, 50amp power cord in your shed etc etc etc. Nothing worse than doing that in darkness and crappy conditions. Never hurts to have about 100’ of rope on hand and some heavy duty towing straps!! Hope this helps you out a bit.
Damn man!! You sound like MEEE!! 😂 Our preps are almost exactly alike. I’m on the coast in Texas. I was without power for 10 days after Harvey. For the most part, it was like nothing major happened for me and mine. Oil changes were a pain. I couldn’t run the A/C with the washer and dryer so there were some minor inconvenience but for the most part, it was no big deal. I tried to keep light usage to a minimum. My generator is only a 10K. I spent the nights sitting on my tailgate watching the neighbors with my NVD’s. 😂
Great vid and great lessons for sure. One thing I would add is that these small back up emergency generators are not rated to run for more than 6 to 8 hours at a time at most. They don't have the oil capacity to run for much more than that without causing significant wear and damage. Can you get away with it. Sure, for a while. But the best solution I have found is to have 2 generators and swap them out every 6 to 8 hours. This will dramatically increase the life of each generator and it means you have a back for when one breaks because they do break frequently especially under hard long term long day long uses. Great stuff though and thanks for sharing!
Buy a propane genny, and after the break in period change the oil. Then do it again 20 hours of run time later. It'll get a ton of crap out of the system, and if you're using synthetic oil it will extend the run time and life of the generator. Sure you get 10% less power, but 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing and the fuel is way easier to store.
I saw all the extension cords you used to plug your appliances into the generator. AC extension cords add resistance to your circuit. Not a huge amount but eventually enough to make a difference.
I have a boat access only camp in Adirondacks. We store a lot of gas and have had to deal with condensation in gas. We don’t store it inside. We store it in a dock box. We have learned to use additives to each tank of gas and to use filters that separate water from gas for those tanks when you don’t recall when they were last filled. Some motors incorporate those filters into the engine.
@@lisagauvin What additives do you use? (If they work by the water in a dock box they'll work just about anywhere.) Would love to learn from your real world experience.
Coleman stove and coffee pot. We live in Savannah Ga, tree went thru roof and no power for 8 days. Slept in travel trailer with a/c and ran two fridges in the house using 20 yr old Coleman 7000 watt generator. I also used head lamps, excellent to put the light where you need it and leave your hands free.
We used that strategy in Gainesville, Florida this fall when we had no power for 5 days following Helene. I have two Honda 2000i generators hooked up in parallel plus an extended run 5 gallon auxiliary fuel tank that hooks up to both generators. They had no problem running the refrigerator, 2 freezers, and a small camping trailer with A/C. I did run the generators 24 hours a day, which was a mistake -- burned through $150 in gasoline over the 5 days. Although I have 10.8 kW of solar on my roof, the system does not have a battery and thus does not work when the power grid is down. That oversight will be corrected this winter, so next time I can run on solar during the day and the generators at night. The generators cannot power my well, but my solar power system can once a battery is installed. Fortunately I had set up several 20 gallon tubs to catch rain water off the roof for toilet flushing and had stockpiled a couple of cases of drinking water. Wife and I both have iPads stocked with e-books and videos, and the local cell service never went down, so we had good entertainment and communications with the outside world throughout the ordeal.
@@charlescourtney4412 You might want to consider buying a larger 240 volt generator. I know you said you bought two 120 volt generators from Honda. You should be able to sell those used? After careful consideration we bought the big brother of your generators. The Honda EU7000is. It’s a 240 volt generator & it’s a little louder than your suitcase style generators. We use it to power up our entire house including the 2-1/2 ton Trane central air. We achieved that by installing a soft start kit on the condenser outside. I have tested my generator & despite the claims that it is a 5500 watt generator I have pulled more than the rated load up to 9200 watts. Incredible when you think of it? What generator out there has a lower rating but can power higher watts than rated. Hence why we bought it. Now if you need more power than that? You can buy another EU7000is & couple them & you’ll get 11,000 watts out of it. Personally our one is enough for us. We purposely bought a house without any 240 volt appliances. We added those after we moved here (central air). I’m a power lineman for a living. My highest priority is the safety of my family. The last thing I want to receive is a frantic call from my wife that the power is out or that the generator won’t start. We all rely on power way too much. A hundred years ago it was a luxury to have electric light in your house. Hence why we bought the generator we bought. My wife can run a load of laundry with the central air on & never skip a beat. I come home after working a suicide shift from work. I refuel my auxiliary tank on my generator & take a warm shower & go to bed. I wake up & go back to work.
What I learned after no power for 8days (Beryl) was how valuable our tent and inflatable mattress was. We ended up sleeping in the backyard since it was cooler than inside the house.
Great little video that seems to be out of your normal wheel house. It's awesome that your able to sit back and learn from your mistakes (with a smile on your face) good information
Nice concise summary. Very valuable for the rest of us to know what works and doesn't in the real world. A couple of points I'll add: 1) That chest freezer is way too empty. Even in normal use the fuller they are the more efficient they run. If you're not using the space for food use it to freeze jugs of water. Keep it closed and a full chest freezer with a sleeping bag over it will last for days before thawing becomes a concern. Frozen jugs can be taken out and put in the fridge to turn it into an icebox. Completely thawed jugs = water source. 2) The generator does not necessarily need to run 24/7. We found during our major outages 2-4 hours in the morning and 2-4 in the evening kept the fridges and freezers (see above) cold, recharged batteries, and gave us enough access to the well pump to water the animals, re-fill jugs, flush toilets and fill spare buckets. YMMV, of course, depending on your climate. 3) Even a Chinesium clone small engine is not going to melt down if you change the oil at 200 hours rather than 100. Not ideal and probably shortens the life a little, but in an emergency the difference between 2000 hours of life and 1900 probably isn't significant. Don't stress it, the engine will die from the metal chips left behind during manufacturing before old oil kills it. (You did change the oil at 5 hours break in, right? :) Having said that, I always keep extra oil around so I have no excuse not to immediately change the oil after the 6 month test run. (Probably excessive vs once per year, but we have a lot of moisture in the air here.) Oil's cheap, engines not so much.
Thanks for the info. I don't store gas at all but rather, if i anticipate needing the generator I will buy gas just prior to. I also, have a reminder on my phone year round to notify me once a month to start all my gas equipment and let them run for 5-10 minutes assuring they are good to go. When we have a power outage we only run the generator about 1-1/2 hour, then off for about 5 hours and continue that cycle. It keeps all the fridge things cold and the freezer things frozen. My home is insulated very well so even in the winter our home temps will not drop more than 1-2 degrees in 5 hours . (we live in the WV mountains). Battery lights suffice instead of running the gen 24/7 and to keep us busy, card games and board games do the trick.
One item I'll throw in, if I may, is the little chem lights you can get at any party store. They last a few hours and are GREAT for settling kids down to go to bed and even light the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, lowering the need to drain a bunch of D-cell batteries. I test drove some chem lights that I had been storing for over 30 years. Crunched the glass, worked just fine. A pack of 12 can be had for a few bucks.
Yes, I always keep a bunch of the cyclalume sticks on hand. You right, they make great night lights and just enough light you can see to not run into things. The plus side is they last at least a couple years before you bend and shake to light them. They do only really put out enough light for about eight hours though. I have found most longer term reliable bright lights to be solar and crank style lanterns for active evening hours. My new favorite for short term though are the light bulbs that you charge up while using in your regular lamps and when the power goes out, they come on automatically using their internal battery and you can sit there using your regular lamp as usual. I periodically charge mine in the lamps and then turn them off and put them in a drawer until needed.
Wow, read your comment again and saw that you had some of the cycalume sticks for 30 years and they still worked! Thanks for justifying my keeping at least twenty to thirty in stock at all times, even though, so far, we have never needed to use more than twelve during a power outage. 👍
@@lf4061 Well, I was quite shocked, too. After posting that comment, I realised that math isn't my strong suit. The chem lights that I tested were bought in 1974 and tested last year. That's a bit more than 30 years!
I applaud John Stanton for making this video and prompting folks to think about their disaster/emergency preparations a bit more thoroughly. However, having said that, I have a few criticisms to offer. 1. Storing gasoline indoors is hazardous because vapors can build up - this is a breathing hazard (fumes can be carcinogenic, smell aside) and more importantly, flammable/explosive. I have stored gasoline in tightly sealed standard red poly jugs for many months outdoors, well away from the house. I rotate 20 gallons of this once a quarter by putting it in my truck and refilling the jugs, and adding Sta-Bil gas storage treatment to the jug. Using this system none of my gas usually gets to be about more than 18 months old and has worked perfectly in my truck, despite one time due to high gas prices when I let some of it slip over 2 years. 2. Don't use electricity for heat when you can generate that via other means. That means cooking and water heating of course. A toaster oven is about the least energy efficient appliance I can imagine. Put more thought into using your available juice wisely. Does it really make sense to provide electricity around the clock to your gas furnace (which requires an electric forced air blower and controls) OR does it make better sense to use a couple of electric blankets overnight? Unless temps will go below freezing, in which case you can set the temp fairly low to keep your pipes from bursting. It can help to get a Kill-A-Watt meter so you can see how much power something is using, so you can better judge whether the squeeze is worth the juice. 3. Cooking with fire - Generally it's better to cook over coals than flame. Temperature is hard to regulate over wood flame and it's too easy to burn the food. I prefer to keep a Coleman camping stove (propane) for this, the heat is much easier to regulate. You can get adapters to regulate a full sized propane container down to 1-qt "camping" jug fixtures. Just be sure to close the valve when not in use. Never use a gasoline camping stove indoors... however, if you are careful to observe ventilation concerns, you can use propane appliances indoors for short periods, enough to fry a pan of eggs or make coffee. You need to be very careful to avoid any propane leaks (which are not hard to smell) and not use it for extended periods which risks building up carbon monoxide. The problem with cooking exclusively outdoors is weather, especially rain and wind. A car port with wind break or door-open garage are good settings for this. 4. An inverter generator will be much more efficient than a standard non-inverter model. The inverter type will only run the generator engine fast enough for the power demand of the moment, rather than full output full time, which ends up burning through a lot of fuel needlessly. 5. The comment about lanterns is valid, you will want several of these. The "mini" camping lanterns that use LED and run on 3 AA batteries are terrific for places like hallways and bathrooms where you don't need a lot of light, just enough to "see" without being in the pitch dark. LED headlamps are also a good idea, as you will want your hands free for things like washing dishes or working on the generator. 6. Generator as the sole source of electricity. I have two inverter generators, but I rarely need to use them because I put 4 solar cells on the roof feeding an 800 amp-hour LiFePO4 battery bank, which feeds a full-sine-wave inverter. No fuel, no fumes, no question of whether it will start. It will run our fridge and furnace for 3 days before I even need to fire up the generator. Just imagine if John Stanton had one of these, even if he only used it at night, so the generator could be turned off and locked up in the garage overnight? It would have stretched the fuel a long way. My battery bank is on wheels and can be moved if needed. I am knowledgeable about electricity and put this together myself, but you can purchase commercially available battery banks, and can store solar panels in the garage ready to deploy, if you prefer not to have something on the roof year-round. If you don't know what you are doing, get help and advice from someone who does, you don't want to burn the house down. Good video, many valid points - I just wanted to point out a few additional things. No doubt John Stanton will have a much better go of things the next time there's an extended outage from these lessons learned.
You totally sold me on dual fuel propane/gasoline. I would have been totally SOL with bad gas, no oil or spark plugs. My bonus prep is a Propane/MAP torch for fire starting.
I have several solar lanterns I keep on the window sills at all times. We use a propane camp stove or butane burner for cooking. Make coffee in a percolator. Save your paper egg cartons, fill each cavity with lint, pour melted wax over the lint. Break into individual pieces and store in a Ziploc bag for fire starters. Get a solar generator and a couple solar panels and use it for electricity. Keep it charged at all times just in case.
What I like as a fire starter is petroleum jelly soaked, 100% pure cotton, cotton balls. I can shove about 75-100 into a large vitamin jar. I’ve lit them with everything to include the rod from a magnesium fire starter.
I have two generators. One is gas and one is propane and gas. I keep 130 pounds of propane gas stored because unlike gas it never goes bad. My propane generator uses 2 pounds of propane at 50 percent load. I have over 65 hours of run time on propane. I also keep 20 gallons of gas on hand that I rotate every month. I also have a generator plug wired to my breaker box. You should start and run your generator under a 50 percent load 2 to 3 times a year to keep the generator brushes from corroding. Keep a little container of used oil around to start fires in fire place or wood stove. It does wonders to start fires with damp wood. I’ve only had to use my preparations two times in 25 years. My neighbors laughed at my calling me a paranoid prepper until I had to help them survive. Now they don’t laugh at me, they all bought a generator.
Thanks for the video. I find it really interesting! 1) Use generator every year, for few hours. Great point with the oil and for being able to do maintenance yourself. Also, take the opportunity to read the manual. 2) You don't have to run generator 24/7. 3) Diesel generators don't like no or small load. 4) UN certified jerry cans are air tight. 5) Petrol has to be rotated at least once a year.
Added to 1) ; use all the outlets on the generator as part of the annual test. Even if it starts fine, there can sometimes be other problems that won't be caught by just starting it. I actually test mine every six months, and run the fuel tank dry every time before putting it up.
@pavel9652 I have inverter generators, and they have much more sensitive jets than standard generators, just look at all the generator forums, nothing but problems with these generators not running correctly, at least 50% of the post are about generators not running, or surging while running, or members saying there generators on run with choke on, or half way on, hardly ever electrical problems.
As @appoutfeed mentioned, get a transfer switch installed if you can. This is a big safety item but it also simplifies a chaotic situation. One connection from your generator to your house then you can select what circuits have power and when without extension cords running everywhere or setting up a makeshift kitchen somewhere closer to your generator. I have an indoor and an outdoor plug in location for mine so I can run the generator during the day and then switch to battery backup at night. This makes it easier to sleep, prevents the generator noise from attracting unwanted attention so it grows legs. Coffee makers suck energy. Use a peculator coffee maker instead that can be placed on any heat source. If you can get a duel fuel generator inverter (like Harbor Freight's Predator), that is the way to go. Propane stores indefinitely and safely.
Valuable lessons learned. With any gear you need to use it to be familiar with it. So when you need it you know the condition it is in and how to use it. We all have been there. Dual fuel generator is a suggestion. Propane is easier to store. Also, Solar Generators is a back up to the back up. Remember the saying "One is None, and Two is One." Great video and thanks for sharing.
You need to dual fuel generator that runs on propane. Propane will store more or less forever. Set your house up with a 30 amp generator back feed to run your priority circuits. no more extension cords throughout the house creating additional trip hazards
Coffee in a disaster? Muy Importante!! A lot of folks in the comments had great ideas about using other sources of "power" when available. A grill or fire pit to cook on goes a long way to save gas. Another way I found to save is to combine a battery generator like an Ecoflow with the gas generator. I found I can run my gas generator for about an hour and a half to fully charge a 1300 mAh Ecoflow. That battery will run my fridge for 8 hours! Saves a LOT of gas. I have two batteries dedicated to our fridge, and plan to get a smaller one for our electronics. Everything else is either battery powered (fans, lights, radio), or propane (grill for cooking). LOTS of great suggestions all around, glad to see we are all thinking ahead. Oh, I tried solar after we lost power to Milton. I used a 220 watt panel to try to charge my Ecoflows. After 8 hours of brilliant sunlight, I could only get ONE up to 95%. So if you plan on going totally solar, you will need a few panels to get the job done.
Good ideas for sure! Thanks for sharing! We (3 couples) were trapped for 5 days without power while on vacation at a B&B in the mountains of North Carolina before we walked out leaving our cars. The roads were blocked by landslides and washouts so our only way to evacuate was by hiking up a mountain to an overpass on I-40. The generator ran the well so we ran it for only 3 hours a day. The primary refrigerator was powered by a Hybrid Highlander in "generator mode". We calculated that the full gas tank was going to keep that refrigerator cool for 9 days. The powerstrip being powered by the Hybrid Highlander also charged our phones, tablets, and the battery block that powered our satellite internet. I usually travel with enough flashlights but forgot the battery powered lantern this time. Never again.
@JohnStanton I should thank you all. Serving this country was the greatest experience of my life. Taught me to be a man. Taught me to be a father. So I say thank you to all the American people who supported us physically, emotionally, and financially with your tax dollars.
Good advice. I would recommend a duel fuel generators as well. I calculated my max wattage usage then added 50 percent to size my home generator. This allowed me to use the 50 load calculation on the box. I needed 6kwatts to run my basics. So I bought a 12k duel fuel. I also have wood, and propane heat, as well as a few window units for backup as well. We have solar for all else fails. Just remember to have maintenance supplies put up as well for your equipment. Keep camping supplies as well. Even if you don't camp out in the wild.
Thanks for the video and testimonial. I've been watching a lot of videos like yours, and the main thing that I've learned is that the more one relies on technology, the more that technology can break down.
I use a solar system with combination of a generator. You can get more out the gas because you can run it at a higher rpm for shorter amount of time. You can use the battery to store extra energy and not have to use the generator the whole time. Panels help to reduce gas. The setup is more reliable than a generator as you can see even with good maintenance it still failed.
I see several comments about having 2 generators. You should consider one or two of them being the new LFP power stations (sogens). They can be charged while the gas/propane one runs and then be used to spell the ICE generator and also stretching your fuel. It also gives you an option for solar charging that could still work in the absence of fuel. I would use the sogens at night to eliminate all the noise (great for camping too). One more benefit is the ability to use it indoors. You can use shorter cords and keep your doors and windows closed to keep warm.
If you complement your generator with a battery power station (like Ecoflow) that is enough to power your devices for an extended period, then you can recharge it using the generator. We just got ours this year and was able to run 4 days without electricity on only 12 gallons of gas. Run on power station for many hours (we ran for about 8 hours), recharge with generator for 1-2, rinse/repeat.
Thanks for the tips! We have a solar generator. I like them because they're safe to use indoors, are basically silent, and they don't require fuel or oil, etc. We run it out every six months (as per the instructions--it handles a couple days worth of laundry with no problem) and recharge it so it's always ready. I'm thinking about a backup propane one, though, for longer outages.
A 6000 watt generator with a 240 volt output. I have 2 water wells at my home in Texas, I can run my house, except for the central ac and electric hot water heater. I have the generator hooked up at my main power box with a generator lock out that I had an electrician set up for me. This will run both wells if needed as well as lights, fans and a window unit.
Great real life suggestions, and glad everyone is safe. We have a Harbor Freight 7 KW generator connected via a generator interlock. I run our generator quarterly with a 1500 watt space heater as a dummy load and run it out of gas each time. There is always a little gas in the tank so I close the fuel valve after the test run so it does not fill up the fuel bowel. The generator did not come with an run time hour meter so I purchased a LCD meter that is capacitively coupled to the spark plug wire. As others have posted it is not necessary to run the generator 24/7 to keep stuff in refrigerator/freezer safe. Just try not to open the door when the genie is not running. We keep five 5-gallon cans of stabilized gas on hand. That should be enough for a week long power outage running the generator 5-6 hours a day. The cans are numbered so I rotate through the stash and if the gas gets too old (> 1 year) put it into one of our cars. Modern gas that contains alcohol is hydroscopic so water absorption is a problem. The carburetor fuel bowl on our genie has a drain plug so every few years I open it to remove any acclimated water. Good point about not storing gas cans outside. We store ours in a shed away from the house for safety. Something else to think about is emergency communication. We have cell phones in addition to landline provided by our ISP. The connection is over fiber so we have a UPS that is able to keep our home network and landline phones operational when the generator is not running. Love the comment about the need for coffee. Here in NH extended power outages are most likely due to massive ice storms that take out power lines. Luckily that is less likely to affect the center of town since there are fewer trees so stores there still have power and hence coffee. Before we had a genie that came in handy.
Fantastic topic for people who THINK they are prepared, but in your case relied too much on your generator. What did people do before electricity? Right, they survived on a fire for cooking and heating. Electricity is for refrigeration and communications. I believe one of the best ways to become prepared is to develop a survival mindset. Go camping or better yet backpacking and learn about shelter, fire, navigation, staying warm and dry with clothing. But back to generators: You should run them every month or two, and be obsessive with the maintenance. I use my ham radio weekly too. Prepping like everything else takes a lot of practice to become proficient. Thanks for the educational video. It's going to help many folks sharpen their skills especially if they are reading the great comments I have seen.
Good tip to work up from backpacking as then you're covered for efficient living if staying home, and cover having to lightweight walk out of a situation. The foods you'd take backpacking have long shelf life so you can easily have weeks of food at home you use slowly and backfill if you're a backpacker. Hard core backpackers make and dry their meals as a low-tech preservative method. Water is the trickiest part, that takes more focus than food / heating. I also went through a solar panel phase, it's not reliable enough so just got more powerbanks, less can go wrong. We just had a 90mph wind through, forecast 3 days before, so recharged everything.
I had no idea that generators needed oil changes so frequently. Thank you. That is very helpful information. Store gas and oil. I like lanterns, I keep one on our kitchen table so I always know where it is even in the dark.
Yes, that’s all of them that use fossil fuels. If you decide to buy a generator, you’ll get the best performance out of it by breaking it in. It’s a very specific thing that you can learn about on YT. I recommend doing it, no matter what. Also, if you can get a dual fuel generator, get it. It gives you more options. There are other pluses but that’s the main one. You may be able to barter gasoline for LPG or visa versa.
Went through Hurricane Hugo in Charleston in 89. We were without power for about 3 weeks where I was staying to help out some friends. Had to boil water for about the same time. Had gas stoves, Coleman camp stoves and charcoal grills. Ate our way through the frozen refrigerator food in a few days on purpose. Had plenty of other items and would make speed runs to Orangeburg SC for stuff. When they got ice there we were able to grab a truckload (literally). Wasn't any fun, to start.
I like your honesty! You admitted fault & were willing to admit it! That’s huge! Now that you learned? Have you learned enough? I’m not as lucky as you. I’m a power lineman for our local utility. I’m only home long enough to refill my generator & take a quick warm shower & go to bed. I’m never home during an outage. I have to make sure my family is safe & has power when my employer can’t restore power after a storm. My wife is disabiled & can’t refuel mine. I have to or hire someone who can. Now selection of where you bought your house was a mistake number one but you didn’t know that? Where we lived in two rentals & our house we were on a 3 phase backbone. I don’t expect you to know what that means? That’s the power coming down your street from the substation. We always lived within a mile of the substation. Not in the woods. If you have a house in the woods you’re going to have to live with longer duration outages. Those places are the last to get power restored. The longest we lost power was for five days. I was restoring power for three weeks. Some people were without power for that long. I got walking pneumonia while working grueling shifts at the power company. Then come home to house in the high thirties & bone COLD showers. This was before we bought our generator. I bought our generator in time for the next big storm. I consulted with my colleagues on which generator to buy. I bought the best in the business-Honda EU7000is. That’s an inverter roll out generator that has fuel injection (no carburetor). I treat all my gas with fuel stabilizers & enzymes (it lasts a year & I store it in my insulated dry shed). You bought a small generator. Too small to carry your whole house. Ours can run my entire house including our central air or our heat. Ours is wired into my electric panel with a huge cord. We have an inter lock that shuts off power from the utility & allows us to back feed our house. It’s required by code where we live. Our generator sips fuel instead of guzzles like yours does. Computer fuel injection controls consumption. I have an economy feature on my generator so I can run mine at a lower speed while providing full power to my house. Mine sits in a pad locked steel enclosure outside my shed. It’s extremely quiet at 54 decibels on economy mode. My neighbors can’t hear our generator. Mine produces clean 60 cycle power much like my employer provides. I can have computers hooked up to it & it won’t damage them. I keep 111 gallons of gas at my house. I never keep my gas for more than a year & rotate the old gas out into my trucks. I have enough fuel for 3 weeks if need be? Oil? I keep several gallons of Mobil 1 in my house. I thought everyone did? I change my oil in all my trucks & generator once a year. Oil especially used oil can hold water in suspension. That could form rust? I have had my genny 7 years & it runs like a top & all I’ve done is change the oil once a year. It starts on the first try. We lost power after storm Isais five years ago. We were out of power for three days & my generator burned 22 gallons of gas with everything on. I have an auxiliary fuel tank. I have 11 gallons of fuel to use without refilling. I only refilled the auxiliary twice. My genny ran uninterrupted for three days straight. No issues-why? Because we bought a Honda. When I was at work on our genny my wife would text to check with me? I was more concerned with her. She said the generator is still running well. She did three loads of laundry, had the A/C on & was cooking food in the oven. All at the same time. I like your suggestion of not using candles! Who still uses candles for light anyway? We are campers so we already have an assortment of battery powered lanterns already. When we bought our house 21 years ago we got a full cord of firewood that came pre-seasoned. We keep it on our log racks on our lower deck that is covered. The log racks themselves are individually covered by custom log rack covers. We keep plenty of kindling on our log racks too. We had the wood thankfully when we lost power for five days. We still have that wood from twenty years ago. It burns really hot now! You must have had lumps on your head after that power outage? Atleast you were home to monitor the situation. Make adjustments after mistakes. You lived it & witnessed the hardships of your poor decisions. Great content & I’ll subscribe.
I'm one of those 'last on the line' places. This place was built long before anything else around here was, so Blue Ridge ran power across a pasture to get here. That line feeds 3 houses, and newer lines serve past these three in both directions. Everyone around us had power 3 days before we did but we knew the situation ahead of time so we expected it. Some Honda generators have a timing chain inside which needs service on a regular schedule; check if yours is one of those because it will trash the engine when it goes out. Mighty expensive now but as always they're still the best bar none.
@ Thank you! My Honda has a single piston engine. It's only got 13 horsepower. One with a timing chain would have more than 1 piston. It's a timing thing to keep time in the engine. As for the line going across a field is a good thing as long as there aren't any trees to fall on it. Vegetation causes the most outages on any system. Just by knowing what you know that your the last to get restored? You would need a generator. When we get down to the single & double digit outages the storm is winding down. Out of town crews are sent home & they leave that work for the local crews. It might take several more days to pick you & the last stragglers back up. Often times those last customers take all day to restore because of downed trees & broken poles. If I'm a power lineman for the local power company & I have a generator? What's that mean for everyone else? Hint? Read between the lines.
@@johnclyne6350 The Hondas I know of with a timing chain are single cylinder, and the chain drives the overhead cam from the crankshaft just like with cars. Honda replacement engines are almost the cost of a new generator so it's worth looking into. Once the trees were cleared from the road I could see our problem- a tree had fallen dropping two poles on the property across the other side of the pasture. They were short on poles and weren't going to do those when the same 2 poles might restore hundreds instead of just 3. It's understandable and yeah, we're ready for that.
@@P_RO_ You wouldn’t happen to know which engines or model of Honda generators you’re referring to? I have the GSX 390 engine in my generator & my pressure washer. I’m unaware those have a timing chain? They have a cam shaft that is pushed by a cog off the flywheel. There is no chain per see. Unless you’re referring to a cog?
@ Thanks for shining a light on the issue with the plastic cam shaft & rubber timing belt on Honda generators. I did a google search & the best I came up with was the EU 2200is model has that set up. That is a 120 volt “suitcase” style generator. That is one of their newest generators & has the plastic cam & rubber timing belt. They did that to lower the noise level from the best that I could tell? It also allegedly has an interference engine? If the belt were to break? The valves & the piston would collide. I think that is what you were referring to? I checked the maintenance schedule for the EU7000is (the one I own). There isn’t any timing belt to replace. So, I’m all good. If you had not mentioned that I wouldn’t have heard of that? Thank you for letting me know! As for your situation with trees. There are easements that must be maintained by the property owner. There are underground easements & overhead easements. If in doubt check with an attorney who specializes in easements. I’m no authority on easements. The little I do know is that all property has easements. Unless your property doesn’t have any improvements on it such as a pasture. However at one point I’m going to guess that the property owner of the pasture sold off your parcel of land. Then to build a house the utilities needed an easement across the pasture? The property owner with the easements is to guarantee they will honor the easement & not build anything on that part of the property or allow vegetation to grow in that easement. Another words no improvements. If they do & cause damage to utilities they are on the hook for any & all damages to those utilities. In the case of a storm, the utility will just clear the trees & restore power. They might at their discretion, bill the property owner later for damages related to the restoration. In the future if you know the wires coming across that pasture has vegetation growing in it? Your to contact the utility. Their arborist will either hire a crew to do the work or contact the property owner that they need to trim their trees. Either way it’s your service will be affected. Personally I wouldn’t live in a house with wires coming through a pasture to get to your house. If my hand was forced to live there? I would have a stand by generator with a huge fuel supply.
Great point about cable/extension cord management. I came up short a couple of years ago and learned my lesson. Glad you and your family got through it all safely and thank you for the tips 👍
GREAT advice. Lessons learned. GUESS What - electrical loads change. Yep, new TV, different fridge, change in weather, working from home with wifi, router, etc. Also - rotate your gas. Fill it up, put a number on it (dates are better but I'm lazy). Once a month pour that gas into the car and refill the gas can #3. Next month Use pour gas can #4 into the car and refill gas can #4. Lastly - have more than one generator. An "INVERTER" generator uses much less fuel for when the loads are smaller or you are down to that last gas can. We are learning to use Solar panels and solar generator. AuuGGGG!! Three vs Two pronged cords. YES go with #14 or larger 12 guage wire (Smaller number, larger wire. Just like buck shot) Coffee is important.
As an alternative to running that genny 24 hr/day you could have a battery bank and run the genny 2-3 times/day topping up the batteries each time, Then run the light loads off the battery bank between genny sessions.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, be it man or nature. Great video, we just purchased lamps back during the summer and they make a world of difference
Couldn't agree more, great video. I did a video a few weeks ago on this very thing, 24hrs with no power and what worked, what didn't and conclusion etc. Cheers Sp
Seeing what is going on in the world, i have only just started getting serious about bugging in and bugging out. The bugging out part is set, backpack with everything i need to survive, hunt and live outdoors. Bugging in has only just peeked my interest. So i'm hoarding stuff, wood, food, non-perishables, taking a first aid course, learning how to prepare for the worst indoors. Your tips added valuable lessons and i'm glad you shared them.
To keep costs down it's a good idea to have non-perishables you actually use. If you're a backpacker and carry a 100g canister for camp cooking, then simply get a cheap refill adapter and buy the 450g canisters and refill your 100g - you end up saving money early. That way you've got a decent 450g fuel supply for longer periods at home if required. For cooking I was also a Trangia user - you can cook more varied meals than with gas and I used to buy 0.5ml meths twice a year, now I just buy the 5L ones less often so I've got weeks of fuel in - works out cheaper too. We aim to keep 10 days non-perishable food, typically need eating in 1-3 years and just prior to expiry eat and backfill. I sometimes use freezedried meals for backpacking, bought for lightness+convenience, they have typical shelf life of 5-7 years so I keep about 3 days worth of them in stock, although they actually consume more fuel than tinned food which only needs warming up not boiling. So tinned food is overall ideal for home use, no rehydrating, no boiling. I went through a period 5 years ago of keep 2 freezers for food stock and then looked at the electrical capacity, to stop it thawing, the cost to have backup electricity exceeds the value of the freezer food. So I did the opposite, shrunk the frozen food capacity to 2-3 days max and upped the non-perishable. I store water in fridge and frozen veg above the meat in the freezer to slow it warming up. That then works for more variety of scenarios. That effectively put us to how we all lived in the 1970s, we had tiny freezer compartments, and you not really wasting any money on the small chance of a long outage. Some things are much better done in microwaves - warming things up - 1 minute = 0.15KWh so I keep an inverter power bank no larger than I can carry. Between the inverter powerbank and the pocket powerbanks we have weeks of stored energy. It's not sunny enough here to bother with a large solar installation I have about 150W portable panels which would keep say a phone + tablet + flashlights going indefinitively. It's worth researching water purification, that's the trickiest part to understand. Pasteurising uses half the fuel of boiling, filters + chlorine dioxide weigh little - what often kills people if they're not cold or drowned is thirst. Finally to keep boredom at bay I always download media and watch downloaded so I've always got plenty to watch. My 13 inch Chromebook consumes 4W/hr so say 200Wh powerbank = 50 hours, if you wanted 8hr/day 10 days = 320Wh.
I've been on hiking trips with newbies who were setting up their tent for the first time on the trail. Literally, removing the packing wrapping! Or who never fired up their stove and didn't bring the correct fuel. The list goes on. The lesson is that you hold drills and try out everything in real time. The same goes for home emergency preparedness. Here are a few more observations learned the hard way: 1. The larger the generator, the more fuel it will use and the quicker it will consume that fuel. In a serious on-going emergency, fuel may become scarce. I have two generators. It gets unbearably hot during the summer months so the large generator is to operate the A/C during limited hours in order to keep the house livable. We limit it's use due to the fuel consumption. During cooler months or when the A/C is not needed, we run the smaller generator which uses much less fuel. We also have large battery packs and power conditioners that power appliances and electronics. They are less expensive and more energy efficient for surplus energy while the generators are operating. I highly recommend uninterruptible power supplies. 2. Electric food storage appliances become very inefficient when they have to compete for limited power. Refrigerators and freezers are not designed for long term storage without power. Constantly opening their doors all day will create a constant drain on power. Instead, we use large coolers that we fill at the start of each day. That way the refrigerator and freezer are opened only once a day. 3. Electric cooking is not nearly as efficient as gas. When the power goes out for an extended time, we switch to camping stoves. Coleman saves the day.
If you are going to store gas for any time you need to put a fuel stabilizer in it. This goes for generators and other power equipment. These can be purchased at the home improvement store near you. Near the Gas Cans.
Good video. I’ve lived through a similar event. I’d add a multi fuel- propane or natural gas generator is well worth it. No fuel to go bad and less carburetor issues. Also if you have a cordless tool kit the flashlights a sawzalls with large wood blades are incredibly valuable for nighttime light or cutting brush that fell in your path. A chainsaw to clear the road can be an absolute necessity, just be careful of power lines.
Good video! And kudos to you for admitting your mistakes. Being VERY seasoned Hurricane Floridians and living in coastal SW FL. we know all too well what you should do and not do before and after a major Hurricane hits in our area. Generators ARE A MUST for anyone who's serious about some kind of normal living afterwards not to mention keeping refrigerators up and running. One thing that stuck out to me with what you were doing was running your gen. 24/7. After Ian and our last Hurricane Milton power being out is just a given. Ian we were out for 27 days! But "farming out your gen" is the only way to do it without breaking the bank on gas and even worse the toll on the generator itself. What I mean when I say that is simply to run it every few hours to cool down a house and cool down refrigerators. We saved so much in fuel and wear and tear on the gen by doing it. I think the most we ran it was like 3 times a day and only for about 45 mins to maybe an hour at max.
Great video, thanks. One point, get a dual fuel generator (gas and propane). Propane NEVER goes bad and burns MUCH cleaner, which extends the life of your generator. Keeping extra oil is a great idea too, but default should be cooking with fire. A few MREs on hand won’t hurt either. Again, great video, thanks!
Remember that LPG is also only going to give you about 85% power that gasoline will, through a generator. …BUT dual fuel is the bomb. If the battery dies for the electric start, the pull start for the propane will work.
A butane stove is cheap and works pretty good. An easy thing to store as an alternative to wood. Also a propane barbecue with an element is also handy. The more options the better.
But yes, COFFEE! Liquid life. Love my Keurig, but French press coffee is really pretty good. I have a percolator, but I haven’t used it in years. This is a good reminder to get that thing out and use it again, hey?
The butane stoves don't run as long as the propane ones, and in very cold weather butane will not ignite until it's warmed. The small propane cannisters can be refilled safely and cheaply too- butane can't. That's why it's propane for me.
@@Jen-CelticWarrior There is no life without coffee. My electric coffeemaker is made so that you can load it and pour stove-warmed water into the filter which drips into the pot giving you the exact same coffee you're used to without any extra stuff to do it with.
Years before I bought my Generac 6500. Being brand new I never even unboxed it, It was a Generac. When I pulled it out to use, fueled it up it ran like a champ, 2 pulls fired right off, The engine side ran just fine, no electrical out put. So this being my 5th Generator I have bought only to have the windings fail, I am going solar with a battery warehouse back up.
Good tips. Have a fan too... plug it into your generator, pointing at generator to help push exhaust further away. It also helps keep generator cool. I have a similar Generac, which I've had for 5 years.
Good video. Just wanted to add a specific experience. We lost power North of Seattle and I pulled out my Champion Dual Fuel generator. I couldn't get it to start with gas. No starter turnover, no firing on the pull cord. I had set it up a few years before but hadn't run it. When I changed over to Propane, I got it to start by pull-cord. Later came to find out that in Gas mode, the battery has to be nearly fully charged. Once power was restored, I connected a battery charger and it immediately started with the starter and ran until I let it starve. Getting a trickle-charger to be ready next time.
Great video. Just had 8 days of no power after Hurricane Berle in TX. After running out to fill 20-gallon propane tanks for two days we got the plumber to come out and add a connection to my 500-gallon propane tank for the generator. All great points about keeping oil on hand for the frequent oil changes and regularly testing your system.
thank you for sharing your experience and I am glad you and and your family were able navigate the storm. I am surprised that you would use electric appliances to cook with in an emergency. propane is easy to store and you should be able to do all your cooking with propane... Portable propane appliances, such as camping stoves, are very cheap. You could even get a percolator coffee maker to make your coffee on a propane burner... My plan is to only run my generator as needed to keep my frig/freezer cold during spring through fall seasons or to run my Gas furnance during the winter months...
Glad you and your family are safe and thanks for the heads up. Personally I keep fuel containers in an outdoor shed and only use high grade containers for longer storage. You can also get crappy fuel right from the station. It’s rare but it has happened to me (try not to buy fuel when the fuel truck is making a delivery as it can stir up anything at the bottom of the tank). I use a water separator funnel when transferring fuel from a container to the generator, mower etc. I have used Mr. Funnel AF1CB and AF3CB Fuel Filters successfully. I also run the carburetors dry before storage.
Thanks for the great tips (i.e. lessons learned); especially storing gas. I’ve been considering adding a sub-panel in my garage and outdoor plug for my generator. But, it’s great to know extension cords work too.
You can run a room's power just by hooking the generator to any of that room's wall sockets and disengaging the fuse in the fusebox for that room. That isolates the room's electrical loop so the power that would normally be provided by the mains instead comes in via the generator. That way, you only need to have 1 extension running from the generator to that one room and you just use the power from that room's sockets normally.
Great lessons learned and shared. I don't want to mess with a gas generator, so I've invested in solar generators (EcoFlow, Bluetti, etc). I'm glad you made it through the disaster relatively unscathed.
Nice Savannah GA here and we were without power for 5 days straight. Small Honda generator kept the fridge and coffee maker happy. Cooked on our Coleman gas stoves, both the propane and Coleman Fuel ones which I have had forever. Uncomfortable and humid = yes but we survived it well. I now want a small window A/C unit to run at night to cool and dehumidify one bedroom for comfortable sleeping.
Hi John, and others. WNC resident here, so I sympathize with your experience. This was not my first Hurricane or natural disaster having been through a few in New York including Hurricane Sandy. When we purchased our home, I had a generator hooked up with a sub panel installed to the house. This negated the need for all the power cords as the rooms with power were now able to be fed from the generator on the outside. In hindsight, I would have purchased a whole-house natural gas generator but, that may be out of the budget for some. The sub-panel is a less expensive option, even with the work being done by a licensed electrician. I cooked on my stove top for most of my meals but, I also have the outdoor propane grill and a burner for beer brewing. The burner was not expensive and is available online. Hope this comment and your video help some folks if they need to go through something like this. No matter what, you may not be as comfortable as you want but, you won't be worried that your family may suffer.
Just my two cents: I live in central FL and have been through multiple power outages from hurricanes. When the power goes out, park the microwave, air fryer, electric pressure cooker, etc. Do as much of your cooking/heating on fire as you can, including boiling water for tea/coffee and cooking. We keep three full 20 lb. propane tanks in addition to the one on the grill. I write the date on them with a grease pencil on the day I get them filled and when the one on the grill runs out I swap it out for the oldest one in inventory (FIFO), then take the empty for refill. We do cook with the grill two or three times a month all year, so we rotate through them. 2) get a camping stove and canisters of fuel. Over time we have built in redundancy with mutiple fuel options: small propane bottles, butane, and isobutane. Consider stocking up on cans of chafing dish fuel (ethanol/methanol). Finally, get a cheap fire pit, or build one with bricks/pavers and stock up on firewood. The more you can do with fire, the more you can preserve your generator power for protecting your refrigerated/frozen food stocks and recharging your comms/tech (phone, computer, radios, etc.) and other things you can't power with fire. Ok, that was longer than $0.02.
It was great $.02!!
Your 2 cents is worth millions!❤
Good info. I’m in Florida as well. During outages we never use the stove or microwave. We have multiple 20lb propane tanks for our grill and generator, use a 2-burner portable Coleman stove with tons of those green 1lb gas canisters and have a few Ecoflow solar generators / power banks as backups. We have battery-powered lamps and fans and smaller power banks to charge phones and tablets. People always wait until the last minute, but it’s easy and less stressful to get prepared during the off season.
I like the butane single burner stoves you find at Asian stores. The fuel is also super cheap, although less common than propane. It burns super hot, the canisters last a while, and you can use it indoors no problem. I use it regularly to get a really good sear on steaks outside so I don't smoke up the house.
Yup. Generator is for keeping chest freezers at temperature ONLY. Have a small solar setup for charging devices, and limit device use to limit charging demands.
People have no clue how to live anymore.
Coming from a military background this video is a perfect example for the need to run drills/exercises…make it fun for the family…try 48 hours of no external resources…only what you have on hand! Shortcomings will make themselves apparent! Also a good adage…2 is 1…1 is none!!! Spares of everything for every family member and maybe even to share with neighbors. Rotate consistently everything…food, fuel, batteries etc etc etc! The time to prepare/practice is NOW 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I just posted about the 2 is 1 and 1 is none thought process myself. I have two generators because if one goes down, I can switch to the other and either figure out what's wrong with the first one or get it checked out afterward. A generator is way too critical of an item to only have one.
I'd aim for diversity , not necessarily 2 of the same type e.g. I have gas canisters and alcohol burners and electricity storage as it's difficult to predict the scenario. The situation may be a grabbag not necessarily a safe home of stockpiles.
At the community level you don't necessarily have to aim for 2 of everything as you can share. I have 2 of everything but find I'm loaning to someone with zero. If at the community level there was 1+bit of everything there's less waste. I agree with other comments of diversity of supply as you can't rehearse for all situations. E.g. a generator can't be carried on foot out of a situation Complementary diverse supply is the way to go, beginning with EDC, grab bag, vehicle, and home. If there's enough of those in a community then the ones who couldn't be bothered or not capable have local help.
I tell my grown kids what’s the use of having preps if you don’t practice. Your life could depend on it. Some preps are materials some are skills, practice the skills.
@@LilyoftheValeyrising Wise words. But also different simulated scenarios, countless times it's the "not the problem we expected". It could be the house which is damaged, not just a power outage. 1/3 of the time you're asleep.
Yep. Make sure your generator is a "duel fuel" type that will run on gas or propane. You want to keep your options open, and having a large propane tank can really save you a lot of hassle.
During my 8 days without electricity, I used my lanterns all the time. I used hurricane lanterns from Feuerhand, the last maker of hurricane lanterns in The West.
Traditional oil lanterns are exceptionally safe, and you can fuel them with diesel, kerosene, or "lamp oil'. They're all the same thing, just different levels of purification. The diesel and kerosene might have engine additives in them, but it's still perfectly safe for use in a lantern.
What I found with the "modern tech" was that it crapped out for one reason or another. Even with solar power and batteries, you're tied to the manufacturing chain. When Helene came through here, all the stores were out, and the roads were clogged, so you had to hope that you stockpiled enough "energy" for your flashlights and such.
With the hurricane lanterns, they provided a ton of light, really warming the place up (visually), and used almost no fuel in the 8 evenings I used them. I think I might have used a full quart of lamp oil, plus whatever was already in the tanks.
Every battery-powered widget was DOA due to dead batteries or corrosion ruining the connections, but my Feuerhand hurricane lanterns performed flawlessly even though they'd also sat a year without being used. While you can buy vintage lanterns on the secondhand market, that can be touchy because you never know if they'll leak at the seams. You can buy brand new Feuerhand lanterns, in a wide range of colors, and make them part of your life, using them every week just to create a nice ambiance on the back deck or for family game night.
In those Days of Darkness, my "old tech" worked perfectly. Axes, handsaws, bbq grill, hurricane lanterns.... It was the new stuff that failed at every turn, not the old. There's a lesson there if folks want to learn it. And, yeah, I'm hunting for more lanterns!
I agree, old-school tech really shines in these situations. Thanks for the insights.
I own hurricane lanterns too. Love them. But no, you can't run them on diesel. I tried it since kerosene and "lamp oil" is so expensive. Clogs the wick fast. Feel free to try it but I'm telling you it won't work long.
Agree with going old school. Best place I found for oil lanterns is thrift stores and peddlers malls where I've scored many lanterns for $5 to $15.
I have 5 Honda portable gas generators that I test every June and then run for a few minutes every few weeks until Hurricane season is over in November. I but only non- ethanol gas very June and then use in in my vehicle when hurricane season is over. I have lots of oil on hand as well s other supplies for emergencies.
@@thedangerson That's the truth. I love shopping for them, and just going to flea markets in general. I don't want any that are made after 1980 or so, the quality having dropped off considerably. Feuerhand lanterns are the only ones made to a decent standard today, and that's because they're still made in Western Lands. That's why I recommend them - people can buy a new lantern and trust that it'll be worth what they paid, rather than buy something "vintage" and hope that it doesn't leak.
I started using usb string lights for emergency lighting. They sip electricity and can run off usb battery packs for days. Thanks for sharing what you learned!
Yes, USB string lights or even battery string lights. I had a battery wreath that has a timer and lasts for months at 6 hours per night because it has D batteries. It lasts my whole Christmas season on one set of D batteries.
Just some thoughts for folks to consider. 1. Trying to store gas long term seems to be a losing battle regardless of what some say. Much better to keep several cans of treated fuel on hand and just rotate through them. 2. Running the generator 24/7 is probably not necessary in most situations. Depending on ambient temps, run the generator a couple of hours a few times a day to cool off the refridgerators and freezers - it will be fine. Run them for a few hours before bed time and then turn them off. You'll save a lot of gas as well as wear and tear on the generators. 3. If you can't afford a transfer switch for the electrical panel (those things are fantastic for many reasons), consider getting some heavy gauge twisted copper line and building your own four outlet extension cords. Keep the cords as short as you can manage to minimize voltage drop.You will want to plug in refrigerators and freezers one at a time to avoid having them all trying to start up at once. 4. We have used candles quite a lot (the ones that come in the tall glass cylinders) and have never had a problem. But really the solution is not trying to light the whole house as If the power is still on. Use them as need for area lighting, but learn to be okay with just a little dim light. Use a headlamp for task lighting. 5. A battery pack/power station is fantastic for charging electronics, etc. We ran Starlink with ours for 7 days (using the generator to recharge it.) That said, the Honda 2200i produces clean, sine wave power and uses very little fuel. It almost makes the battery banks un-needed. 6. You did not comment on water, but without water, things get very bad, very quick. Have a plan for water for drinking, bathing, and flushing toilets. Best regards.
I prefer the 3-wick candles in short jars. Light one wick or add more as you need. Much more light than a single wick and the wider jar is less prone to tipping over.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 Gas formulas have changed. The Ethanol in modern gas is the problem. While it is true that Ethanol Free gas can go bad; I believe it lasts much longer. Many of us always try to buy ethanol free gas for small engines. The main problem with ethanol in gas is that ethanol gels and attracts water.
Installed a manual transfer switch for our generator myself. Electrician quoted about $1,000. All told, it was about $250 which included the heavy duty 240 volt power cable from the generator to the breaker panel.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 I think by "long term" is meant to describe several years vs over winter.
Just a note; if you are on municipal sewage, you do NOT want to be flushing your toilet more than once if the water is not working, neither is the sewer, electricity is used for pumping and powering them. Otherwise the sewage will back up very quickly and you do not want the health risks associated with that.
Where I live the authorities say to flush only once and then bag your waste or use a dry toilet in an outhouse.
Those WERE mistakes with the generator. We only used ours to run our fridge and freezer in short bursts and once to check on the computer. We went without everything else. Y ou cannot expect to use all of your appliances in an emergency situation. Get a French press or a drip coffee maker and forget the microwave and toaster oven.
Just saw this comment after I posted. 100% agree! Thanks for beating me to it. We also use a camping percolator coffee pot, and/or a french press for making coffee, although the very first pot I made after Hurricane Milton knocked out our power was with the electric brewer while I was warming up the generator. We keep thermal carafes from our old coffee pots so we can keep coffee/water for tea warm without needing a burner after brewing.
@@daveb7408 People have to think creatively, as there are alternatives. A funny story I tell is about when we had a major ice storm some years ago that knocked power out regionally. My son had 2 very small girls and hooked his generator to his whole house, yet he was using it prudently. We still had landlines and when he called me, he told me that his wife had made eggs over their kerosene heater. Since we had the same kind, I asked to speak with her. I asked her how she did it. She didn't answer for some seconds, then she said, "I'm savoring this, YOU asking ME for cooking advice!"
Yeah this guy's kind of a a bougie fool
He wants to be glamping when he only needs to be camping in an emergency situation 🤡
@@__-44-__ He's silly. You can't live with all your modern conveniences when there is an emergency situation.
@@tonette6592
You used the computer during an emergency? Wow, aren't you bougie!!
My oh my, aren't you judgmental. And also assuming everyone's situation is like yours. Wanting to use the microwave is silly? Why? A generator can easily run that. We're not talking about running an electric dryer or charging an EV!
Some people (like myself) have electric everything, including the water. No electricity = no water coming out of the faucet = can't flush a toilet = unlivable house. What about the person that needs electricity to run their oxygen? Or keep their meds cold? Or run their stair lift so they can actually get up and down a flight of stairs? Great, YOU only needed a generator to run the fridge and freezer. Don't assume everyone's situation is like yours.
My favorite light source is a head lamp.
Once you use a decent headlamp you'll find your flashlights don't get used much. They're awesome.
@ agreed! Love having my hands free for other tasks.
The best ones I ever found, years ago, Walmart, $1 each! Tiny. Still working on the original batteries!
Headlamp and some lanterns, all you need.
Buy solar yard lights and remove the stems
They recharge during the day and make for cheap light at night versus a candle or other light source.
Theyre not the only lightsource you need but they should be part of your plan.
Upstate SC here, also 8 days without power...spot on video. my biggest mistake was also my generator (5 years old). first 4 days...Sparkplug, low oil shutoff, carb rebuild, debris removal from fuel tank (rubber cap gasket dry rotted and fell in pieces into the tank clogging the fuel line)... My new title is the Ill prepared Prepper...
Upstate SC here as well. Happy to hear you've made I through the disaster.
Which is why you should have more than one generator. And you should run them once a month for 20 minutes or so, give them so load and know they're ready.
Concur with others regarding no need to run genset constantly for refrigerator/freezers. Run for 4, off for 8. Cuts your run time/fuel use by 2/3's and food stays just fine as long as you minimize door openings. Every time we have an extended outage I learn some new lesson that better prepares me for the next outage.
While you don't have to run it 24/7, no way I'd do on 4/off 8. I work from home. No power = no internet = I can't work. Also, no, tv, air conditioning/heating, water (I have a well pump), basically an unlivable house. You can certainly cut it off at night. For those who sleep with a CPAP machine, get a Jackery or something like that to power it. At night, you're probably using less than 500watts an hour. No need to run a huge generator for that.
NEEDED. And coffee IS very important. 😊
Don’t run a generator at night because if you don’t open your refrigerators and freezers, they’ll be fine until morning. It’s quite generous to run it at night if you’re not awake.
I’ve read this a million times. I actually checked the temp in our Samsung refrigerator (JUNK) when power went out after Hurricane Helene. The temp inside of it climbs past the 40˚ safe zone, after less than an hour. In 2 hours, it was in the low 50˚s. Keep an eye on your refrigerator temps when the power goes out. Refrigerators aren’t coolers. They have a minimal amount of insulation, because they’re constantly cooled.
Great, real world, stuff. The oil tip was one I wasn't aware of, so you may have saved my family the same issue. Thank you.
Thank you! I love people talking about their actual experiences!!! And what actually happened in a real life situation!
I'm glad your family is safe. Thank you for sharing what you learned so we do not have to make the same mistakes.
Great point on the frequency of oil usage / change
You can use a flashlight as a lantern. Just point it up at the ceiling. Works pretty well.
Flashlight enthusiasts have a term for that, it's called candling. Turn the flashlight down from highest power to prevent frying the head if it's a high power flashlight. As long as you can still tough it, it's fine.
I bought a portable generator in 2004 and had to use it only three times since for anything from a couple hours to a few days. Here're a few tips: Check the oil level at every fueling. Use only non-ethanol gas. Add the recommended amount of a fuel stabilizer. Don't store long term. I stock up at the beginning of hurricane season and what isn't used at the end of the season goes into the vehicles. movers, etc. Test run the generator prior to each season. I use about a quart of gas to test run it. Check the power output and then let the gas run out. Never leave gas in the tank or carburetor. After 20 years, mine will still start on 1-2 pulls every time.
John, thank you for having the humility to talk about your mistakes so the rest of us can have the grace of learning from your experience. I live in the panhandle of Florida and sat hunkered down wondering if Helene was going to hit me. I was prepared in every way I knew how, but I didn’t know about frequent generator oil changes. I learned something valuable from you without having to pay the price.
Appreciate the honesty. Best way to learn is from mistakes!
Great video. I already thought about these things and just had my fears confirmed. I give you big kudos because not a lot of people can admit their mistakes, let alone put them on the internet. Keep up the great work! 👍
Remember, when planning, having a backup is important. The phrase is "one is none, two is one." If you only have one of something and it fails or is lost...
If you have the funds, getting a solar generator that can be charged from a gas generator can make the gas you have last longer.
In a pinch your flashlight can become a lantern by cutting a milk jug bottom off and putting flashlight inside. Having fatwood, birch bark or lighter fluid may help with fire starting. Buy 12 gauge or better and don’t buy 100 ft if 25 or 50 will do. Longer the cord more voltage drop. We use to turn off power every once in awhile to test our preps but only did 24 hours max. I should do some longer tests. Loved yhe tips…thank you.
Just a few additional tips for you so you’re better prepared for the next time.
1. Start your generator monthly and let it run for 15 minutes. When you get ready to shut it off turn off the fuel valve and let it keep running until it shuts itself off. This way your burning up all the fuel in the carburetor and preventing the jets from getting all gunked up.
2. Use fuel stabilizer in ALL of your gas cans. Obviously keep them inside and cycle out your gas every 6 months. If you don’t use it then just fill up your car and refill your cans.
3. Instead of having extension cords all over the place you should consider having a transfer switch hooked up to your electric panel. That or have a 30 or 50 amp outlet hardwired into your panel with an inter-lock switch installed. This way you can just run a 30 or 50 amp cord from your generator/inverter to the outlet and run selected items straight from your panel. You can determine your load and choose and mark which circuits you want to run. I’ve got a Predator 9500W from Harbor Freight and I can run every single thing (central a/c included) in a 2300sq ft house all at once except the dryer.
4. If you have to use Ext cords just remember that the longer the cord the more power loss you’ll experience.
5. Propane grills are your friend. Invest in some 30lb propane tanks for about $80/ea. You can cook or whatever with that. Or get a Coleman camping stove and keep about five 1lb propane canisters on hand. All easy to find at Walmart.
6. Keep at least six 5gal cans of gas on hand.
7. Get a good gas powered chainsaw.
8. Keep a fire starter kit on hand. Simple things like birch bark and cotton balls dabbed in Vaseline are great. Just keep in a dry place.
9. Lots of batteries. Flashlights. Lanterns. Head lamp.
10. A small propane heater like a Mr. Heater for $75 is always good to have in case of power loss during the winter.
11. ALWAYS have lots of water on hand. If severe weather is forecast fill up your sinks and shower. I keep five 5gal jerry cans of water on hand. But if my inverter is up n running that means my well pump is running which means I have running water & toilets.
12. And remember to keep it ALL together. The last thing you wanna do is run around looking for propane here, Ext cords there, gas cans over here, 50amp power cord in your shed etc etc etc. Nothing worse than doing that in darkness and crappy conditions. Never hurts to have about 100’ of rope on hand and some heavy duty towing straps!! Hope this helps you out a bit.
Damn man!! You sound like MEEE!! 😂
Our preps are almost exactly alike. I’m on the coast in Texas. I was without power for 10 days after Harvey. For the most part, it was like nothing major happened for me and mine. Oil changes were a pain. I couldn’t run the A/C with the washer and dryer so there were some minor inconvenience but for the most part, it was no big deal. I tried to keep light usage to a minimum. My generator is only a 10K.
I spent the nights sitting on my tailgate watching the neighbors with my NVD’s. 😂
Holy moly. NEEDED tips. Hope you're all well now. Thanks! New sub.
Great vid and great lessons for sure. One thing I would add is that these small back up emergency generators are not rated to run for more than 6 to 8 hours at a time at most. They don't have the oil capacity to run for much more than that without causing significant wear and damage. Can you get away with it. Sure, for a while. But the best solution I have found is to have 2 generators and swap them out every 6 to 8 hours. This will dramatically increase the life of each generator and it means you have a back for when one breaks because they do break frequently especially under hard long term long day long uses. Great stuff though and thanks for sharing!
Buy a propane genny, and after the break in period change the oil. Then do it again 20 hours of run time later. It'll get a ton of crap out of the system, and if you're using synthetic oil it will extend the run time and life of the generator. Sure you get 10% less power, but 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing and the fuel is way easier to store.
I saw all the extension cords you used to plug your appliances into the generator. AC extension cords add resistance to your circuit. Not a huge amount but eventually enough to make a difference.
I have a boat access only camp in Adirondacks. We store a lot of gas and have had to deal with condensation in gas. We don’t store it inside. We store it in a dock box. We have learned to use additives to each tank of gas and to use filters that separate water from gas for those tanks when you don’t recall when they were last filled. Some motors incorporate those filters into the engine.
@@lisagauvin What additives do you use? (If they work by the water in a dock box they'll work just about anywhere.) Would love to learn from your real world experience.
@ IOS-HEET. The alcohol binds with the water so it burns in the engine. ( my hubby is an engineer so I entrust him with the chemistry. ) best…
Coleman stove and coffee pot. We live in Savannah Ga, tree went thru roof and no power for 8 days. Slept in travel trailer with a/c and ran two fridges in the house using 20 yr old Coleman 7000 watt generator. I also used head lamps, excellent to put the light where you need it and leave your hands free.
We used that strategy in Gainesville, Florida this fall when we had no power for 5 days following Helene. I have two Honda 2000i generators hooked up in parallel plus an extended run 5 gallon auxiliary fuel tank that hooks up to both generators. They had no problem running the refrigerator, 2 freezers, and a small camping trailer with A/C. I did run the generators 24 hours a day, which was a mistake -- burned through $150 in gasoline over the 5 days. Although I have 10.8 kW of solar on my roof, the system does not have a battery and thus does not work when the power grid is down. That oversight will be corrected this winter, so next time I can run on solar during the day and the generators at night. The generators cannot power my well, but my solar power system can once a battery is installed. Fortunately I had set up several 20 gallon tubs to catch rain water off the roof for toilet flushing and had stockpiled a couple of cases of drinking water. Wife and I both have iPads stocked with e-books and videos, and the local cell service never went down, so we had good entertainment and communications with the outside world throughout the ordeal.
@@charlescourtney4412 You might want to consider buying a larger 240 volt generator. I know you said you bought two 120 volt generators from Honda. You should be able to sell those used? After careful consideration we bought the big brother of your generators. The Honda EU7000is. It’s a 240 volt generator & it’s a little louder than your suitcase style generators. We use it to power up our entire house including the 2-1/2 ton Trane central air. We achieved that by installing a soft start kit on the condenser outside. I have tested my generator & despite the claims that it is a 5500 watt generator I have pulled more than the rated load up to 9200 watts. Incredible when you think of it? What generator out there has a lower rating but can power higher watts than rated. Hence why we bought it. Now if you need more power than that? You can buy another EU7000is & couple them & you’ll get 11,000 watts out of it. Personally our one is enough for us. We purposely bought a house without any 240 volt appliances. We added those after we moved here (central air). I’m a power lineman for a living. My highest priority is the safety of my family. The last thing I want to receive is a frantic call from my wife that the power is out or that the generator won’t start. We all rely on power way too much. A hundred years ago it was a luxury to have electric light in your house. Hence why we bought the generator we bought. My wife can run a load of laundry with the central air on & never skip a beat. I come home after working a suicide shift from work. I refuel my auxiliary tank on my generator & take a warm shower & go to bed. I wake up & go back to work.
What I learned after no power for 8days (Beryl) was how valuable our tent and inflatable mattress was. We ended up sleeping in the backyard since it was cooler than inside the house.
Great little video that seems to be out of your normal wheel house. It's awesome that your able to sit back and learn from your mistakes (with a smile on your face) good information
Appreciate the kind words!
Nice concise summary. Very valuable for the rest of us to know what works and doesn't in the real world. A couple of points I'll add:
1) That chest freezer is way too empty. Even in normal use the fuller they are the more efficient they run. If you're not using the space for food use it to freeze jugs of water. Keep it closed and a full chest freezer with a sleeping bag over it will last for days before thawing becomes a concern. Frozen jugs can be taken out and put in the fridge to turn it into an icebox. Completely thawed jugs = water source.
2) The generator does not necessarily need to run 24/7. We found during our major outages 2-4 hours in the morning and 2-4 in the evening kept the fridges and freezers (see above) cold, recharged batteries, and gave us enough access to the well pump to water the animals, re-fill jugs, flush toilets and fill spare buckets. YMMV, of course, depending on your climate.
3) Even a Chinesium clone small engine is not going to melt down if you change the oil at 200 hours rather than 100. Not ideal and probably shortens the life a little, but in an emergency the difference between 2000 hours of life and 1900 probably isn't significant. Don't stress it, the engine will die from the metal chips left behind during manufacturing before old oil kills it. (You did change the oil at 5 hours break in, right? :) Having said that, I always keep extra oil around so I have no excuse not to immediately change the oil after the 6 month test run. (Probably excessive vs once per year, but we have a lot of moisture in the air here.) Oil's cheap, engines not so much.
Thanks for the info. I don't store gas at all but rather, if i anticipate needing the generator I will buy gas just prior to. I also, have a reminder on my phone year round to notify me once a month to start all my gas equipment and let them run for 5-10 minutes assuring they are good to go. When we have a power outage we only run the generator about 1-1/2 hour, then off for about 5 hours and continue that cycle. It keeps all the fridge things cold and the freezer things frozen. My home is insulated very well so even in the winter our home temps will not drop more than 1-2 degrees in 5 hours . (we live in the WV mountains). Battery lights suffice instead of running the gen 24/7 and to keep us busy, card games and board games do the trick.
One item I'll throw in, if I may, is the little chem lights you can get at any party store. They last a few hours and are GREAT for settling kids down to go to bed and even light the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, lowering the need to drain a bunch of D-cell batteries. I test drove some chem lights that I had been storing for over 30 years. Crunched the glass, worked just fine. A pack of 12 can be had for a few bucks.
Yes, I always keep a bunch of the cyclalume sticks on hand. You right, they make great night lights and just enough light you can see to not run into things. The plus side is they last at least a couple years before you bend and shake to light them. They do only really put out enough light for about eight hours though. I have found most longer term reliable bright lights to be solar and crank style lanterns for active evening hours. My new favorite for short term though are the light bulbs that you charge up while using in your regular lamps and when the power goes out, they come on automatically using their internal battery and you can sit there using your regular lamp as usual. I periodically charge mine in the lamps and then turn them off and put them in a drawer until needed.
Wow, read your comment again and saw that you had some of the cycalume sticks for 30 years and they still worked! Thanks for justifying my keeping at least twenty to thirty in stock at all times, even though, so far, we have never needed to use more than twelve during a power outage. 👍
@@lf4061 Well, I was quite shocked, too. After posting that comment, I realised that math isn't my strong suit. The chem lights that I tested were bought in 1974 and tested last year. That's a bit more than 30 years!
I applaud John Stanton for making this video and prompting folks to think about their disaster/emergency preparations a bit more thoroughly. However, having said that, I have a few criticisms to offer.
1. Storing gasoline indoors is hazardous because vapors can build up - this is a breathing hazard (fumes can be carcinogenic, smell aside) and more importantly, flammable/explosive. I have stored gasoline in tightly sealed standard red poly jugs for many months outdoors, well away from the house. I rotate 20 gallons of this once a quarter by putting it in my truck and refilling the jugs, and adding Sta-Bil gas storage treatment to the jug. Using this system none of my gas usually gets to be about more than 18 months old and has worked perfectly in my truck, despite one time due to high gas prices when I let some of it slip over 2 years.
2. Don't use electricity for heat when you can generate that via other means. That means cooking and water heating of course. A toaster oven is about the least energy efficient appliance I can imagine. Put more thought into using your available juice wisely. Does it really make sense to provide electricity around the clock to your gas furnace (which requires an electric forced air blower and controls) OR does it make better sense to use a couple of electric blankets overnight? Unless temps will go below freezing, in which case you can set the temp fairly low to keep your pipes from bursting. It can help to get a Kill-A-Watt meter so you can see how much power something is using, so you can better judge whether the squeeze is worth the juice.
3. Cooking with fire - Generally it's better to cook over coals than flame. Temperature is hard to regulate over wood flame and it's too easy to burn the food. I prefer to keep a Coleman camping stove (propane) for this, the heat is much easier to regulate. You can get adapters to regulate a full sized propane container down to 1-qt "camping" jug fixtures. Just be sure to close the valve when not in use. Never use a gasoline camping stove indoors... however, if you are careful to observe ventilation concerns, you can use propane appliances indoors for short periods, enough to fry a pan of eggs or make coffee. You need to be very careful to avoid any propane leaks (which are not hard to smell) and not use it for extended periods which risks building up carbon monoxide. The problem with cooking exclusively outdoors is weather, especially rain and wind. A car port with wind break or door-open garage are good settings for this.
4. An inverter generator will be much more efficient than a standard non-inverter model. The inverter type will only run the generator engine fast enough for the power demand of the moment, rather than full output full time, which ends up burning through a lot of fuel needlessly.
5. The comment about lanterns is valid, you will want several of these. The "mini" camping lanterns that use LED and run on 3 AA batteries are terrific for places like hallways and bathrooms where you don't need a lot of light, just enough to "see" without being in the pitch dark. LED headlamps are also a good idea, as you will want your hands free for things like washing dishes or working on the generator.
6. Generator as the sole source of electricity. I have two inverter generators, but I rarely need to use them because I put 4 solar cells on the roof feeding an 800 amp-hour LiFePO4 battery bank, which feeds a full-sine-wave inverter. No fuel, no fumes, no question of whether it will start. It will run our fridge and furnace for 3 days before I even need to fire up the generator. Just imagine if John Stanton had one of these, even if he only used it at night, so the generator could be turned off and locked up in the garage overnight? It would have stretched the fuel a long way. My battery bank is on wheels and can be moved if needed. I am knowledgeable about electricity and put this together myself, but you can purchase commercially available battery banks, and can store solar panels in the garage ready to deploy, if you prefer not to have something on the roof year-round. If you don't know what you are doing, get help and advice from someone who does, you don't want to burn the house down.
Good video, many valid points - I just wanted to point out a few additional things. No doubt John Stanton will have a much better go of things the next time there's an extended outage from these lessons learned.
Kudos to you for getting straight to the point and delivering all the info fast and efficiently.
It's great to learn from other peoples failures. Thanks for your video.
You totally sold me on dual fuel propane/gasoline. I would have been totally SOL with bad gas, no oil or spark plugs.
My bonus prep is a Propane/MAP torch for fire starting.
I have several solar lanterns I keep on the window sills at all times. We use a propane camp stove or butane burner for cooking. Make coffee in a percolator. Save your paper egg cartons, fill each cavity with lint, pour melted wax over the lint. Break into individual pieces and store in a Ziploc bag for fire starters. Get a solar generator and a couple solar panels and use it for electricity. Keep it charged at all times just in case.
Great advice! I'll try that with the egg cartons for fire starters. Thanks for sharing!
Or put lint inside toilet paper roll.
What I like as a fire starter is petroleum jelly soaked, 100% pure cotton, cotton balls. I can shove about 75-100 into a large vitamin jar. I’ve lit them with everything to include the rod from a magnesium fire starter.
I have two generators. One is gas and one is propane and gas. I keep 130 pounds of propane gas stored because unlike gas it never goes bad. My propane generator uses 2 pounds of propane at 50 percent load. I have over 65 hours of run time on propane. I also keep 20 gallons of gas on hand that I rotate every month. I also have a generator plug wired to my breaker box. You should start and run your generator under a 50 percent load 2 to 3 times a year to keep the generator brushes from corroding. Keep a little container of used oil around to start fires in fire place or wood stove. It does wonders to start fires with damp wood. I’ve only had to use my preparations two times in 25 years. My neighbors laughed at my calling me a paranoid prepper until I had to help them survive. Now they don’t laugh at me, they all bought a generator.
I try to run my generator every month but it's usually every two.
Thanks for the video. I find it really interesting!
1) Use generator every year, for few hours. Great point with the oil and for being able to do maintenance yourself. Also, take the opportunity to read the manual.
2) You don't have to run generator 24/7.
3) Diesel generators don't like no or small load.
4) UN certified jerry cans are air tight.
5) Petrol has to be rotated at least once a year.
Extending #5, have a calendar reminder to pour your old fuel into your vehicle and refill the cans.
Added to 1) ; use all the outlets on the generator as part of the annual test. Even if it starts fine, there can sometimes be other problems that won't be caught by just starting it.
I actually test mine every six months, and run the fuel tank dry every time before putting it up.
I would never trust fuel a year old, especially if it has ethanol in it, I pay extra for non ethanol.
@@Michael-Joseph123 Never had issues running stale fuel, so don't go overboard. If you have a petrol car you can rotate more frequently, of course.
@pavel9652 I have inverter generators, and they have much more sensitive jets than standard generators, just look at all the generator forums, nothing but problems with these generators not running correctly, at least 50% of the post are about generators not running, or surging while running, or members saying there generators on run with choke on, or half way on, hardly ever electrical problems.
Very nice video. Thanks so much for posting. I've been prepping for a few years now and you offered some great suggestions that I had not thought of.
As @appoutfeed mentioned, get a transfer switch installed if you can. This is a big safety item but it also simplifies a chaotic situation. One connection from your generator to your house then you can select what circuits have power and when without extension cords running everywhere or setting up a makeshift kitchen somewhere closer to your generator. I have an indoor and an outdoor plug in location for mine so I can run the generator during the day and then switch to battery backup at night. This makes it easier to sleep, prevents the generator noise from attracting unwanted attention so it grows legs. Coffee makers suck energy. Use a peculator coffee maker instead that can be placed on any heat source. If you can get a duel fuel generator inverter (like Harbor Freight's Predator), that is the way to go. Propane stores indefinitely and safely.
Valuable lessons learned. With any gear you need to use it to be familiar with it. So when you need it you know the condition it is in and how to use it. We all have been there. Dual fuel generator is a suggestion. Propane is easier to store. Also, Solar Generators is a back up to the back up. Remember the saying "One is None, and Two is One." Great video and thanks for sharing.
You need to dual fuel generator that runs on propane. Propane will store more or less forever. Set your house up with a 30 amp generator back feed to run your priority circuits. no more extension cords throughout the house creating additional trip hazards
Coffee in a disaster? Muy Importante!! A lot of folks in the comments had great ideas about using other sources of "power" when available. A grill or fire pit to cook on goes a long way to save gas. Another way I found to save is to combine a battery generator like an Ecoflow with the gas generator. I found I can run my gas generator for about an hour and a half to fully charge a 1300 mAh Ecoflow. That battery will run my fridge for 8 hours! Saves a LOT of gas. I have two batteries dedicated to our fridge, and plan to get a smaller one for our electronics. Everything else is either battery powered (fans, lights, radio), or propane (grill for cooking). LOTS of great suggestions all around, glad to see we are all thinking ahead.
Oh, I tried solar after we lost power to Milton. I used a 220 watt panel to try to charge my Ecoflows. After 8 hours of brilliant sunlight, I could only get ONE up to 95%. So if you plan on going totally solar, you will need a few panels to get the job done.
Glad you and the family made it out ok - great, honest video. Made me think about a few things.
Good ideas for sure! Thanks for sharing! We (3 couples) were trapped for 5 days without power while on vacation at a B&B in the mountains of North Carolina before we walked out leaving our cars. The roads were blocked by landslides and washouts so our only way to evacuate was by hiking up a mountain to an overpass on I-40. The generator ran the well so we ran it for only 3 hours a day. The primary refrigerator was powered by a Hybrid Highlander in "generator mode". We calculated that the full gas tank was going to keep that refrigerator cool for 9 days. The powerstrip being powered by the Hybrid Highlander also charged our phones, tablets, and the battery block that powered our satellite internet. I usually travel with enough flashlights but forgot the battery powered lantern this time. Never again.
I've done 3 combat tours. I've been in several mass casualty events. Coffee is one of the simplest things you can have to save/restore sanity.
Thanks for your service!
@JohnStanton I should thank you all. Serving this country was the greatest experience of my life. Taught me to be a man. Taught me to be a father. So I say thank you to all the American people who supported us physically, emotionally, and financially with your tax dollars.
Good advice. I would recommend a duel fuel generators as well. I calculated my max wattage usage then added 50 percent to size my home generator. This allowed me to use the 50 load calculation on the box. I needed 6kwatts to run my basics. So I bought a 12k duel fuel. I also have wood, and propane heat, as well as a few window units for backup as well. We have solar for all else fails. Just remember to have maintenance supplies put up as well for your equipment. Keep camping supplies as well. Even if you don't camp out in the wild.
Thanks for the video and testimonial. I've been watching a lot of videos like yours, and the main thing that I've learned is that the more one relies on technology, the more that technology can break down.
I use a solar system with combination of a generator. You can get more out the gas because you can run it at a higher rpm for shorter amount of time. You can use the battery to store extra energy and not have to use the generator the whole time. Panels help to reduce gas. The setup is more reliable than a generator as you can see even with good maintenance it still failed.
Thanks for this open & honest sharing!
I see several comments about having 2 generators. You should consider one or two of them being the new LFP power stations (sogens). They can be charged while the gas/propane one runs and then be used to spell the ICE generator and also stretching your fuel. It also gives you an option for solar charging that could still work in the absence of fuel. I would use the sogens at night to eliminate all the noise (great for camping too). One more benefit is the ability to use it indoors. You can use shorter cords and keep your doors and windows closed to keep warm.
Thank you for sharing these hard learned lessons. I will relook at what I have and improve them. The lantern is a super great idea.
I am an Urban Dweller, but find your experience invaluable. Thanks for sharing and hope you and yours are well!
Wow with everything you’ve been through how kind of you to share!
Thank you for making it funny. I just went through Debby, Helene and Milton. I could use a little humor.😊
If you complement your generator with a battery power station (like Ecoflow) that is enough to power your devices for an extended period, then you can recharge it using the generator. We just got ours this year and was able to run 4 days without electricity on only 12 gallons of gas. Run on power station for many hours (we ran for about 8 hours), recharge with generator for 1-2, rinse/repeat.
Thanks for the tips! We have a solar generator. I like them because they're safe to use indoors, are basically silent, and they don't require fuel or oil, etc. We run it out every six months (as per the instructions--it handles a couple days worth of laundry with no problem) and recharge it so it's always ready. I'm thinking about a backup propane one, though, for longer outages.
What I want to learn is how to run the well pump when the power is out. 💪🏻
A 6000 watt generator with a 240 volt output. I have 2 water wells at my home in Texas, I can run my house, except for the central ac and electric hot water heater. I have the generator hooked up at my main power box with a generator lock out that I had an electrician set up for me. This will run both wells if needed as well as lights, fans and a window unit.
@@derek361 thanks!
Great real life suggestions, and glad everyone is safe.
We have a Harbor Freight 7 KW generator connected via a generator interlock. I run our generator quarterly with a 1500 watt space heater as a dummy load and run it out of gas each time. There is always a little gas in the tank so I close the fuel valve after the test run so it does not fill up the fuel bowel. The generator did not come with an run time hour meter so I purchased a LCD meter that is capacitively coupled to the spark plug wire.
As others have posted it is not necessary to run the generator 24/7 to keep stuff in refrigerator/freezer safe. Just try not to open the door when the genie is not running. We keep five 5-gallon cans of stabilized gas on hand. That should be enough for a week long power outage running the generator 5-6 hours a day. The cans are numbered so I rotate through the stash and if the gas gets too old (> 1 year) put it into one of our cars. Modern gas that contains alcohol is hydroscopic so water absorption is a problem. The carburetor fuel bowl on our genie has a drain plug so every few years I open it to remove any acclimated water. Good point about not storing gas cans outside. We store ours in a shed away from the house for safety.
Something else to think about is emergency communication. We have cell phones in addition to landline provided by our ISP. The connection is over fiber so we have a UPS that is able to keep our home network and landline phones operational when the generator is not running.
Love the comment about the need for coffee. Here in NH extended power outages are most likely due to massive ice storms that take out power lines. Luckily that is less likely to affect the center of town since there are fewer trees so stores there still have power and hence coffee. Before we had a genie that came in handy.
Fantastic topic for people who THINK they are prepared, but in your case relied too much on your generator. What did people do before electricity?
Right, they survived on a fire for cooking and heating. Electricity is for refrigeration and communications.
I believe one of the best ways to become prepared is to develop a survival mindset. Go camping or better yet backpacking and learn about shelter, fire, navigation, staying warm and dry with clothing.
But back to generators: You should run them every month or two, and be obsessive with the maintenance. I use my ham radio weekly too. Prepping like everything else takes a lot of practice to become proficient. Thanks for the educational video. It's going to help many folks sharpen their skills especially if they are reading the great comments I have seen.
Good tip to work up from backpacking as then you're covered for efficient living if staying home, and cover having to lightweight walk out of a situation. The foods you'd take backpacking have long shelf life so you can easily have weeks of food at home you use slowly and backfill if you're a backpacker. Hard core backpackers make and dry their meals as a low-tech preservative method.
Water is the trickiest part, that takes more focus than food / heating.
I also went through a solar panel phase, it's not reliable enough so just got more powerbanks, less can go wrong. We just had a 90mph wind through, forecast 3 days before, so recharged everything.
Great advice. Not the average info we here everywhere else. Thank you.
I had no idea that generators needed oil changes so frequently. Thank you. That is very helpful information.
Store gas and oil.
I like lanterns, I keep one on our kitchen table so I always know where it is even in the dark.
Yes, that’s all of them that use fossil fuels.
If you decide to buy a generator, you’ll get the best performance out of it by breaking it in. It’s a very specific thing that you can learn about on YT. I recommend doing it, no matter what. Also, if you can get a dual fuel generator, get it. It gives you more options. There are other pluses but that’s the main one. You may be able to barter gasoline for LPG or visa versa.
Went through Hurricane Hugo in Charleston in 89. We were without power for about 3 weeks where I was staying to help out some friends. Had to boil water for about the same time. Had gas stoves, Coleman camp stoves and charcoal grills. Ate our way through the frozen refrigerator food in a few days on purpose. Had plenty of other items and would make speed runs to Orangeburg SC for stuff. When they got ice there we were able to grab a truckload (literally). Wasn't any fun, to start.
I like your honesty! You admitted fault & were willing to admit it! That’s huge!
Now that you learned? Have you learned enough?
I’m not as lucky as you.
I’m a power lineman for our local utility. I’m only home long enough to refill my generator & take a quick warm shower & go to bed. I’m never home during an outage. I have to make sure my family is safe & has power when my employer can’t restore power after a storm. My wife is disabiled & can’t refuel mine. I have to or hire someone who can.
Now selection of where you bought your house was a mistake number one but you didn’t know that? Where we lived in two rentals & our house we were on a 3 phase backbone. I don’t expect you to know what that means? That’s the power coming down your street from the substation. We always lived within a mile of the substation. Not in the woods. If you have a house in the woods you’re going to have to live with longer duration outages. Those places are the last to get power restored. The longest we lost power was for five days. I was restoring power for three weeks. Some people were without power for that long. I got walking pneumonia while working grueling shifts at the power company. Then come home to house in the high thirties & bone COLD showers. This was before we bought our generator.
I bought our generator in time for the next big storm. I consulted with my colleagues on which generator to buy. I bought the best in the business-Honda EU7000is. That’s an inverter roll out generator that has fuel injection (no carburetor). I treat all my gas with fuel stabilizers & enzymes (it lasts a year & I store it in my insulated dry shed). You bought a small generator. Too small to carry your whole house. Ours can run my entire house including our central air or our heat. Ours is wired into my electric panel with a huge cord. We have an inter lock that shuts off power from the utility & allows us to back feed our house. It’s required by code where we live.
Our generator sips fuel instead of guzzles like yours does. Computer fuel injection controls consumption. I have an economy feature on my generator so I can run mine at a lower speed while providing full power to my house. Mine sits in a pad locked steel enclosure outside my shed. It’s extremely quiet at 54 decibels on economy mode. My neighbors can’t hear our generator. Mine produces clean 60 cycle power much like my employer provides. I can have computers hooked up to it & it won’t damage them.
I keep 111 gallons of gas at my house. I never keep my gas for more than a year & rotate the old gas out into my trucks. I have enough fuel for 3 weeks if need be? Oil? I keep several gallons of Mobil 1 in my house. I thought everyone did? I change my oil in all my trucks & generator once a year. Oil especially used oil can hold water in suspension. That could form rust? I have had my genny 7 years & it runs like a top & all I’ve done is change the oil once a year. It starts on the first try.
We lost power after storm Isais five years ago. We were out of power for three days & my generator burned 22 gallons of gas with everything on. I have an auxiliary fuel tank. I have 11 gallons of fuel to use without refilling. I only refilled the auxiliary twice. My genny ran uninterrupted for three days straight. No issues-why? Because we bought a Honda.
When I was at work on our genny my wife would text to check with me? I was more concerned with her. She said the generator is still running well. She did three loads of laundry, had the A/C on & was cooking food in the oven. All at the same time.
I like your suggestion of not using candles! Who still uses candles for light anyway? We are campers so we already have an assortment of battery powered lanterns already. When we bought our house 21 years ago we got a full cord of firewood that came pre-seasoned. We keep it on our log racks on our lower deck that is covered. The log racks themselves are individually covered by custom log rack covers. We keep plenty of kindling on our log racks too. We had the wood thankfully when we lost power for five days. We still have that wood from twenty years ago. It burns really hot now!
You must have had lumps on your head after that power outage? Atleast you were home to monitor the situation. Make adjustments after mistakes. You lived it & witnessed the hardships of your poor decisions.
Great content & I’ll subscribe.
I'm one of those 'last on the line' places. This place was built long before anything else around here was, so Blue Ridge ran power across a pasture to get here. That line feeds 3 houses, and newer lines serve past these three in both directions. Everyone around us had power 3 days before we did but we knew the situation ahead of time so we expected it. Some Honda generators have a timing chain inside which needs service on a regular schedule; check if yours is one of those because it will trash the engine when it goes out. Mighty expensive now but as always they're still the best bar none.
@ Thank you! My Honda has a single piston engine. It's only got 13 horsepower. One with a timing chain would have more than 1 piston. It's a timing thing to keep time in the engine.
As for the line going across a field is a good thing as long as there aren't any trees to fall on it. Vegetation causes the most outages on any system. Just by knowing what you know that your the last to get restored? You would need a generator. When we get down to the single & double digit outages the storm is winding down. Out of town crews are sent home & they leave that work for the local crews. It might take several more days to pick you & the last stragglers back up. Often times those last customers take all day to restore because of downed trees & broken poles. If I'm a power lineman for the local power company & I have a generator? What's that mean for everyone else? Hint? Read between the lines.
@@johnclyne6350 The Hondas I know of with a timing chain are single cylinder, and the chain drives the overhead cam from the crankshaft just like with cars. Honda replacement engines are almost the cost of a new generator so it's worth looking into.
Once the trees were cleared from the road I could see our problem- a tree had fallen dropping two poles on the property across the other side of the pasture. They were short on poles and weren't going to do those when the same 2 poles might restore hundreds instead of just 3. It's understandable and yeah, we're ready for that.
@@P_RO_ You wouldn’t happen to know which engines or model of Honda generators you’re referring to? I have the GSX 390 engine in my generator & my pressure washer. I’m unaware those have a timing chain? They have a cam shaft that is pushed by a cog off the flywheel. There is no chain per see. Unless you’re referring to a cog?
@ Thanks for shining a light on the issue with the plastic cam shaft & rubber timing belt on Honda generators. I did a google search & the best I came up with was the EU 2200is model has that set up. That is a 120 volt “suitcase” style generator. That is one of their newest generators & has the plastic cam & rubber timing belt. They did that to lower the noise level from the best that I could tell? It also allegedly has an interference engine? If the belt were to break? The valves & the piston would collide. I think that is what you were referring to? I checked the maintenance schedule for the EU7000is (the one I own). There isn’t any timing belt to replace. So, I’m all good.
If you had not mentioned that I wouldn’t have heard of that? Thank you for letting me know!
As for your situation with trees. There are easements that must be maintained by the property owner. There are underground easements & overhead easements. If in doubt check with an attorney who specializes in easements. I’m no authority on easements. The little I do know is that all property has easements. Unless your property doesn’t have any improvements on it such as a pasture. However at one point I’m going to guess that the property owner of the pasture sold off your parcel of land. Then to build a house the utilities needed an easement across the pasture? The property owner with the easements is to guarantee they will honor the easement & not build anything on that part of the property or allow vegetation to grow in that easement. Another words no improvements. If they do & cause damage to utilities they are on the hook for any & all damages to those utilities. In the case of a storm, the utility will just clear the trees & restore power. They might at their discretion, bill the property owner later for damages related to the restoration. In the future if you know the wires coming across that pasture has vegetation growing in it? Your to contact the utility. Their arborist will either hire a crew to do the work or contact the property owner that they need to trim their trees. Either way it’s your service will be affected. Personally I wouldn’t live in a house with wires coming through a pasture to get to your house. If my hand was forced to live there? I would have a stand by generator with a huge fuel supply.
A $25 soldering propane torch is a really good option for starting fires
Great point about cable/extension cord management. I came up short a couple of years ago and learned my lesson. Glad you and your family got through it all safely and thank you for the tips 👍
GREAT advice. Lessons learned. GUESS What - electrical loads change. Yep, new TV, different fridge, change in weather, working from home with wifi, router, etc.
Also - rotate your gas. Fill it up, put a number on it (dates are better but I'm lazy). Once a month pour that gas into the car and refill the gas can #3. Next month Use pour gas can #4 into the car and refill gas can #4.
Lastly - have more than one generator. An "INVERTER" generator uses much less fuel for when the loads are smaller or you are down to that last gas can.
We are learning to use Solar panels and solar generator.
AuuGGGG!! Three vs Two pronged cords. YES go with #14 or larger 12 guage wire (Smaller number, larger wire. Just like buck shot) Coffee is important.
Thank you for putting together this after action video!
Thank you for your honest assessment. Great video!
You’re welcome! Thanks for watching.
As an alternative to running that genny 24 hr/day you could have a battery bank and run the genny 2-3 times/day topping up the batteries each time,
Then run the light loads off the battery bank between genny sessions.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, be it man or nature. Great video, we just purchased lamps back during the summer and they make a world of difference
Couldn't agree more, great video.
I did a video a few weeks ago on this very thing, 24hrs with no power and what worked, what didn't and conclusion etc.
Cheers
Sp
thanks brother!
Seeing what is going on in the world, i have only just started getting serious about bugging in and bugging out. The bugging out part is set, backpack with everything i need to survive, hunt and live outdoors. Bugging in has only just peeked my interest. So i'm hoarding stuff, wood, food, non-perishables, taking a first aid course, learning how to prepare for the worst indoors. Your tips added valuable lessons and i'm glad you shared them.
To keep costs down it's a good idea to have non-perishables you actually use. If you're a backpacker and carry a 100g canister for camp cooking, then simply get a cheap refill adapter and buy the 450g canisters and refill your 100g - you end up saving money early. That way you've got a decent 450g fuel supply for longer periods at home if required.
For cooking I was also a Trangia user - you can cook more varied meals than with gas and I used to buy 0.5ml meths twice a year, now I just buy the 5L ones less often so I've got weeks of fuel in - works out cheaper too.
We aim to keep 10 days non-perishable food, typically need eating in 1-3 years and just prior to expiry eat and backfill.
I sometimes use freezedried meals for backpacking, bought for lightness+convenience, they have typical shelf life of 5-7 years so I keep about 3 days worth of them in stock, although they actually consume more fuel than tinned food which only needs warming up not boiling. So tinned food is overall ideal for home use, no rehydrating, no boiling.
I went through a period 5 years ago of keep 2 freezers for food stock and then looked at the electrical capacity, to stop it thawing, the cost to have backup electricity exceeds the value of the freezer food. So I did the opposite, shrunk the frozen food capacity to 2-3 days max and upped the non-perishable. I store water in fridge and frozen veg above the meat in the freezer to slow it warming up.
That then works for more variety of scenarios.
That effectively put us to how we all lived in the 1970s, we had tiny freezer compartments, and you not really wasting any money on the small chance of a long outage.
Some things are much better done in microwaves - warming things up - 1 minute = 0.15KWh so I keep an inverter power bank no larger than I can carry. Between the inverter powerbank and the pocket powerbanks we have weeks of stored energy. It's not sunny enough here to bother with a large solar installation I have about 150W portable panels which would keep say a phone + tablet + flashlights going indefinitively.
It's worth researching water purification, that's the trickiest part to understand. Pasteurising uses half the fuel of boiling, filters + chlorine dioxide weigh little - what often kills people if they're not cold or drowned is thirst.
Finally to keep boredom at bay I always download media and watch downloaded so I've always got plenty to watch. My 13 inch Chromebook consumes 4W/hr so say 200Wh powerbank = 50 hours, if you wanted 8hr/day 10 days = 320Wh.
I've been on hiking trips with newbies who were setting up their tent for the first time on the trail. Literally, removing the packing wrapping! Or who never fired up their stove and didn't bring the correct fuel. The list goes on. The lesson is that you hold drills and try out everything in real time. The same goes for home emergency preparedness. Here are a few more observations learned the hard way:
1. The larger the generator, the more fuel it will use and the quicker it will consume that fuel. In a serious on-going emergency, fuel may become scarce. I have two generators. It gets unbearably hot during the summer months so the large generator is to operate the A/C during limited hours in order to keep the house livable. We limit it's use due to the fuel consumption. During cooler months or when the A/C is not needed, we run the smaller generator which uses much less fuel. We also have large battery packs and power conditioners that power appliances and electronics. They are less expensive and more energy efficient for surplus energy while the generators are operating. I highly recommend uninterruptible power supplies.
2. Electric food storage appliances become very inefficient when they have to compete for limited power. Refrigerators and freezers are not designed for long term storage without power. Constantly opening their doors all day will create a constant drain on power. Instead, we use large coolers that we fill at the start of each day. That way the refrigerator and freezer are opened only once a day.
3. Electric cooking is not nearly as efficient as gas. When the power goes out for an extended time, we switch to camping stoves. Coleman saves the day.
If you are going to store gas for any time you need to put a fuel stabilizer in it. This goes for generators and other power equipment. These can be purchased at the home improvement store near you. Near the Gas Cans.
Thank you for a short concise video. I’m going to get a lantern.
Good video. I’ve lived through a similar event. I’d add a multi fuel- propane or natural gas generator is well worth it. No fuel to go bad and less carburetor issues. Also if you have a cordless tool kit the flashlights a sawzalls with large wood blades are incredibly valuable for nighttime light or cutting brush that fell in your path. A chainsaw to clear the road can be an absolute necessity, just be careful of power lines.
Hi John, I’m in upstate SC too, thanks for the video, I’m putting together a hurricane Helene debrief video too. Just subscribed
Good video! And kudos to you for admitting your mistakes. Being VERY seasoned Hurricane Floridians and living in coastal SW FL. we know all too well what you should do and not do before and after a major Hurricane hits in our area. Generators ARE A MUST for anyone who's serious about some kind of normal living afterwards not to mention keeping refrigerators up and running. One thing that stuck out to me with what you were doing was running your gen. 24/7. After Ian and our last Hurricane Milton power being out is just a given. Ian we were out for 27 days! But "farming out your gen" is the only way to do it without breaking the bank on gas and even worse the toll on the generator itself. What I mean when I say that is simply to run it every few hours to cool down a house and cool down refrigerators. We saved so much in fuel and wear and tear on the gen by doing it. I think the most we ran it was like 3 times a day and only for about 45 mins to maybe an hour at max.
It’s the little things. Good video good advice. Not complex, just little things that should be done ahead of time.
Great video, thanks. One point, get a dual fuel generator (gas and propane). Propane NEVER goes bad and burns MUCH cleaner, which extends the life of your generator. Keeping extra oil is a great idea too, but default should be cooking with fire. A few MREs on hand won’t hurt either. Again, great video, thanks!
Remember that LPG is also only going to give you about 85% power that gasoline will, through a generator.
…BUT dual fuel is the bomb. If the battery dies for the electric start, the pull start for the propane will work.
A butane stove is cheap and works pretty good. An easy thing to store as an alternative to wood. Also a propane barbecue with an element is also handy. The more options the better.
Good ideas. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, multiple options that don’t require electricity are vital, imho.
But yes, COFFEE! Liquid life. Love my Keurig, but French press coffee is really pretty good. I have a percolator, but I haven’t used it in years. This is a good reminder to get that thing out and use it again, hey?
The butane stoves don't run as long as the propane ones, and in very cold weather butane will not ignite until it's warmed. The small propane cannisters can be refilled safely and cheaply too- butane can't. That's why it's propane for me.
@@Jen-CelticWarrior There is no life without coffee. My electric coffeemaker is made so that you can load it and pour stove-warmed water into the filter which drips into the pot giving you the exact same coffee you're used to without any extra stuff to do it with.
SUCH GOOD ADVICE, I'm guilty of more than a few, thanks SO MUCH!!
Have solar for your DC stuff (charging lights, RO water purifier, phones,...) It is zero maintenance.
Years before I bought my Generac 6500. Being brand new I never even unboxed it, It was a Generac. When I pulled it out to use, fueled it up it ran like a champ, 2 pulls fired right off, The engine side ran just fine, no electrical out put. So this being my 5th Generator I have bought only to have the windings fail, I am going solar with a battery warehouse back up.
Good tips. Have a fan too... plug it into your generator, pointing at generator to help push exhaust further away. It also helps keep generator cool. I have a similar Generac, which I've had for 5 years.
Good video. Just wanted to add a specific experience. We lost power North of Seattle and I pulled out my Champion Dual Fuel generator. I couldn't get it to start with gas. No starter turnover, no firing on the pull cord. I had set it up a few years before but hadn't run it. When I changed over to Propane, I got it to start by pull-cord. Later came to find out that in Gas mode, the battery has to be nearly fully charged. Once power was restored, I connected a battery charger and it immediately started with the starter and ran until I let it starve. Getting a trickle-charger to be ready next time.
Thanks!
thank you!
Great video. Just had 8 days of no power after Hurricane Berle in TX. After running out to fill 20-gallon propane tanks for two days we got the plumber to come out and add a connection to my 500-gallon propane tank for the generator. All great points about keeping oil on hand for the frequent oil changes and regularly testing your system.
thank you for sharing your experience and I am glad you and and your family were able navigate the storm. I am surprised that you would use electric appliances to cook with in an emergency. propane is easy to store and you should be able to do all your cooking with propane... Portable propane appliances, such as camping stoves, are very cheap. You could even get a percolator coffee maker to make your coffee on a propane burner... My plan is to only run my generator as needed to keep my frig/freezer cold during spring through fall seasons or to run my Gas furnance during the winter months...
Glad you and your family are safe and thanks for the heads up.
Personally I keep fuel containers in an outdoor shed and only use high grade containers for longer storage. You can also get crappy fuel right from the station. It’s rare but it has happened to me (try not to buy fuel when the fuel truck is making a delivery as it can stir up anything at the bottom of the tank). I use a water separator funnel when transferring fuel from a container to the generator, mower etc. I have used Mr. Funnel AF1CB and AF3CB Fuel Filters successfully.
I also run the carburetors dry before storage.
Awesome cadence.... content... videos..EDITING.
Gkad ur family was safe.
Thanks for the tips 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿🔥
New subscriber, thank you for this entertaining AND educational video! Be safe and keep making resilience fun!
Thanks for the great tips (i.e. lessons learned); especially storing gas. I’ve been considering adding a sub-panel in my garage and outdoor plug for my generator. But, it’s great to know extension cords work too.
Really good lessons. People forget about the things which are most basic
You can run a room's power just by hooking the generator to any of that room's wall sockets and disengaging the fuse in the fusebox for that room. That isolates the room's electrical loop so the power that would normally be provided by the mains instead comes in via the generator. That way, you only need to have 1 extension running from the generator to that one room and you just use the power from that room's sockets normally.
Good advice!!!! Thank you for sharing.
Great lessons learned and shared. I don't want to mess with a gas generator, so I've invested in solar generators (EcoFlow, Bluetti, etc). I'm glad you made it through the disaster relatively unscathed.
Nice
Savannah GA here and we were without power for 5 days straight.
Small Honda generator kept the fridge and coffee maker happy.
Cooked on our Coleman gas stoves, both the propane and Coleman Fuel ones which I have had forever.
Uncomfortable and humid = yes but we survived it well.
I now want a small window A/C unit to run at night to cool and dehumidify one bedroom for comfortable sleeping.
Hi John, and others. WNC resident here, so I sympathize with your experience. This was not my first Hurricane or natural disaster having been through a few in New York including Hurricane Sandy. When we purchased our home, I had a generator hooked up with a sub panel installed to the house. This negated the need for all the power cords as the rooms with power were now able to be fed from the generator on the outside. In hindsight, I would have purchased a whole-house natural gas generator but, that may be out of the budget for some. The sub-panel is a less expensive option, even with the work being done by a licensed electrician.
I cooked on my stove top for most of my meals but, I also have the outdoor propane grill and a burner for beer brewing. The burner was not expensive and is available online.
Hope this comment and your video help some folks if they need to go through something like this. No matter what, you may not be as comfortable as you want but, you won't be worried that your family may suffer.