Houston Generators and Emergency Power
By Russell Neal
During Hurricane Ike, 2.4 million people lost power along the entire Texas Gulf Coast and especially in the Houston area. Consequently, emergency power generators were a highly sought after commodity in almost every community across the region. Emergency generators were being sold throughout Houston in almost every appliance store, home improvement center, and local hardware store. The news media did a good job warning people of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and how to safely install a generator outside their home or garage. Due to the severity and size of this storm, little time was devoted to explaining how to select a home generator or what or what size would meet their electrical needs. People were confused and uninformed as to what fuel source and capacity to look for in an emergency power source.
Question for police/Fire regarding emergency supply list for home?
I hope & pray our Nation will never face a National Emergency where we will need to hunker down and wait for food, electric and basic services.
BUT……if we do, I want to be prepared for any such event. I have made a goal to be able to be for 6 solid Months. I am coming close to that goal now.
I would ask that you look over my list and offer any suggestions that may help…thanks:
(Supplies based on 2 Adults a 1 child)
1. Water: 75 pallets of water X24 bottles each. 150 1 gallon containers.
Our farm has a good well and we have 3 decent creeks running through. 300 water purification tablets enough to treat 600 gallons of water.
2. Food: Over 1500 variety of can goods, vegs, canned beef and assorted canned stews. 2 freezers full of beef & chicken/hams etc.
We raise cattle and horses, chickens, lambs but I am not counting these.
3. Power: I can a propane back-up for our house and barns with the capacity of running 24/7 up to 300 days full blast. Also have numerous Portable electric generators that run on gasoline, 7 gallons per 24 hr period and have 200 gallons at all times in fuel tank.
4. Communication: Numerous radio’s, 2 way and emergency band type.
5. Guns/Ammo: 30/30 500 rounds, 3, 40 cal with 1000 rounds + (nice gun btw) assorted 22′s 8000+rounds, 2, 45′s 800 rounds. Winchester 30/30 400 rounds, Rem 12 gag Shot gun assorted ammo amrox 500 rounds.
6. First Aid: Numerous first aid kits, small and large and several books on giving medical attention. Wife is RN nurse.
NOTE: I am not a survialist nut case, but I will sleep better with the world we are living in and we might be living in…..that’s all!
Thanks………
Rancher/Farmer 22 years
The Truth……lol, good idea but I don’t have cable
Colt45….have most of that covered except for the bunker part. That’s a little out of my $$$$ leauge….if your really serious
scruffy…..good point, yes we rotate out our canned food and water.
CHeck the expiration dates on those cans periodically. I mean, in case there’s no national emergencies in the next 2 or 3 years, you might want to go ahead and consume the canned food and then replenish the supply for the next 2 or 3 years. It’d be awful if you had to wait, say, 11 years for a national emergency and then find all the stuff you stashed was spoiled.
It’d be like that Twilight Zone episode, where the book-lover was the only surviving person after a nuclear blast – but oddly enough, the city library’s books were all intact, as were the grocer’s canned foods. The guy was just beginning to enjoy having nothing to do but read and then his reading glasses broke.
And all he could say was, “It’s not fair!”
Steam Engine to Power Home in Emergencies?
I have decided I want to get a steam engine, so I can power my home in the case of long term power outages. Before I get lectured about gasoline generators, solar panels and wind mills… I have considered those options, and I have decided a steam engine is the best long term option for emergency power, and it is not especially fragile.
I have searched the internet, but I only see mostly steam engine toys. I want something a little more substantial.
I don’t need constant power, just for a few hours every week.
Where can I get a steam engine that is of good quality, but won’t break the bank? I don’t want bottom of the line, but probably cannot afford top of the line either.
I want something that will work and last, but is a good value. I don’t have an unlimited budget.
I live in Houston, Texas if it helps.
Thanks.
My father knows how to weld…. I can probably convince him to help with welding, or at least teach me. Neither of us have an arc welder though, so I would need to rent one.
I don’t really want to make my own boiler. I don’t trust my or his skills enough not to do it wrong and create an exploding boiler hazard. I prefer a professionally made boiler that has been tested properly… not too fond of shrapnel accompanied by boiling water… not fun, especially in an already emergency when this would be in use.
I don’t know how power from steam engines is…. so I don’t know how big it needs to be.
I just want to cool my house on especially hot days, warm it on especially cold night, and generate power for a hot shower once a week. (with cold water showers in between, of course)
Our generator (gasoline) is 10HP, so probably about 10HP…. I don’t know how steam engine power is judged though…. I am kind of uneducated in 19th century technology.
Are you sure the Jensens are not toys? The pictures look like the size of a toy train set.
On the second link, they sell “castings”…. is that a complete engine?
I am not sure the last link is even selling anything.
I want to get this stuff professionally made… making my own sounds fun, but in an emergency, I don’t want some poorly made thing I put together falling apart when I need it most.
I looked through my recently received copy of NorthernTool’s catalog earlier today…. I have not seen steam engines in there yet.
I think this technology is probably a little outdated for most places to make any money off of them. More of a specialty item, it seems.
Just FYI…..
Wind mills require wind, too hit and miss.
Solar panels wear out after a few years. If my emergency comes near the end of their life, they might wear out during my long term emergency.
Gasoline generators, of course require gasoline. Gasoline has been in short supply in most recent disasters.
Steam engines don’t wear out quickly, they require easily found fuel for power. They might not be as efficient for every day use…. but from my research, they are easiest to operate under a wider range of situations than other emthods.
Generac Generator vs Honeywell Generator?
Looking at 5500 watt Generac GP5500 and Honeywell 5500E the Honeywell is electric start. Question is never mind the electric start which is the better generator for home use during emergency. Also, about how much gasoline does a 5500 watt generator use, they both advertise 6.6 gals per 10 hrs at 50% load but looking for actual if anyone should know. Thanks
Other than electric start both appear very similar in features. The Generac engine is OHVI, which is claimed to have 3-5 times the expected lifetime of a standard OHV engine on the Honeywell. I’d do some more research on who manufactured the Honeywell generator and what brand its engine is. That could be needed for future maintenance and to obtain parts.
http://www.generac.com/Portables/GP/Products/GP_5500/
http://www.shophoneywellgenerators.com/store/catalog.asp?item=4#
I really like the Generac brand and would tend to lean that way. A properly operating engine should start on the first pull, so unless you have some sort of physical disability the electric start is somewhat unnecessary. I’ve seen far too many batteries destroyed from improperly charging, and then the electric start won’t work until the battery is replaced anyhow.
I have a 5500 watt generator with Briggs and Stratton OHV engone. It is used to power my home during power outages. It can run from about 7am until 10pm on a tank of fuel. Obviously the load varies greatly during the day. If you have a heavy load such as an air conditioning system running full time the fuel consumption will be higher.
Prior to the B&S generator, I had a Generac 5500XL with similar specs to the ones you are considering. It had difficulty getting my well pump started, likely due to startup power requirement maxing out what the generator could supply. The B&S generator has a peak rating of 8500 watts and barely notices when the well pump starts. You may want to add to your choices to include something with a higher peak power rating.
Read through my home generator page for other information.
There are transfer switches for back up generators. If utility goes down, it’ll disconnect from utility automatically and go to generator power(ATS’s) Most utilities run at 13800 volts for primary and kicked down through the transformers secondary to 220volts.So if your main was still on and the generator was on the opposite would happen. You could kill one of the lineman working the lines. That could be a by-law for your area. Residential ATS’s are on the market. Gentrans
I think that the main reason is, we are generally in denial. We try to beleive that it won’t happen to us. Storage can be an issue but, that is more of an excuse than a reason. Did you notice that those that were the least prepared were the ones that complained the loudest about not getting help?
Why do people always wait until the last minute to buy emergency supplies for a hurricane?
Things like batteries, generators, bottled water and plywood which folks in Texas are now having the nerve to complain about stores running out of them?
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to maintain a stash of these kinds of things in your attic so you wouldn’t have to fight lines of 1a thousand people at Home Depot whenever there’s a hurricane bearing down on you?
Fuzzy, batteries have a shelf life of at least five years. Bottled water could last at least a year if not more. When these items expire after a couple of years, you simply buy new ones. What’s so hard about that?
Gee, I didn’t know generators had shelf lives. Duhhhhh. I’ll have to check the expiration date the next time I go to buy one. Don’t want a stale generator.
Good grief.
I realize that people have a hard time buying their daily necessities but if they can’t afford to maintain and replenish a simple and inexpensive emergency kit like this, then maybe they ought to consider food stamps.
why don’t you look into a generator that would run off natural gas or propane. considering what little that you would be using it for, this would probably be a little easier for you
Emergency Generator Power during no power outage.?
I recently overheard some people talking about power, and one of the fellows brought up a very confusing statement. One guy related that he had a power generator that used very little if any fuel to work, and that it supplied his whole house with power during an outage on 3 occasions with no incident. Intrigued I listened to them more intently. This gentleman said he was going to cancel his commercial power, and use the generator exclusively for his home needs. At the mention of this the other man piped in with the “fact” that to disconnect from commercial power and use generated power was illegal during a time when commercial power was in service and available. That made no sense to me. How is that illegal, if that absurd statement is even true?
I guess i mean that if you were to totally disconnect from commersh power. Is it illegal then to use generated power, If commersh was still readily available in the area. I got the impression from the conversation that we had no option but to use commersh unless it was an emergency and nothing else during normal operating times. The answers are great though very insightful.