Just need to vent...

Our Honda portable generators (1000w & 2000W) weigh a ton and we have to carry them from a small tool shed down a steep dirt slope about 30 yards to the house. They are well taken care of, but the first start of the season (pulling on the starter cords) is worse than starting my old Stihl chainsaw. We only drag them out if it is approaching a day without power. Around here, we often lose power for a week or more, once or twice each winter.

 

we have a 12kw kohler automatic, about 8 years old now. replaced a 12 year old onan that the mother board died on.
that had replaced a umongous diesel that came with the house

 

I cetainly don't miss that PNW ritual -- buying a generator big enough to heat and power your home, because you can't cut down trees until they're already causing problems -- which take days to fix. And windstorms every winter make it near-guaranteed that if you don't, you'll be sleeping w/ an indoor temp of 42F (like I did in 2008). No such issues now

 

We keep our Honda inverter generator (240v) 6kw 100% duty cycle in the garage with a long stainless Flex tube wrapped in insulation that we can either run outside the garage window or below garage door even in the freezing weather. Mod'ed to tri fuel. Plus - generator power in the RV if push came to shove & we had to do nights out there. Plus an indoor propane heater w/ a at least 200Lbs of spare propane fuel. If the zombie apocalypse goes any longer than a few days - we got a whole bunch of ammo &/or food & /or diesel we could trade for heating fuel. Most importantly, friends that are like-minded.

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I've got a Honda inverter 2000w. I strapped it on a dolly to wheel through the house if I want to put it on the porch or wheel it in front of the garage. If I had to move it any distance outside, I'd put it on a hand truck-those things are very handy. I use a Bluetti to run the fridge at night (for the quiet.)

Again, venting/ranting, the 22kw generator sucks down the propane, and it's not like you can just go off on vacation without thinking about the thing running until it either runs out of propane (1000 gal tank) or it runs out of oil. They're just glorified lawnmower engines unless you pay the big bucks. The way I use it, if there's an outage, I can take my time and think about what I'm going to do. The Honda runs the house unless water is needed (well). If I was to ever go on a vacation, I'd turn it off before I left.

Oh yeah, the ex wanted it. That kinda puts the cherry on top.

 

Cooling vents and combustion air must be clear.

 

That must have been one of the 'benefits' of living on the islands in the Sound. In the 'burbs on the mainland, most places get power restored much quicker.

And with the woodstove kept for backup, our house never chilled anywhere near that cold, even before the insulation upgrades.

 

I remember when a sudden windstorm felled a big stand of trees one November, & cut power to the area during a workplace outing (Bellevue). Chaos -- petrol stations all dead, so no one got fuel either. About ten of us had to walk around town 2hrs looking for our workplace, since 1) none of us had driven to this convention hall before; 2) our driver conveniently was in the red for fuel so couldn't drive back even if we knew the way (was going to fill up on the way back, grrr); and 3) none of us had smartphones yet, and those before the iPhone 3G were worthless with dead cell towers anyway.

Sat at home for a week, bosses saying the power hadn't been restored yet, so lost a week's worth of pay. So you'll forgive if my personal exps don't corroborate that claim

Only the first place I'd lived there, had any kind of insulation. Was this huge abandoned house, owned by a tech friend of one of our riding buddies (we were all in IT); the deal was to care for yard and house, and get a massive break on rent. Did so... but after the leftover gas ran out, had to depend on space heaters to warm one room -- my bedroom. After he sold the house, moved over a couple of years into two cottages -- both w/o insulation (or neglected to the point of non-function). First one taught me how to live in the second... and that one I remember fondly for a story of passing good fortune forward when you get it But neither cottage had a woodburning stove -- that's for people w/ mortgages

 

By any chance was that the Hanukkah Eve windstorm of 2006? Not November, but December 14, 2006.

I was then working in Redmond, next door to Bellevue. A new officemate had just flown in from the other coast, and was renting a room in a house in Bellevue. He arrived at that house a few hours after its power went out, and it stayed out slightly over a week, which was exceptionally unusual in the primary cities over the 40+ years I've been in the area. An uncomfortable 'welcome' to the PNW. Fortunately our workplace had numerous locker & shower facilities, which he relied on until his home's power was restored. Tons of power outages across the entire region, but not at my home that particular storm, our area was hit less hard. Though
many fuel stations closed, many traffic lights out causing massive congestion, so I camped out in a still-open fast food joint to let traffic thin out.

We've had numerous other outages. My personal record in suburbia was 35 hours from the Inauguration Day Storm of 1993, but nothing else has approached 24. Several went past 12, which is now the point (post insulation upgrades) where I fire up the wood stove in cold weather. In the middle of my home ownership here we had a good decade of nearly no time without power, but then neighborhood tree growth went under-maintained and we had three significant outages in a couple months, and a scattering ever since.

Back in the 1980s-90s, many coworkers living out in the rural fringes had many 3-5 day outages, but nearly all the denser population zones had almost everyone back on within a day, only small pockets going longer. And even in suburbia, some zones have far more and longer outages than others, especially those farthest away from the substations. My zone seems in-between, neither most nor least out of power.