Outage

[muleman RIP]

The forums were down since Friday night because of the storms that hit Ohio and WV and other areas. Doc will be without power till late next week. The servers are in WV and had power restored this morning. Going to be a long HOT weekend for a lot of folks. Heat wave and severe storms and no a/c is no fun. Hats off to Doc for getting them back on line.

 

[bordercollie]

Thanks for a great job and forum. I sure wish Doc was close enough to lend him a generator! bordercollie

 

[Heatwave]

We need a national effort here: bury all the nation's utility lines. We cared enough to bring electrification to the most rural reaches of the land via REA, TVA, Columbia Basin Project, and all the other power generation projects. It's time now to initiate a project to get all those major lines underground.

 

[doggman]

The forums were down since Friday night because of the storms that hit Ohio and WV and other areas. Doc will be without power till late next week. The servers are in WV and had power restored this morning. Going to be a long HOT weekend for a lot of folks. Heat wave and severe storms and no a/c is no fun. Hats off to Doc for getting them back on line.

We had straight line "derecho" winds in 2009 that knocked out power for a week. We voluntarily used our RTV900 to carry the lineman, their supplies, the saws, and tools into hard to reach areas. They told us we helped them get the power restored 3 to 4 days earlier than they antcipated.

Unlike the advertising crap that you see on TV about real cowboy endorsed commercial grade industrial quality trucks, tools, beer, deodorant, underwear, blah, blah, etc., etc., etc., the RTV is the real article.

Oh, and so is Doc!

 

[Art454]

We need a national effort here: bury all the nation's utility lines. We cared enough to bring electrification to the most rural reaches of the land via REA, TVA, Columbia Basin Project, and all the other power generation projects. It's time now to initiate a project to get all those major lines underground.

Good idea but there is problems with it.....if there is a outage really hard to find and repair them and other problems as well as I was told by my electric company.

Art

 

[Mark.Sibole]

We need a national effort here: bury all the nation's utility lines. We cared enough to bring electrification to the most rural reaches of the land via REA, TVA, Columbia Basin Project, and all the other power generation projects. It's time now to initiate a project to get all those major lines underground.

That would be way to easy to do so it would never happen because its to practical.

 

[Peanut]

We need a national effort here: bury all the nation's utility lines. We cared enough to bring electrification to the most rural reaches of the land via REA, TVA, Columbia Basin Project, and all the other power generation projects. It's time now to initiate a project to get all those major lines underground.

the problem with putting the lines in the ground is water. when the water gets into them your out of luck til the water resides. down here we do have some underground utilities but all the transformers have to be above ground and other junctions all have to be above ground and every time we get hit with a storm and the water rises bam we are without power til it goes down. everytime we have a storm we are looking at atleast 2 weeks without power. and in other areas you have the ground that is constantly moving and shifting that would cause the lines to break. down here we always have no less than 3 weeks of food and enough fuel to run the generators for no less than a week to two weeks if needed. we keep no less than 6 propane tanks for the outside stove and grill to cook with .. these storms should be an eye opener for everyone to do the same no matter where you live. something as simple as lighting your house at night for free can be done by buying a few of them walkway solar powered lights you put them outside during the day and bring them inside at night and use them as candles.they are also good for charging your batteries during the day for flashlights and radios too.


putting the lines underground would be nice if we lived in a perfect world but mother nature isn't perfect. i think it would be a wise idea for the power companies to start stocking up on all the transformers and extra stuff they would need that way they would have atleast one replacement for everything in their power grid just incase of a emp or storm. to everyone who hasn't been affected by this outage i think now is the time to hit the stores and get stocked up on a few things.

 

[TWO GUNS]

Thanks for a great job and forum. I sure wish Doc was close enough to lend him a generator! bordercollie

.... and I second this statement !!!!!

 

[Doc]

The forums were down since Friday night because of the storms that hit Ohio and WV and other areas. Doc will be without power till late next week. The servers are in WV and had power restored this morning. Going to be a long HOT weekend for a lot of folks. Heat wave and severe storms and no a/c is no fun. Hats off to Doc for getting them back on line.

Thanks for doing the update Muley. I finally have power. My internet connection is still out, but I have a limited connection. Slow but better than nothing.
I've never seen so many towns and communities without power all at one time. Gas and ice were both in high demand. Lots of minor issues but everyone kept their cool, even in the 90+ degree heat.
Good to be back online.

 

[vintovka]

Speaking of underground utilities was on a recent trip up thru N coast of CA and OR. Saw substancial amount of subsidence/movement along HWY 101. The ground here is moving again big time here and NO ONE is talking but us engineers/geologists. Based on Northridge/ Loma Prieta studies (gee everyone already forgot them too?) even a very small displacement in any direction can cut/break lines. Excavation and repair is magnitude of orders greater than overhead repair.

 

[Peanut]

yea i would happily share a generator with anyone if they needed it. the best thing about power outages after a storm is all the nieghbors come outside and talk .i know after huricanes and the powers out we all get together and sit under the trees and shoot the bull we share info on where's ice and food and what stores are open and how far we had to drive to get there. the last storm we had knocked the power out for about two weeks we had to drive 2 and a half hours oneway to get gas and food and that was a daily trip. my dad was running his generators 24/7 and i would just run mine at night to cool the house down and get a good night sleep and also keep the deep freezers frozen. everyone would get together and pitch in to get fuel. i ran into one guy at a store and he had a trailer with 4 or 5 55 gallon drums he was filling up with gas he told me he was getting fuel for everyone on his street they had all came together and pitched in to pay for the fuel and they all divided it equally. i feel bad for the elderly and the ones who can't really do for themselves it's rough when you know a friend or familly member who needs help but you just can't reach them because of downed trees and power lines and no phone to call them to see if they are ok. latly i have been thinking of getting into some solar powered equipment just enough to run a few things and build it up little by little til i have enough power to run my house. we are building a small two room apartment to use as a second option to use if we need it and i have been stocking up on drill pipe to build a storm bunker something small with one a/c unit and a fridge that way i wouldn't have to worry about powering up a whole house i could just move into it til power is restored.

if anyone in this forum ever needs anything and i have it just ask and it's yours thats what we are here for .

 

[TWO GUNS]

.... one thing about power outage, teaches one what he forgot.


Just a Note:
When you have a back-up generator. Not only do you need to run it to
keep engine in A- 1 running condition. But you always need to plug in something to pull on the generator. Just cranking the engine don't do it.
In my case, I have a doulble hot plate, and a old Forman Grill, I plug up and let the generator pull on them for about 10 minutes every now and then. Load up the generator, does it some good.....
Keep good quality fuel stabilzer in fuel, and also keep quality stabilizer in storage fuel. Also, we run Sea Foam in our machines. We Change out fuel every year in our generators. Take care of your back-up plan and equipment. For when the time comes, that is when you appreciate all that what you've done >>>> For I have been there many times >>>>
.......

........ two guns

 

[bczoom]

OK, since we're talking about generators.

After you're done with it, close the fuel shut-off valve and let it run out of gas. This will drain the fuel lines and carb to pull all that ethanol crap out.

 

[TWO GUNS]

OK, since we're talking about generators.

After you're done with it, close the fuel shut-off valve and let it run out of gas. This will drain the fuel lines and carb to pull all that ethanol crap out.

bczoom is 110% correct.
In my case, we only run ethanol free fuel. But running the lines and carb out is a big plus !!!! There is many out there can't get there hands on ethonal free fuel ... My supplier is exactly one mile away, that is a blessing by itself !!!! Thank God !!!

Thanks zoom !!!

 

[Peanut]

yes i run mine every month for 30 minutes and hook a drill to it but if for some reason the generator ever stops producing curent a simple way to re-excite the field is to hook a drill to it while it's running and put the drill in reverse and turn the end with your hand 99% of the time it will excite the field and your good to go. when we used to install the generators on the new boats we would build the electrition would come down after and use some kinda power supply to excite the generator because when we would get them from the factory all the generators would be dead and had to be given a boost to get going.

my main generator is my welding machine i have a miller bobcat that puts out 11,000 watts and my second generator is a john deere that puts out just over 5,000 watts my dad has two generators too one is a 8,000 watt and the other is 13,000 watts we live on the same property so between both of use we can power up anything we need. i have to run my john deere every month to keep it serviced but my welding machine gets used atleast once a week so it's always good to go with fresh fuel and oil. when i run them for storms i change the oil every week in the john deere and every month in the bobcat. the generators are the one thing you just don't pack away til needed like you posted they need to be ran often and made sure that they keep good fuel in them my john deere gets atleast 1 gallon of fresh fuel a month the bobcat gets a full tank of fuel every few weeks. i do put stabil in both even though i run them regularly.

one thing to stay away from is those natural gas generators that tap into the gas lines . we had a few people who had them and they ran great til gustav came through and knocked a tree over and busted the main line coming down the street . the parish guys came down and cut the gas off running down the street and that left all those people who had them without any fuel supply to their generators. i think the best thing to do would be to just get a 100 gallon propane tank maybe even two of them and use that to run them. i would like to get the parts i need to convert my bobcat over to propane if needed and just keep them on hand that way if i run out of gas i can switch over to propane ina few minutes.

 

[Heatwave]

OK ... Luzianer exception: no power lines underground for y'all. But I gotta add: I've been to depths greater than 600' in a submarine ... if they can keep the water outta subs at 600+', they can keep it outta utility lines at 8'.

If we get after the problem, we'll generate the solutions.

 

[TWO GUNS]

OK ... Luzianer exception: no power lines underground for y'all. But I gotta add: I've been to depths greater than 600' in a submarine ... if they can keep the water outta subs at 600+', they can keep it outta utility lines at 8'.

If we get after the problem, we'll generate the solutions.

I agree with you Heatwave
.... but the ones who install the underground, has to come in from
another part of the world. All we have here is coonass electricians, gator getters, and swamp rats.
Heck, let a coonass hook up electricity down here, he will have you sparking like a lightning bug .....

 

[Peanut]

you got that right twoguns lmao and yes i agree with heatwave that anything can be done if you put your mind to it but we face one problem and that is to get the guys running this country to get off their buts and get it done. the one reason this will never happen is all the guys and ladys in office ain't worried about it because when something like this happens they all have nice protective shelters to go to and alot of security gaurds to help them get there and make sure they are well looked after. why do they have all this done just for them i don't know because if the country is gone and there's no power or food what do they need to be protected for? it seems that when the world does end or there is a big disaster the only people left in the world will be polititions and their secret service . but then again how long do you think it will take them secret service guys to turn on the person they are protecting knowing that their own familly was killed and instead of saving their familly they had to save some liar.

 

[71sschevelle]

I put aviation fuel in all my gasoline powered engines that aren't run very often. Since doing that I haven't had any carburetor or fuel filter problems at all.

 

[Doc]

I put aviation fuel in all my gasoline powered engines that aren't run very often. Since doing that I haven't had any carburetor or fuel filter problems at all.

Interesting idea.
Doesn't that make them run hotter?