What happens when the power goes off?

[theremart]

The last few days has been most interesting. I had an electrical fire underneath my house and thank God I was there when it happened, and due to finding it quickly and having fast acting neighbors, the fire did very minor damage.

But... I have lost both gas and electrical power to my house. I have had to rely 100% on solar power, and generator power. I am finding that my laptop is awesome for running on low power, and that I can keep it and my internet going for hours using my inverter on charger. I did not hook up an imhotep light but, have been using led lights and am amazed at how many hours they run from a single charge.

Heat has been the only thing lacking, I have fired up an oil lamp and it seems to help, the nights have been mild only getting down to 40 deg, but I have extra blankets for that.

I have rewired the burnt electrical wires, and tommorrow the electrican will be out to check my work. I did not know what I have learned in building the various project here would come in so handy.

The small generator has paid for itself in being able to repair the damage done with electricity is much easier.

I look forward to going back on grid, but I feel this experience is bringing much closer to the day that I can be released from it.

It has been an adventure!

[Sephiroth]

Glad your alright

Definately sounds like an adventure... kind of give you an idea of how much power you actually need to get by day to day and how much you can cut back on

Have fun with the electrician

[Lidmotor]

Mart's Fire

Glad that you are OK and that the fire was minor. I hope that your experience with the "electrician" goes well. Where I live here in southern California the big earth quake is always on our minds. There will be no forcast and like your fire it will happen suddenly. Most people have a "kit" assembled for that dark day. I wish that you had one of the Imhotep lights ready to try out. The LED solution sounds like it worked well though. Heat is an interesting problem. If you could vent your little wood gas stove that might work. Watch out for carbon monoxide if you do.

This event was a really good test of things. Let us all know what conclusions you make about real needs in a real emergency. What worked and what didn't
Hang in there.


Lidmotor

[theremart]

Solutions I have learned so far.

Well I was offered a hotel, and also offered to stay at other friends houses. The disadvantages of this is I don't like leaving my house empty when others know that I may not be there. A very tempting target for a thief.

I was very dismayed by the amount of light my oil light gave off, the heat is appreacited but not very good.

I tried making an alcohol stove. I failed. I tried to calculate how much it would cost me to run it, but I found 1 quart of alcohol is 1.88 from walmart. Not a good solution that is 7.52 a gallon. Not good at all.

I have tried my little wood stove inside before, and it gave off too much fumes to be practicle. What I did think would be a very good solution for long term is to get myself a wood stove, then put a wood gas stove inside it. I am thinking maybee a rocket stove. This would burn very clean and be safe. It would be alot of work, but I believe I would have less ashes to deal with.

Since my situation should be temporary, I bypassed getting a stove, if I had a real problem I would rent me a salamander heater then power it with my batteries ( in theory ) if it was like January. My real concern is the water pipes. I am thinking if I was to be here long term I would put a valve on so I could drain all the water out of the water pipes so there would be no chance of them freezing. If that was the case I could stop worrying about heating the whole house and simply heat a small room.

I was considering using propane heater, at walmart the small canasters are $3.00. But, again in terms of safety I am not sure of the fumes they create may have to open a window slightly if I tried that method.

But, with my solar powered batteries I can watch DVD movies on my laptop and power the internet.

The thoughts I am having is... perhaps I could run my laptop even longer if I had a car adapter that would bypass the inverter. I consume about .3 amps in running the inverter, I am thinking perhaps there would be less draw if I had the car adapter?

But the best thing to do is conserve on heat. Going for long walks at Walmart and other stores means less time having to heat here.

I have considered boiling that large pot of water (4 gallons ) with my wood gas heater then using a small fan against the pot of water inside. Problem is this only lasts for about 2 -3 hours. Takes 40 min for me to boil the water. If it was very cold outside it would not be a good idea.

I must say the Laptop has been a real winner, also since I upgraded my internet I now have a dsl box that is also a router. Having to power only one box other than this laptop is a real winner.

Cheers!

[theremart]

Glad I am alright..

Glad your alright

Definately sounds like an adventure... kind of give you an idea of how much power you actually need to get by day to day and how much you can cut back on

Have fun with the electrician

Thanks!

Yes I am learning good survival skills. The bucket of water I had did me much more good than the fire estinshgher that I could not get to work! Having good neighbors was a major plus as they called the fire department and rigged up a hose to help. Also a neighbor brought me a hot meal after it was all over. Was awesome to have that kind of help.

[Lidmotor]

Tips for a disaster

Thanks for the description of what happened after the "event". I was surprised. Things that one doesn't even think about. Like the bucket of water when that fire extinguisher (hanging on the wall all dusty) ---doesn't work. Or the neighbors who help you put out the fire and bring you a hot meal. How do you plan on that?
Have you thought about getting two 5 gal. bottles of propane. Lots of useful energy in those two bottles. Lots of ways to use it. We also have quite a lot of bottled water. Enough for 5 days. Luckily we don't have to worry about freezing pipes. Broken water pipes will be our problem.
My Dad has a motor home in his driveway fully stocked as his lifeboat in case of a disaster. I have my sailboat--if I can get to it.

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[wpage]

Thank God you are safe

Happy to know you and your loved ones are OK...

This is a problem that we could all learn from and certainly sympathise to you and your family with. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help...

More important may be for you to post lessons learned to help us in similar emergencys. My prayers are for you in the mean time

[Peter Lindemann]

Staying Warm....

Mart,

Sorry to hear about your fire, but glad to hear that you have learned so much from the experience. As you can see, staying warm is the BIG energy user as we move into Winter. If you had at least ONE ROOM in your house that was insulated to R-90, you could bring your 4 gallon pot of boiling water in there and stay warm all WEEK!

Start by considering the heat reflective paint additive Aaron has been talking about. His house has a couple layers of the stuff on all of the inside walls. I've been over at Aaron's house a lot recently, working on our new project, and I must say, his house is toasty warm. He burns about one log per hour in his fireplace insert, which isn't much. Also, warmth just seems to come from EVERYWHERE, not just the fireplace. Regardless of the negative comments by some people in the threads, the paint additive works from what I can FEEL.

Just a thought on up-grading your survivability for the next time the power goes off.

Peter

[theremart]

Thanks again for good advice.

Thanks guys,

I have enough water for about 2 weeks here. But I am happy water is not one thing I lack. The water is still on.

I should be back on the grid soon, so all should be much better.

Tonight I came out of panic mode and realized DUH you have 4 fully charged golf cart batterries each pair can give me easily 2 amps for over 20 hours. So I now have floresnt 40 watt lights at full power. BIG improvement over the leds and candle light I was using before.

I have had several sunny days lately so battery charging has been good semi batteries up to 12.79... Plenty of laptop and internet power.

Tested microwave on inverter.... TOOO much power for it. If i used a low power setting it might work..

So far the big winner is the 50 ' extension cord with the power inverter. I can move power to where I need it quickly.

Anyhow, I fried up some eggs and some toast on the woodgas stove. yum

hmm... On peters idea of the paint.... I wonder if one could take a tent and paint it with that. I wonder if it would hold the heat the same.....

Anyhow Thanks for coments and prayers, camping at home can be fun

[Lidmotor]

Mart's Disaster Movie!!!????

I hope that you are making a video of this. Stay warm tonight. Make a camp fire and sing a few songs?? Maybe marshmellows?

[Bodkins]

Glad your still alive . Just one thing to add if your can get sawdust from anywhere (my local woodyard cant get rid of it) Try this burn its a heating and stove all in one runs for 8 hour .

The Fulgora sawdust burning stove - Knowledge Bank | HEDON Household Energy Network:

[Sephiroth]

Glad your still alive . Just one thing to add if your can get sawdust from anywhere (my local woodyard cant get rid of it) Try this burn its a heating and stove all in one runs for 8 hour .

The Fulgora sawdust burning stove - Knowledge Bank | HEDON Household Energy Network:

One of my friends did this! He makes wooden vivariums for a living (ALOT of them!) and used to have to pay someone to take the sawdust away. But last month he had some kind of vacuum installed that sucks all the shavings into the furnace and keeps his workshop nice and toasty and seriously drops his "carbon footprint" as well since he is burning less fuel. Or more accurately, making use of fuel that is normally wasted.

[Bodkins]

One of my friends did this! He makes wooden vivariums for a living (ALOT of them!) and used to have to pay someone to take the sawdust away. But last month he had some kind of vacuum installed that sucks all the shavings into the furnace and keeps his workshop nice and toasty and seriously drops his "carbon footprint" as well since he is burning less fuel. Or more accurately, making use of fuel that is normally wasted.

Where do i get a burner for Sephiroth has he made them ?

[rickoff]

Glad to hear that you are okay, and were able to quench that fire quickly, Mart.

I thought that you had a waste oil burner that you could use for heat. Or am I mistaken? If you don't have one, I can send you the plans. That uses a discarded hot water tank, plus a few odds and ends, and is a weekend project. You can usually scarf up some waste oil from your local recycling center, a service station that does oil changes, or a restaurant that deep fries foods.

In this situation, it would be great to have one of Lloyd's friction heaters handy to at least provide heat. We had a wicked bad ice storm here in Maine a few years back, during the dead of winter, and many people were without any electric power for 2 to 5 weeks. To survive at home, I hooked the cooling sytem of one of my cars (bypassed the radiator and fan, and used a 190 degree thermostat) to circulate through my home's radiator loop, ran an inverter off the battery for AC power to keep my fridge running, and just kept the engine at a 600 rpm idle. I'd shut the engine down while we were gone to work, and the house would only drop to about 45 degrees by the time we returned home, even with the outside temperature down around 20 degrees. And while I was at home I only ran the engine intermittently. I had some heavy cast iron radiators at that time, and they radiated heat for a long time after the system was shut down, so it worked out quite well.

Your cellar should be the easiest part of your house to heat, and you can retreat there in an emergency. It will usually remain at 40 degrees or higher with no heat applied, even when it is quite cold outside, so it doesn't take much to raise the temp another 25 degrees or so. A Glo-Warm propane heater will easily keep your cellar toasty with little fuel used.
GloWarm blueflame heaters are vent free heaters
For that matter, you could keep an old propane kitchen stove/oven unit in your cellar for both cooking and heating, and making hot water.

I hope all goes well for you, Mart. You must be in a warmer climate than I am - it is just 22 degrees here as I write this.

Best wishes to you,

Rick

[mrbreau]

Bad news is sometimes good news in disguise.

Hello Mart? Your plight is some good news and some bad news to me. I emphasize with you because I too am not ready to get off the grid. It is my goal to get off the grid this year but problems keep rising that HAVE to be dealt with. Your experience shows me just how far away I am, and I thought I was pretty close except for power generation.

Over the years I have always been one to look out for the worst calamity and prepare for it. Examples already given, such as rickoff’s, “if the power goes out then what do I do?” In such instances, when I lived in New York, I had a Kerosun* heater on standby that held to when the power went out. It not only served as heat but as a cooking venue. At night I would have a large canning pot full of water keeping the air moist and adding to the available heat. The house was large so I didn’t worry about using available oxygen then. And, of course, kerosene was a lot cheaper then so it was a viable alternative. Today is a lot different story, as you well know.

Today I live in much smaller quarters and fires have had their effects on me, using up available oxygen. I’m very wary about using ANY system that burns anything in any way, shape, or form. I am totally electric dependant and have learned to manage usage accordingly. For example, my electric hot water heaters all have switches on them to keep them from recycling. On the coldest west Texas winter nights a 1500W electric heater from Wal-Mart will keep this place plenty warm enough for me. It isn’t used all the time and THAT is a blessing as it really runs the bill up.

It may interest you, or anyone for that matter, that you can purchase 12V appliances at truck stops, refrigerators, coffeepots, and much more. Using these eliminate the need for an inverter. And speaking of inverters, the smallest that will run a microwave efficiently is 1000W. I learned this from experience driving longhaul once upon a time. A 750W will start the microwave but won’t keep it going long enough to do the job. And if you are into TV then you’ll have to settle for a small one, really small.

I have recently located solar appliances on the web and I am especially interested in the solar water well pump. There is a scad of DC appliances on the web too, though the prices are pretty high for my pocketbook.

Like you, Mart, I’m working on power generation, RV, SG, and others. So far, I have not had much success in building ANYTHING that will do the job for as small as my place is. I am impressed, however, with the *almost* results with Alum Batteries, Bedini systems, and RV. All seem close but so far no cigars.

Thank you for posting your adventure(?) and what you are doing about/with it. I am glad that you have survived the ordeal so far.

Keep up the good works.

Warren
..

"....the moment I stopped following others and started coming to my own understanding based on the work of others is the moment I started succeeding." Allcanadian on "Dipole"