On Emergency Power

Notice the double entender literary device in the title. How clever of me.

We were on emergency power. We had a storm “Like Nothing I've Ever Seen” and it put our lights out for 6 days - yes, it was worse other places – and we learned some things that I'll share. So, just in case somebody might see this and it will help them... all planning is “just in case”.

We live in a nice house. It's simple enough, but it's pretty well thought out. I have a recptacle on the outside where I can plug in a portable generator and a switched panel box that contains the emergency circuits, water well, heat (not electric), refrigeration, a few central electrical outlets. And it all works, It's simple. It's economical. It's perfect.

Except for this little refrigeration problem. I discovered to my dismay that these new EnergySaver appliances work by sipping a little electricity almost constantly. Like probably everybody else I looked at the bill at the end of the month and was never conscious of how long those units were running. It may be more efficient when on the grid and consumption is metered, but it works against you on generator power. You would rather have a larger cooling unit that was capable of working quickly then rest both the referation unit and the generator. As it was I was generating 5000w to run two 600w refrigerators and freezers and I had to run it almost constantly – about 18 hrs/day. That uses a lot of fuel; in my case gasoline. About 10 gal/day. It is neither convenient nor safe to store that much gasoline. You certainly don't want it in your garage. I keep it in a barn. And how do you keep it fresh? I would buy in the fall – the primary concern being both without electricity and snowbound – then use it up all summer long and replace it again the next fall. But the last two outages have been from summer storms. I went into this one under supplied. If I had not been able to get out I would have been up that creek.

Second, if you must run extension cords those little #16awg cords don't do it. Buy a big one. Plan on it. You would like to rap your freezer in extra insulation, but the owner's manuals tell you not to do that. If you had sufficient warning you could freeze big blocks of ice and just leave them there. The extra mass would be helpful. I know people in hurricane paths do that.

And last, it may also be that those little builder center generators aren't what you need. How easy are those to maintain? How long will they run before the brushes are gone? Can you replace them easily? Where do you get the parts? I have a small commercial unit, bought second-hand, and was fastidious about maintaining it. I tested it periodically, very diciplined. You have to be. When you need it you're going to use it hard. Hard! It has to be ready. Some repair parts should be kept on hand, sparkplugs, breaker points, fuses, some gaskets. And those people buying generators at the last minute? I went into this reasonably well prepared and there are a lot of things I need to work on.

I'll be looking into alternative fuels, propane and diesel, and looking for ways to solve that refrigeration problem.

Ideas are welcome. Please post them below.

Update: 16 Jul 12

I asked a salesman (not necessarily the best information, but it seemed a logical place to start) about freezer technology and he told me that even commercial units use the same design concepts and are different only in that they keep foods at a lower temperature. Then he started off, as we all do, about the lack of options because of the manufacturer's need to meet government mandated regulation.  And a reader sent me this link:

It didn't occur to me that the addition of methanol would make gasoline even harder to store.

Again, my problem is that because of the consumption pattern of EnergySaving refrigeration units I must run my generator almost constantly during an outage and and I don't have the ability to store gasoline in adequate quantities to be able to do that for more than just a few hours.

But the issue I wanted to address has to do with planning. The plan was faulty.

It's irrational for me to think that I'm going to be able to withstand an indefinite outage. If I could completely unplug from the grid I should just do that. So, from the outset I have to establish limits. What is, for me, a bad situation? How long should I anticipate that to last? What are the objectives? What can reasonably be done to minimize the consequences? And importantly, where is the point in which the plan falls apart?

From my example, the bad situation and objective was never about keeping the refrigeration units running. If that were the only criteria I would be money ahead to simply empty everything and replace it after every outage. But I can't draw water and I can't heat the house either and I have been snowbound as much as 8 days. Being unable to get out and unable to heat the house... that's a different problem.