The Generator

Yesterday I was preparing for 4th of July weekend and getting out my Sevylor inflatable Kayak and other things to float on for the 4th. IN the process I had to grab the handle to my generator and wheel it outside my garage.

It's useful if you own or rent a home often to own a generator for when storms when trees go down or the power goes out for any reason to have a generator.

I realized a few years ago that in my home we lose about $500 worth of food within 24 hours of a power outage.

So, it was worth it to me to buy a $500 dollar generator from Orchard supply and have them put it in the back of my truck so I could bring it home and assemble the wheels and handle on it and start it up and try it out (after adding oil to the crankcase and gasoline to the gas tank).

But you know how it is with these things, (as soon as you buy a generator you don't need one as much as you did before) because the weather is milder because of Climate change than before (or else it is really bad and you need it for a month or more).

But, either way my rule about how we can easily lose $500 worth of food in 24 hours with no power makes it useful to buy a generator because it makes it cost effective the first year that happens.

But, since I have worked as an Electrician and electrician's helper from ages 12 to 17 summers with my father and when I was 21 when I burned out on computer programming computers for a while before RAM existed because Batch processing was very tedious and hard to trouble shoot without RAM to help you then in the 1960s and early 1970s, I know a lot about safety and staying alive while using generators around your home of business.

The first thing you need to know is to not have any appliance plugged into your wall sockets while you are using your generator in relation to them if you are going to power them directly from your generator.

You can throw the main switch to all your electricity in your home off. But you don't need to if you run everything direct to your electrical generator.

What I do is to buy a 100 foot cord (the orange kind used outdoors) then station my generator somewhere outside (preferably not in my garage because of carbon monoxide poisoning).

But, if it is raining I wheel it just inside my garage and often leave the garage door open for ventilation but you really need to be careful about all this if you wheel it inside your garage that the carbon monoxide doesn't get up into the house or kitchen or stay in the garage if your washing machine and dryer are in your garage too and you or your wife and kids decide to wash or dry something. So, be really careful with this.

So, everything you are going to run by generator you unplug from the wall sockets and plug into your 100 foot long power cord. (If you aren't dealing with a lot of distance you could use a shorter orange power cord) but my home is 2500 square feet so I have a lot of space to cover electrically.

But, even with my $500 generator on wheels with a handle I start with my refrigerator always.

Why?

Because this is where you lose the most money when your freezer stuff goes bad within 24 hours of losing power.

So, the moment power goes out and I'm home for it I spring into action moving my generator into position and I start to move the refrigerator out from the wall to unplug it from the wall socket and to plug it into a surge protector I keep for this purpose that is plugged into the 100 foot orange cord that should be 3 pronged so you don't get shocked. The extra prong will protect you more if a storm is going on outside. Because you will be running in and out trying to get everything in order and often your bottoms of your feet are wet so be careful.

So, normally what I do is first plug the refrigerator into the surge protector into the 100 foot cord from outside. Next I plug in standing lamp in the kitchen next to the refrigerator so we can see in the kitchen. Then I plug into the surge protector my Wifi and last I plug into the computer my my TV (but sometimes your cable will be down or your wifi will be down because everything is down, cable and WIFI all over so it's important to use your cell phone or land line to find out what is out locally.

What I usually do so neighbors stay nice is to only run my generator from about 8 or 9 AM until about 9pm at night so people can more easily sleep during the night. Most things in your refrigerator will still be good if you do it this way too.

So, hopefully this helps you to deal with power outages in the future at your home or business.