Rough Day

[KenP]

We had a few things that needed to be done yesterday, but could hold off until today, so we decided to hit Prime Outlets in Williamsburg yesterday.

The driveup was uneventful, the boy was doing great, and there was no traffic at the tunnel. Then the first ominous sign appeared. I'd gotten directions to the wrong outlet mall and the wife and I are pretty much starving.

McDonalds... that works. Then I drive around for awhile and we eventually find the darned place. We'd both been there before, but for some reason I always forget where the hell the place is.

The wife finds some great deals, so she's happy and it's time to head home because my little sis is supposed to eat dinner with us and will be arriving at 5PM.

We head home at 3:30. I know it's a bad time, but we have a 45 minute drive and I need to fire the grill up.

Sure enough we hit traffic on I-64 and it sucks. Speed up, slow down, speed up, STOP.... etc...

I jump off the highway and head down 60 missing all the backups. Atleast we aren't sitting still. Then I decide to jump back on 64, but the route I take doesn't have an on ramp, so down another road until we can get on.

We're haulin' now. Ooppps, stop and go tunnel traffic for several miles...

I call my sis to tell her dinner is off but it turns out she'd left messages at home saying she couldn't come over. Had we known this, we'd have stayed in Williamsburg a couple more hours.

We're finally entering the 'hood and we see fire... on the power lines! WTF?!?! A cross bracket on a pole had broken and caught some trees on fire! It's ok, the road is blocked by police so another detour is in order, plus we live deep enough in the neighborhood we should be ok.

Nope! Power is out and guess what... NO HOUSE KEY!!! I only use the door opener so we can't get in the GD HOUSE!

Alright, we'll just go to BJ's because I need to get some pork butts and steaks for this weekend plus a few odds and ends.

We eat freaking 'dogs at BJ's and get our stuff and head home. Got to love hotdog burps in the car....

Power is still OUT!!!

We head to my other sister's house and put the meat in her fridge and hang out for awhile. We head home around 7PM with the food and guess what... STILL NO POWER!!! WTF?!?! They haven't even started hanging the cable!

We stop by a neighbor's house and the power company told him 8:45 the power would be restored.

Back to my sisters house until about 9:15. We head home again and.... NO POWER!!!

We're tired and just want to get in the house. Now had I called a locksmith hours earlier I know we'd have been in the house and I know I could have broken a window or something, but I didn't want too. They usually get us up and running pretty quickly...

Back to my sister's to drop the meat off. Heck, we'll just drive around around and eventually make our way home.

We get a message around 9:30 the neighbor that power should be up by 11pm. Great...

We drove through Chix Beach, hit the Oceanfront, cruised up the Blvd and eased into the 'hood at 10:45 to beautiful shining lights.

What a day... Now i need to go get those butts!!!

[frenzy1]

that's indeed a long day !!

[mdoyle]

When our neighborhood was new we had weekly power outages at the hottest time of the day. It had grown so fast, the power company couldn't supply the peak demand.

Anyway the trick I learned while we waited someplace cool with our new baby for the power to return, was to call our home. If the answering machine picked up, the power was on

It's an minor hassle when it's just you, but with a newborn it was a major pain in the ass. Our new A/C lost it's compressor with all the brown outs and outages, all we got were rate hikes.

[RubHer Yellow Ducky]

HIDE-A-KEY!

EMERGENCY GENERATOR!

[Karsun]

Sounds like a really sucky day. Great idea about the answering machine although I bet a lot of people have voice mail now. I know my mom calls and will say, "Are you there?" like I can hear her. LOL Anyway, we have one of those door things that you punch in a code to get in. Those are run by batteries so that's helpful if the power was out. Sucks about the dinner too though.

[Big Dad]

It could always be worse...maybe someone is trying to tell you something.

After all, you could be sleeping in a ditch, missing your family, wishing you were able to eat real food, not bothered by those problems....

[3Hummer]

only lesson i think is learned here KenP always carry your house what are you crazy? Theres no knowing when power will go out! But in florida power outages are more frequent! sorry bout hte rough day!

[Big Dad]

A couple of years back -- Christmas -- the power was out for almost 2 weeks in WA. We have a portable generator so we were fine with heat and lights, hell the sattelite TV worked fine too. People were stealing generators but we had chained ours pretty tightly to the gas meter. then locked down the backyard like a fortress. The guys house across the street caught fire after he put his fireplace trash in the garbage container. He left for work and a few hours later the side of his yard and house was on fire. I put it out with his garden hose before the fire dept could respond. I guess my point is you should think about picking up a generator that can handle running your furnace, and all the necessary circuits you think you'd like to have in case an outage lasts longer than expected. Within 2 days, Seattle and surrounding areas were out of generators. Gas stations, and grocery stores were down for days without power. Oh yeah, the grill worked great too! There were only 2 houses in the neighborhood with generators.

[KenP]

Originally Posted by mdoyle

Anyway the trick I learned while we waited someplace cool with our new baby for the power to return, was to call our home. If the answering machine picked up, the power was on

We were doing that from the get-go, but something weird happened after awhile. The phone wouldn't ring, we were getting a busy signal. Really pissed us off.

I had a couple of generator folks give us estimates about 6 months ago and found out some interesting things. The first is that a whole house generator, as in the kind that will run all the A/C's and everything else, can be pretty darned expensive. I'm re-evaluating my expectations here.

The other thing I learned is that because of our proximity to the water and that we fall under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, we have to jump a number of regulatory hoops to get a generator. Just like gettting a pool here is a real PITA.

I still see a generator in the near future, not the massive scale I really want.

[mdoyle]

Generators are a good idea, just make damn sure you're connecting it to your home correctly, otherwise you pose a hazard to linemen working in the area.

If you decide on a generator, have an electrician install a sub panel with a disconnect from the main. Then breaker & power only the essentials staying within the design load of whatever generator you have. Add a weather protected exterior outlet to connect the generator to the sub panel and bolt in a heavy anchor to chain it up.

You'll need to maintain a fuel can with Sta-Bil mixed in too, if you really want to be prepared.

Outages here are scarce now, I keep a good supply of booze & firewood on hand to survive

[RubHer Yellow Ducky]

Originally Posted by mdoyle

Generators are a good idea, just make damn sure you're connecting it to your home correctly, otherwise you pose a hazard to linemen working in the area.

If you decide on a generator, have an electrician install a sub panel with a disconnect from the main. Then breaker & power only the essentials staying within the design load of whatever generator you have. Add a weather protected exterior outlet to connect the generator to the sub panel and bolt in a heavy anchor to chain it up.

You'll need to maintain a fuel can with Sta-Bil mixed in too, if you really want to be prepared.

Outages here are scarce now, I keep a good supply of booze & firewood on hand to survive

???

[KenP]

Originally Posted by RubHer Yellow Ducky

???

It's a fuel stabilizer that allows you to store fuel in an engine without causing damage.

We already have a generator sub, but would need a larger one to run the junk I'd like hooked up.

As for fuel, natural gas.

[wpage]

Originally Posted by KenP

As for fuel, natural gas.

Agreed Natural Gas is the ticket for back up

[mdoyle]

Sta-Bil additive is every piece of power equipment I've got, there isn't anything better for engines that get intermittant use. Even draining the gas for storage doesn't totally remove it from every passage in the carb, and that's were gunk will form and ruin your day, Sta-Bil prevents that.

Almost every Spring when the bikes come out, I see someone on the side of the road with engine trouble and that old ad pops in my head, "SHOULD HAVE USED STA-BIL!".

Here's a link: http://www.goldeagle.com/sta-bil/

Agreed, natural gas is great for back-up, but 95% of the generators sold run on pump gas.

[3Hummer]

would it just be way easier and cheaper to just carry the key?

[mikejr]

Originally Posted by KenP

We were doing that from the get-go, but something weird happened after awhile. The phone wouldn't ring, we were getting a busy signal. Really pissed us off.

I had a couple of generator folks give us estimates about 6 months ago and found out some interesting things. The first is that a whole house generator, as in the kind that will run all the A/C's and everything else, can be pretty darned expensive. I'm re-evaluating my expectations here.

The other thing I learned is that because of our proximity to the water and that we fall under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, we have to jump a number of regulatory hoops to get a generator. Just like gettting a pool here is a real PITA.

I still see a generator in the near future, not the massive scale I really want.

Replace your door lock with a Schlage pushbutton digital lock. No need for keys and the lock is very high quality. If it dies you can use a key. We have them on our home and garage...really slick!

[Big Dad]

Natural gas = potential problems in an earthquake.

We have an Onan Diesel generator at the Alaska house and, a portable gas generator in WA.

[KenP]

Originally Posted by 3Hummer

would it just be way easier and cheaper to just carry the key?

Yes, and we'll take care of that with a key or the pushbutton lock set, but the conversation has moved on to generators.

[KenP]

Originally Posted by Big Dad

Natural gas = potential problems in an earthquake.

No problems here.

Now the convo moves to earthquakes.

[Big Dad]

"I aint afraid of no quake!"

I must say that I like the fact that I don't deal with hurricanes or tornadoes though!