Santa Rosa Fire Storm- Motivated Generator and switch gear Project

Many friends lost homes, Many saved on the edge as well. I got a stack of partially burnt portions of paper that was coming down on me early Monday morning. The Orange glow from Coffey Park was at about 40 degree angle looking north-east.

I was ready to bounce, and had a friend about 300 yards closer and better visual spot than me, his text message was great data.

Pretty crazy event, Here is a long drone video from local news, shows the Santa Rosa area that got it.


Anyhow we can get together later and talk shop. I'm an OCLI guy before they got destroyed. Be funny if you worked there.
 
Nope, did not work there - worked 24 years for Varian in Walnut Creek - Made Gas & liquid Chromatography & Mass spectroscopy instrumentation.

After all of the dust clears we will definitely get together!
 
I think you guys were customer, perhaps you bought light filters or the such.

After the smoke clears, lets get together.
 
We just ordered an 11 KW Generac by-pass generator. We live in the sticks and heat with propane. It comes with an auto-bypass panel that'll switch I think 4 220's and 6 110's. We plan on only powering 1 220 circuit (well pump), so that'll give us 12 total 110 circuits. Will cost about $4000 installed. It drinks about 45 gallons of propane a day if running at full load. We have a 500 gallon tank so we'll make sure the tank doesn't get below 50% before calling for a fill. If you're on natural gas, you'd have no supply worries.

Fantastic that you avoided total destruction. We lost power 3 winters ago to an ice storm on a Saturday night and didn't get power back until that Wednesday. We have 2 wood-burning fireplaces and 1 propane, so with the fortunately mild 35 deg. days never saw the house go below 58 deg. It was "quaint" cooking sandwiches over the fire. But running down the road to fill 5-gallon pails of water to flush toilets got old quickly!

Best of luck!

Bruce
 
Great information, Ty.

Was working on Fire Kitty placement instead, 2 big swings and a miss so far. At least they think spearfishing types are cool now.

http://www.linghunt.com/Projects/FireCat/FireCat.html

IT was becoming a communication mess so I made a quick html page, Didn't know you could tell Male vs female from look, I get the size deal with big tom cat. anyway...

Amazing how much low info there is on folks and gas lines and utility company coming around to relite hot water heaters etc. Some want them to lite pilots on electronic ignition gas stoves.

The Neighborhood forum is interesting at times.
 
Be sure to check the fuel consumption (gallons per hour) of your generator, and plan the fuel supply accordingly.

I had a gas generator and crossover panel at my Oregon house for a bunch of years. Learned an expensive lesson - gasoline goes sour pretty quickly! I eventually had to drain the large storage tank into Homer buckets and wait for the hazardous waste day at the local trash hauler. Just about every one of the buckets had a pint to a couple ounces of what looked like tar in the bottom after being filled. Nasty stuff! I've moved now. Scrapped the storage tank, but left the generator behind.

The local (rural) power company was offering subsidies on propane powered backup generators. One of my neighbors bought one, including a 100 gallon propane tank. Propane does not go bad! So if I ever get another backup, it will definitely be propane powered!
 
My brother-in-law has had a propane Generac both at the cottage and at home for years and swears by them. He says the switchover is seamless (or close). It powers in a few times a year. It needs some light yearly maintenance
In my case, our hydro service here in Quebec is very reliable. Ever since an ice storm in 1998, I have a gas generator at the ready but have only used it once since. I am so tired of rotating three gas cans so to always have some relatively fresh gas on hand when/if needed. Stabile is always used in the gas but after 2 years in storage the gas goes into our cars to get used up. All that trouble to have only three days worth of generator fuel on hand.
 
Backup power has always been one of my 'things' and over a couple of years scouring craigslist and various other sources I ended up with an Onan 12KW 1800 rpm unit for about a grand. Old iron, my favorite kind. Came set up for propane, we have natural gas so the changeover was pretty simple.

Nothing automatic about it though, manually start it, manually switch the standby load panel and manually switch back.

While rewiring the house in the way back I put in a separate panel for critical loads and after getting the genny added the transfer switch. Pretty simple thing, two 2 pole breakers back to back with a mechanical interlock so both can't be 'on' at the same time.

So far we haven't needed it, longest outage so far about two hours and hardly worth the investment yet. But when it comes, we'll be ready. Of course, if 'it' is an earthquake I will wish I had gone the propane route. But then again, what use is powering a home that has been shaken apart?

Stu

"Do we practice the stewardship of preparedness or do we worship at the altar of divine rescue?"
 
Seen the gasoline getting old before, don't recall that being an issue back in the 70-80's . All the "stuff" they put in it now.

I was thinking propane or diesel for fuel source. Not looking to diesel aging. Any experience with that would be interesting.

All experiences good and bad are worthwhile reading.
 
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