3 days w/out electricity (Australia)

My companies headquarters is in Melbourne and AU has been dealing with some extreme weather for a number of years. Anyone there that isn't set up for long term off grid situations is not very bright. In the last few years they had massive drought, bad Typhoons, devastating fires and most disasters known to man. From what I've heard the fires were the worst as it was unstoppable and wiped out many towns and damaged more then a few cities. With the exception of the bigger cities everyone there is responsible for collecting and using their own water. Every house has large cisterns underneath and all collected rain from roofs, collection pools, etc. get stored there. Makes firefighting very hard. I've been there and it was fun, but I was happy to get home.
 
When Irene came though, in Framingham I lost power for 5 days.

One neighbor bugged out (babies/toddlers); most houses were very dark. I had candle, kerosene lamps, propane and liquid fuel Colemans as needed.

Generator for the fridge and the clothes washer (taught the kids how to make a solar clothes dryer). Gas for the stove and water heater, so no issues there. It was warm, so no need for heat (I have a wood stove).

Still, it was an eye-opener. If it had been in the winter, some neighbors would have been in a world of hurt.
 
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage. I have on my to do list to build a locking stand-alone storage structure to go on the back of my lot but have not got around to it. My contingency plan is to fill a bunch of 5 gallon cans when the hurricane turns our way but that may not always work out. I'd like to have 20 or 30 gallons permanently stored. Rotated, of course.
 
mibro said:
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage. I have on my to do list to build a locking stand-alone storage structure to go on the back of my lot but have not got around to it. My contingency plan is to fill a bunch of 5 gallon cans when the hurricane turns our way but that may not always work out. I'd like to have 20 or 30 gallons permanently stored. Rotated, of course.
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Back in the 70's I buried a couple of open head 55 gallon drums flush with the ground. I keep four-5 gallon gas cans in each barrel, I treat the fuel with stabil, and rotate the fuel every 2 years.
 
mibro said:
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage. I have on my to do list to build a locking stand-alone storage structure to go on the back of my lot but have not got around to it. My contingency plan is to fill a bunch of 5 gallon cans when the hurricane turns our way but that may not always work out. I'd like to have 20 or 30 gallons permanently stored. Rotated, of course.
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I'm constantly rotating about 25 gallons stored in a dark barn. Between the 7500w and 1000w gen I could run two weeks unless I want AC to run.
 
HDPE 30 gallon water drums with screw on caps. Use pri-g and rotate every 8-10 months.

mibro said:
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage. I have on my to do list to build a locking stand-alone storage structure to go on the back of my lot but have not got around to it. My contingency plan is to fill a bunch of 5 gallon cans when the hurricane turns our way but that may not always work out. I'd like to have 20 or 30 gallons permanently stored. Rotated, of course.
Click to expand...
 
My ex was from a small town in Eastern Ontario - if you want to see harsh conditions - the Quebec Ice Storm

Her parents were without power in the middle of the winter for almost a month... and it was cold.

Local farmers and the like even had to kill off livestock

New York and Maine also had some of this, but Quebec was hit the hardest. It was not that the power lines came down... the steel towers came down
 
mibro said:
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage.
Click to expand...

If I could get a bulk tank, I would
I have to settle for multiple 5 gallon cans stored in a lean-to behind the garage where I store lawnmowers, firewood etc
 
mibro said:
Some good stuff there. Anyone have a good solution for gasoline storage? It's not smart to keep it in your house or garage. I have on my to do list to build a locking stand-alone storage structure to go on the back of my lot but have not got around to it. My contingency plan is to fill a bunch of 5 gallon cans when the hurricane turns our way but that may not always work out. I'd like to have 20 or 30 gallons permanently stored. Rotated, of course.
Click to expand...

I usually keep 5-6 five gallon cans full in my shed. They get filled up with Sta-Bil, and then I used them to gas up my motorcycle all summer, which keeps them rotated. I never put enough gas through the mower or snowblower to use more than 5 gallons a year.
 
mclina said:
I usually keep 5-6 five gallon cans full in my shed. They get filled up with Sta-Bil, and then I used them to gas up my motorcycle all summer, which keeps them rotated. I never put enough gas through the mower or snowblower to use more than 5 gallons a year.
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Similar thing here. Between the mower, snow blower, trimmer and leaf blower the fuel never gets more than 1 year old.

But 25g won't run a 6kW generator very long. Mine seems to burn about 1/2g/hr so if the power is out long term I can't run it 24/7.

I recently bought a dual-fuel natural gas conversion for the generator but need to install and test it before winter comes. The previous house owners ran the n-gas to the porch for the grill so all I would need is to drag the generator close to the porch and then I could run it 24/7 and make my neighbors really jealous[devil]
 
The only long-term outage I had after getting my generator was 5 days in October when it was pretty warm, I'd say 50's and up. Just ran it for a couple hours in the morning to heat up the house and cool down the fridge, and a couple hours before bed to do the same. Use kerosene lanterns for light and a deep cycle battery and inverter to run a small LCD TV and DVD player for the kiddos. I don't think I used 10 gallons over 5 days. I have a 3500/4000W Champion.
 
When Irene came though, in Framingham I lost power for 5 days.
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The outages we had in this area from Irene were localized, so it was still easy to get gasoline by driving an extra mile or so. Compare this to the c-f on Long Island where people without connections had to wait hours at the few stations that were open.
 
Rob Boudrie said:
The outages we had in this area from Irene were localized, so it was still easy to get gasoline by driving an extra mile or so. Compare this to the c-f on Long Island where people without connections had to wait hours at the few stations that were open.
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Never said I was overly inconvenienced. Hell, the kids went to school! [laugh]
 
OCB said:
Does fuel stabilizer reduce the efficiency of the fuel (or have any other negative impact on equipment, etc.)?
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Nope. It's just a couple oz/gallon. I don't think I would run it in a high compression race engine, but for average stuff you can't tell it's in there.
 
OCB said:
Does fuel stabilizer reduce the efficiency of the fuel (or have any other negative impact on equipment, etc.)?
Click to expand...

Used appropriately there is not downside. I use the marine sta-bil and like it. For small applications I buy cans of fuel that do not have ethanol in them. Too pricey for bulk storage, but more stable than what you get from gas station.

Anecdotally I once poured a large bottle of sta-bil and a bottle of fuel injector cleaner into my tank when I parked on a hill that was steep enough that the 1/8 tank of gas I had was below the pick up. Allowed me to start the car and get to a gas station and fill it. Car ran a little rough for a few miles and then was fine after that.
 
I live in Townsend Massachusetts. I've been here for 21 years. I can remember at least five times where I lost power for three days plus. One of those times was almost 2 weeks! So you don't have to live in Australia to lose power for three days.

To be fair one of the times an excavator dug up my wires in the street. That was just once.
 
radioman said:
I live in Townsend Massachusetts. I've been here for 21 years. I can remember at least five times where I lost power for three days plus. One of those times was almost 2 weeks! So you don't have to live in Australia to lose power for three days.
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There is a huge difference between widespread but localized outages and a widespread blanket outage. In the former, you can still get gasoline, go to a supermarket that has working refrigeraton and freezers, continue to have access to your financial instruments, etc. In the later, your bank cards stop working; some stores will not take checks because they cannot electronically verify them (I'm still pissed at Sears Hardware for refusing a $20 check in a power outage because they could not run it through their service); you can't get gas or wait hours to fill up your car and can; if the supermarket is even open you can forget anything requiring cooling; etc.
 
bfm said:
When I was a kid, I remember going a full day or more with out power. Now I am hard pressed to tell you the last time I was with out power for more than half an hour.
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Literally near the end of the line here. Power out for 1-3 days (sometimes more) is pretty common during winter storms. As mentioned above, usually localized - once it was just our house!

Have a little solar setup with small inverter to run critical stuff & charge batts, and have a deep well hand pump. So it's no big deal. We had one fairly widespread ~12 day outage a while back - we were supplying water to all the neighbors, and charging up their batteries (OPSEC fail [rofl] ).
 

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