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Generators, home security.

WayneWong

WayneWong

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Given the projected economic situation, do you think there will be interruptions in electricity? Should I get a generator? Suggestions? My wife has come over to my side in terms of expecting some upheaval and interruptions. She got a costco card, and we've already been creating a long term storage space. I'm thinking on stocking up on charcoal to cook outside. I'm beefing up security on the house to, I would love some ideas.


Honest, i don't know what to make of this. If we had real, patriotic leaders, I believe this never would have happened, and if it did, they would pull us through it. I believe our business leaders and government officials are the biggest idiots and criminals God ever put on this green earth. Our way of life is about to change in a big way. I pray that people like those who were "The Greatest Generation" prevail, it's our only hope.
 
Generator won't keep going long. If you are expecting a few days, sure. Long term=not worth it.

I'm estimating I have about 3-4 days with my generator.

And....if you have power and your neighbours don't.... they might come and investigate...
 
WayneWong said:
Given the projected economic situation, do you think there will be interruptions in electricity? Should I get a generator?
Click to expand...
No, I don't think there will be interruptions in electricity other than the usual ones (inclement weather).

So, you think there will be interruptions in electricity but you think you'll still be able to get gasoline?

If you want a generator, buy one. But don't expect to need it during a zombie invasion or to be able to get gas for it 3 days after the zombie invasion hits.
 
If I was going to get a new gen, I would look for a diesel or natural gas or propane. If the SHTF, you wont be buying gasoline. I also have a solar battery charger hooked up to a large bank of golf cart batteries that can run my whole house with a marine sine wave inverter. now I dont need no stinkin petrochemicals!!!
 
There are only two things we really need electricity for in our house, the refrigerator and the oven. The oven is gas, but it's all run by some kind of a controller that won't work unless it has AC power. I'd prefer a plain old pilot light actually. I don't even think you can buy a range that uses one anymore though.


It would be nice to have a natural gas refrigerator, then we wouldn't need AC power at all.
We have some kerosene lamps and LED lanterns for emergency lighting.

Luckily our gas furnace uses a pilot light and does not require AC power to run.
 
M1911 said:
No, I don't think there will be interruptions in electricity other than the usual ones (inclement weather).

So, you think there will be interruptions in electricity but you think you'll still be able to get gasoline?

If you want a generator, buy one. But don't expect to need it during a zombie invasion or to be able to get gas for it 3 days after the zombie invasion hits.
Click to expand...

Not really thinking there will be a zombie invasion. Just lots of people out of work and pissed off.

I believe that supply interruptions in all parts of the economy will cause periodic shortages of food, gas, electricity, repair parts for all kinds of things.
What stores will be around after Christmas? How much will things cost? I think life is going to get very hard for most of us starting after Christmas. This part of the year is well known to be a big time for layoffs as so called executives try to meet their numbers.
 
If the SHTF, you won't have natural gas. It'll be whatever is in the line with pressure, until it gives out. Probably a day or two at most.

Propane is the best for a generator because you can store a fair amount, but still it won't last months unless you have thousands of lbs.
 
WayneWong said:
I believe that supply interruptions in all parts of the economy will cause periodic shortages of food, gas, electricity, repair parts for all kinds of things.
What stores will be around after Christmas? How much will things cost? I think life is going to get very hard for most of us starting after Christmas.
Click to expand...
I disagree most strongly. Yes, we're going into a recession. Yes, unemployment will rise. But if you've been around for a few years, then you've lived through worse.

The current unemployment rate is 6.5%. In 1982, the unemployment rate was over 10%. Were there riots in the streets? Shortages of food, gas, electricity? No.

Are more layoffs coming? Yes. Will unemployment rise? Yes. Is this TEOTWAKI. No. There won't be riots in the streets. There won't be shortages of food, gas, or electricity.

Take a look at this graph: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000

We've been through recessions before. We'll have recessions in the future. Will it suck? Yes. But the world isn't ending and the sky won't fall.
 
Last edited:
doobie said:
Generator won't keep going long. If you are expecting a few days, sure. Long term=not worth it.
Click to expand...

You don't have to run your generator constantly for it to be useful, IMO. Given intermittent operation, you could get a lot more than "a few days" out of it.

-Mike
 
Lucas McCain said:
Ahhh but you can run a diesel engine off of a lot of stuff like #2 fuel oil, or biodiesel. Just a little easier than refining gasoline in your back yard[smile]
Click to expand...

That depends upon the diesel engine. Older naturally aspirated diesel engines are far more forgiving than modern automotive turbocharged diesel engines, with their very high pressure fuel systems, and outrageously complex emissions control systems. I'm not familiar with the diesel engines in generators, so I just don't know how complex they are.

Also, biodiesel becomes a gel at modest temperatures and must be heated to keep it flowing.
 
Most of the smaller diesel gen sets use Hatz (sp) engines. which are naturally aspirated and very forgiving of fuels. M1911 is right, if you get over 10KW, you are looking at a much more complex engine. I would not mess with fuels on that.
 
M1911 said:
I disagree most strongly. Yes, we're going into a recession. Yes, unemployment will rise. But if you've been around for a few years, then you've lived through worse.

The current unemployment rate is 6.5%. In 1982, the unemployment rate was over 10%. Were their riots in the streets? Shortages of food, gas, electricity? No.

Are more layoffs coming? Yes. Will unemployment rise? Yes. Is this TEOTWAKI. No. There won't be riots in the streets. There won't be shortages of food, gas, or electricity.

Take a look at this graph: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

We've been through recessions before. We'll have recessions in the future. Will it suck? Yes. But the world isn't ending and the sky won't fall.
Click to expand...

The unemployment rate was calculated differently in 1982 than it is today. Among others, it included discoraged workers who gave up looking for jobs. I was a young adult in the late 70's and early 80's. I remember the gas lines and the fights that broke out during them. I remember the recession in 1991 and the line that went all the way around the block at the Attleboro unemployment office. Which I stood in just to get my check. They didn't mail them out back then.

Just recently, Sears and JC Penny are following K-Mart and are having "Layaways" again. There are people on this board who probably never heard of layaways as they all but disappeared nearly 20 years ago. And GM is on the verge of Bankruptcy. The goverment is printing money to keep major financial giants from collapsing. American Express is asking for 3.5 billion.
People are upside down on their houses. How are people going to pay for their student loans without assets or jobs?

How will be able to pay off the national debt? Could they raise taxes enough? Could they cut spending enough. How long will it take? How many generations?

This is a global meltdown with every nation interwined into a tangled ball of yarn. People like Ron Paul, JimRodgers, Maz Keiser, Peter Schiff are expecting massive inflation if Bernanke continues to lower interest rates and print his way out of this mess. A collapsed dollar.

This is no cyclical recession. This is a near perfect economic storm.

This isn't Mad Max, but the way we all look at life, work, friends, and family and material items are about to change in a big way.
 
WayneWong said:
I remember the gas lines and the fights that broke out during them.
Click to expand...
Which lasted for a very short time and was the result of the OPEC cartel deciding not to ship to the US, because they were pissed at us. OPEC is not going to do that again. They need our money.

People are upside down on their houses. How are people going to pay for their student loans without assets or jobs?
Click to expand...
If you don't have a job, either the institution that issued your student loan gives you extensions or you declare bankruptcy. Does that suck? Yes. Does that equal armed insurrection? No.

How will be able to pay off the national debt? Could they raise taxes enough? Could they cut spending enough. How long will it take? How many generations?
Click to expand...
We won't pay off the debt for many decades. That isn't an immediate crisis.

This is a global meltdown with every nation interwined into a tangled ball of yarn. People like Ron Paul, JimRodgers, Maz Keiser, Peter Schiff are expecting massive inflation if Bernanke continues to lower interest rates and print his way out of this mess. A collapsed dollar.
Click to expand...
1) The dollar has significantly increased in strength versus most other currencies, including the Euro, since this crisis started. 2) Inflation is not the concern at the moment. Deflation is the issue.

This is no cyclical recession.
Click to expand...
This is a cyclical recession. It is worse than most of the previous ones. The difference is that we now have 24-hour news channels that specialize in scaring people to drive up ratings.

Folks, stop panicking.
 
M1911 said:
Which lasted for a very short time and was the result of the OPEC cartel deciding not to ship to the US, because they were pissed at us. OPEC is not going to do that again. They need our money.

If you don't have a job, either the institution that issued your student loan gives you extensions or you declare bankruptcy. Does that suck? Yes. Does that equal armed insurrection? No.

We won't pay off the debt for many decades. That isn't an immediate crisis.

1) The dollar has significantly increased in strength versus most other currencies, including the Euro, since this crisis started. 2) Inflation is not the concern at the moment. Deflation is the issue.

This is a cyclical recession. It is worse than most of the previous ones. The difference is that we now have 24-hour news channels that specialize in scaring people to drive up ratings.

Folks, stop panicking.
Click to expand...


I never mentioned armed insurrection, and calmly preparing for a crisis is not panic, it's maturity. Our legislature panicked by passing in just two weeks a half-assed 700 billion TARP plan that Henry Paulson just decided may not have been such a good idea. Now the Democrats want to bail out General Motors with 25 billion not recognizing it's time for them to go. More Panic. They are done. Stick a fork in them.

We won't pay off the debt for many decades as you state correctly. You are right. It's not a concern at the moment. But it will be a concern for our children and grand children if we want them to live a better life then we have.

Deflation of assets is the issue as entities sell off everything they own to get cash to pay off investors and debts. There is a distinct possibility of severe inflation if government continues to interfere with the natural manner the capitalist lets failed businesses fall and new ones rise from the ashes. The fed is printing money and offering bonds that are backed by a severely troubled economy. I don't know if we'll see this in 6 months or 6 years, as this is a very fluid situation day to day.

Regarding the 24 hour news channels, they are a bunch of corporate owned shills. I laugh at Kudlow and Kramer. Bloomberg has a little more credibility, but all those experts you see on TV are climbing over each other to get exposure on TV. All we can do is take in the information we have and parse out what doesn't make sense.

No need to argue about a prediction, either way. We just have to wait. We can revisit this thread every 6 or 8 months. Like I said, No Mad Max. Like you said, no armed insurrection. But I remember in the late 60's a lot of pissed off people marching on the Common. Could happen again. We'll see.
 
MHO, the time to prepare for ANYTHING is now not later. Get yourself a small portable generator. Usually around 5K will be large enough to run essential circuits for short periods of time. Short periods of time equals any interruption we might see in the near future, weather that be regular outages, or some sort of unforeseen trickle down effect. A decent generator, and a 5-8 circuit manual transfer switch should cost you under 1K installed.

Like Mike pointed out, if you can run it only periodically your fuel will last you MUCH longer. Also, with the gas prices down right now, it's a wise time if you do have a generator to cycle out your stored gas, and top up your tanks.

Regardless how you hope, and pray things will go in this country in the coming months/years, just a quick look at what happened to Argentina a few years back should be enough to get even the most hard core optimist to at least get some basics in order. For everyone it will be different, so you have to do what's right for you.

Once disaster strikes, the time to prepare has long since passed, and I prefer to be ahead of the curve.
 
Solar may not be the best bet here in the Northeast. Wind power might be a better solution. I have a generator large enough to provide what I need. As was stated if run intermittently fuel will last much longer. I have enough in gas cans to last a week if run continuous. So I figure I should be able to last 2-3 weeks if I don't run it all the time. There is also typically 4-5 cars at my house, all hold 20 or more gallons of fuel. If I siphon that to use in the generator I'm pretty sure I could make it for quite some time.

Northern Tool offers alternative energy options. None is cheap, however if TSHTF for real it would be the best solution. You could power quite a bit via solar but a good kit will run around $9k. If I were to go in this direction I would use a combination of solar/wind to recharge my supply power. Options from Northern Tool here.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category2_6970_770399
 
Check out www.alpharubicon.com

These guys are hard core, but there are some really good articles there in the public section, particularly on power generation and storage. It's worth spending some time there.

FWIW, planning for power outages is smart, but using a generator for long term is questionable, at least without some method of power storage and management.

Matt
 
matt said:
Check out www.alpharubicon.com

These guys are hard core, but there are some really good articles there in the public section, particularly on power generation and storage. It's worth spending some time there.

FWIW, planning for power outages is smart, but using a generator for long term is questionable, at least without some method of power storage and management.

Matt
Click to expand...

+1. Great website, maybe the best I've seen for disaster preparedness.
 
A lot of folks post about improvising genrators but how may have actually done this successfully ? Not everyone has a stream running through their backyard for a waterwheel. Not everyone has suitable exposure for photovoltaic panels.

As matt pointed our one needs to be able to store power. Keeping a generator running 24/7 is not pratical for more than a day or two. There are issues with noise, fuel storage and theft - you have to sleep sometime right ?

The Alpharubicon site has some innovative soultions posted by folks who have implimentd their ideas, you can learn a lot from them.

I'm in the planning stages for multi-source power generation to get my new home off grid. I'll be using photovoltaic panels, a small wind turbine and a battery bank with an inverter to power most of the house. There'll be a small generator for running high demand circuits and occasional battery charging.

Yes, I'll be posting about the project.
 
If you want something inexpensive, I would recommend a 12v->110V converter. Not very powerful, but enough for fridge/AC/furnace.
You can even buy a stand alone version without 12V battery and use your running car battery as power supply. Plus cars running idle are not noisy compare to generators, your neigbors will never notice. I would recommend to use more expensive version which has "true sine wave" output, not "modified sine wave": it is better for electronics.
One of the problem with generators is that the gazoline degrades in quality after several months, so you need a special additive.
Once I had to sit in my van for about 9 hours, the van was idling with AC on, still it spent may be 3 gallons of gazoline, so with a full tank you will have may be 2 days of power supply.
 
Propane would be the best contingent of the 3 choices mentioned as a fuel for a generator.

Propane will keep 10 times or more longer than Gasoline or diesel.

A drawback to propane is its usually delivered to your home, IE your OPSEC could be compromised by someone that brings the propane to your retreat or residence.

It would require more expensive equipment to transport yourself than gasoline or diesel.

Its somewhat more complicated than transporting gas or diesel as they are easy to pump or just let flow via gravity from one container to another.






Lucas McCain said:
If I was going to get a new gen, I would look for a diesel or natural gas or propane. If the SHTF, you wont be buying gasoline. I also have a solar battery charger hooked up to a large bank of golf cart batteries that can run my whole house with a marine sine wave inverter. now I dont need no stinkin petrochemicals!!!
Click to expand...
 
MrTwigg said:
A lot of folks post about improvising genrators but how may have actually done this successfully ? Not everyone has a stream running through their backyard for a waterwheel. Not everyone has suitable exposure for photovoltaic panels.

As matt pointed our one needs to be able to store power. Keeping a generator running 24/7 is not pratical for more than a day or two. There are issues with noise, fuel storage and theft - you have to sleep sometime right ?

The Alpharubicon site has some innovative soultions posted by folks who have implimentd their ideas, you can learn a lot from them.

I'm in the planning stages for multi-source power generation to get my new home off grid. I'll be using photovoltaic panels, a small wind turbine and a battery bank with an inverter to power most of the house. There'll be a small generator for running high demand circuits and occasional battery charging.

Yes, I'll be posting about the project.
Click to expand...

Next house will have a 4-season stream with head if I can help it.
 
Lets face the reality that huge expenses on power generation are a bit unnecessary

I'd spend the money on low-prep foods and weather the storm without power. Keep a good wood-burning stove in your home for heat (and cooking if needed), maybe a BBQ grill or camp stove, and cookware and you'll be fine

if youre talking about weathering MONTHS or YEARS without anyhelp... realize most people would probably starve or die of civil unrest IF such a thing happened. Last thing i'd be worried about is my fridge or range. Generators (and electricity) will make you a target of looters or fanatics (are we fanatics?) and its best to be unnoticed than targeted.

I store food, water, a means for water storage, and some means to prep food (inside my own kitchen if possible).

power generation... people have lived without it for all of humanity.

I'm sorry, but i think my contingency would be better spent on some basic home protection (good locks, plywood for low windows), maybe a wood burning stove, a good grill maybe, charcoal, and food/water (and storage).

thats just my 2 cents, but from a frequent backpacker (including winter backpacking) you can survive a lot of cold and hot with minimal water and food if you plan accordingly. You wont be watching BBC news on your satellite TV... but this is survival... grab a book, a saltine, and a glass of water and be prepared to wait...
 
I'm pretty sure that within the next 18 months we will all be considering security shutters for our homes.

I'm loading up on batteries when I see a good price. Also bought a steri pen and water purification tablets and particulate filters if we have to be away from home for a while. I really don't know what to expect, but I do not trust the lunatics at the helm of the FED and Treasury,

The people who are preaching a depression are much more articulate than the people who are predicting a 2009 turnaround.

What do you guys think of something like this in a pinch?

http://www.batteriesareus.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25&products_id=113
 

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