No electricity in your home, no problem!

[Donna D.]

A Prius can power your home in a snowstorm

Five gallons of fuel for three days!

[Bonnie]

A Prius can power your home in a snowstorm

Five gallons of fuel for three days!

too bad it can't tow anything. That would be a sweet solution to lack of power out in the wilds.

[MikeCM]

When I first read this it sounded too good to be true.

We just survived the same ice storm (followed within days by two snowstorms dumping 22 inches of snow) and were without power for 12 days.

We fortunately already had a 6K generator and it is property wired to our house, but burned through 20 gallons of gas a day. We basically could run anything including well pump, oil furnace, TVs, computers, and lights. We intentionally chose not to use the stove, oven, washer and dryer. We have plenty of camping equipment and were able to set up a pretty good kitchen with camping equipment on the front lawn. We did laundry elsewhere.

We also have a 1200 watt camping generator that we lent to friends and that was burning through about 8 gallons of gas a day. They were powering oil furnace, sump pump and fridge.

I see that he powered a Fridge (and freezer), TV, woodstove fan, and lights. That is what we use when we dry camp; fridge and freezer, TV, lights, and vent fan. While we don't run everything all day and night (bet he didn't either) we can go for days with two deep cycle batteries and an inverter.

So after thinking I guess it could be done, still not sure that I would try for three days. I would question if this has any long term negative impact to the car batteries which are very very expensive to replace?

I hope anyone backfeeding electrical properly connect and separate from the electric grid, and deal with carbon monoxide appropriately.

[Chester Taje]

That is very interesting.

[Dan I]

We just survived the same ice storm (followed within days by two snowstorms dumping 22 inches of snow) and were without power for 12 days. We fortunately already had a 6K generator and it is property wired to our house, but burned through 20 gallons of gas a day....

If [b]the power was out in such a wide-spread area for such an extended length of time, where did you [b]find gas stations with power to pump 240 gallons of fuel for your generator? Do you store fuel for the generator on your property? Wondering how folks do this "generator thing" before commiting to buy a "whole house" system for our place.

[April Wilcox]

That is how we got through our power outage during Ike, we plugged a 150watt inverter to my Saturn Vue cigarette lighter, and we were able to run a light, a fan and the lap top for entertainment while we were in the dark, and we had a mobile router that gave us internet via cell phone signal. We didn't run any appliances but it was still nice to have some power.

Pretty nifty way to get through an outage. Now that we have the Scamp, our next outage won't be so bad either, we can just go hang out in the trailer.

[SherryNPaul]

The electric cars (and hybrids) of the future may be able to sell back power to the grid... or sustain us through outages and storms.... http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/b...38830/index.htm
This is an article about the Nordic Think, an electric car from Norway, highlighting its possibilities for power grid sharing.

[MikeCM]

If [b]the power was out in such a wide-spread area for such an extended length of time, where did you [b]find gas stations with power to pump 240 gallons of fuel for your generator? Do you store fuel for the generator on your property? Wondering how folks do this "generator thing" before commiting to buy a "whole house" system for our place.

I always have a reserve of about 20 gallons that I feed into the truck and replace every couple of months. I was fortunate (lucky) enough to have run to Lowes, for a new larger chainsaw, the day after the storm. I pickup up four extra 5 gallon gas cans too. Those and the four I already had let us run for two days at a fillup. We drove 20 miles south to find open gas stations, and as time went on closer gas stations came back on line. As it is we live in the middle of nowhere, so 20 miles to the grocery store as well. We have had this generator for eight years and this is the third time we have needed it. (4 days/5 years ago, 2 days/last winter, and now 12 days).

After this storm there were no generators, chainsaws, gas cans, propane tanks available after just a few hours. We count ourselves lucky that we were prepared. When we moved out here our only option was a gasoline generator. Now there are propane whole house systems. That would have been a lot easier. However mine cost about $1200 installed, a propane system is $6000 plus installation and propane tank.

To April's point camping equipment made the biggest difference. Being able to cook was pretty important. We also have a woodstove as a secondary heat source.

We have two campers in the driveway as well. The family Rockwood Roo, and my project Burro. The Roo took a direct hit and now has a new skylite from a branch that went right through. The Burro made it though without a scratch.

[Randya]

I wonder how a diesel pickup would fare? We have twin screw international trucks that we have had to let idle all night, noisy but they use hardly any fuel. A pickup might be even better. Good info Donna!

[David & Leslie]

Wow, Donna - what an interesting article. Thanx for posting the link! Take care, L 'n d

[Pete Dumbleton]

The problem with a whole-house generator is that they are usually too big to be inverter-based, to they have to run at a constant, and not insignificant, RPM to be ready to pick up the load -- This results in a lot of wasted fuel.

[Ericpa3]

Northwest Oregon was the pits during the last 2 weeks of December. Trees were down everywhere, and my little neighborhood was without power for 3 days. We started up the fireplace (which had worked fine at thanksgiving), and the smoke billowed into the living room. Somehow I managed to separate the logs and douse the fire. There was only one tiny room where we could congregate and breathe safely. We had no access to exhaust fans, and I wasn't about to open the doors with the temperature in the 20s outside. (the house was hovering about 50 degrees)

fortunately, the power turned on for a few hours and the smoke cleared. then we lost power for 3 days, and into Bigfoot went the 2 adults and 2 golden retievers. It saved our rears. We had never planned on winter camping, but this was an unexpected perq of trailer ownership.

As for the reason the chimney failed, I believe it was blocked by ice -- the chimney sweep will give us the final verdict.