New England B.S. Thread

Wasn't bad where I am. Lots of branches, but I didn't notice any trees down and my power never went out.

I took down two scary looking birch trees in my front yard last weekend . One was really rotten and would have taken out the power lines or landed on the roof depending on which way it went. Definitely don't regret doing that.

I did see this: "He added said the storm was expected to continue through the early morning hours Monday in southern New England before moving north to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont."

So maybe I'll see the bad weather yet. I'm on the MA/VT line.

 

The street behind me lost power, but we didn't

There is a National Grid office about a half mile up the road from me. I heard most of their trucks leaving around midnight. This morning when I drove by on my way to work, none of their work trucks were there, so they are out there working.

 

Do you have a generator?

We lost power Saturday night / Sunday morning. We must have blown a transformer or something. FD closed the street and Eversource cut power to the houses for a couple hours while they fixed it. Then, we lost power sometime last night. Everything was blinking when I woke up.

 

Cash is king but I never show people the money when I'm buying cars and bikes from them off Craigslist (which I do probably every 3 months) because I don't want to invite someone to rob me. I just tell them that I have cash and can have the car picked up same day

 

I don't, but my dad and father in law do. Problem with that is, I have well water, and I have an electric water heather... not sure what they have would be enough to power that, plus have the fridges on and some other things, because of the kids.

 

Incredibly windy in central Berkshires last night. No power out. Lots of limbs down.

 

Never lost power but I never do.

 

Yeah, you need a pretty serious generator to run all of that. Mine will only run certain circuits since it's relatively small. I can run the boiler for heat and hot water and the refrigerator. My parents have a generator that runs off the PTO of a tractor, that thing will run the whole damn house.

 

Wind right now in the NE:

 

Yeah... luckily my in laws hardly ever lose power, so if need be we'll just "mooch off" of them. We already did this morning, and planning on it for at least again tonight into tomorrow. Really hoping that they can come out and fix it ASAP.

This is what I'm looking at for power outages as of right now:



My area (Brookfield/Danbury) doesn't look like they have a ton of people without power, so hoping that "plays to my advantage" and they are able to come out to my house and fix the power lines ASAP.

 

this is another reason i don't have trees. everyone has trees and branches down by me haha

 

Lucky you. I'm fucking jelly right now. I'm surrounded by them. My house, my street, they're everywhere.

 

Nuno, if the gen is what most average homeowners have and it's like 5500 watts or something, you can take things on and off line while you use them. Heat up the water heater tank while the well pump is off, then take the WH offline while you run the well. Just be real conservative with the hot water. I ran my house that way when we lost power for a few days. Get the fridge and freezer real cold and then take it off line while you run something else. Sucks but at least you can be home.

 

That's exactly what I would have to do it we lost power for a long duration. I only have a 4000W generator. It will run the water pump for the boiler and a refrigerator but I'd need to cycle anything else around if needed. Fortunately, I have a gas cook top and my hot water is oil so as long as I have enough power for the pump, I have hot water. If you want a generator large enough to run an entire house, I think you'd most likely be in the 8000W + range and they are really expensive!

 

Not a bad plan actually. We'll see what happens. Hopefully I can get some type of idea when they can come out and repair the line, and make a decision then.

 

If you don't lose power often, I would look into a propane generator. I have one and they're handy for a few reasons. They run off of a BBQ propane tank so I always have a few of them laying around between the grill and camper. The fuel doesn't go bad, no ethanol BS to deal with. Also, the generator itself is much lighter because there's no gas tank built in, just the engine and power generator (most others have a 5 gallon running tank to add to the weight of the unit). Lastly, the propane generators generally run quieter and don't smell as bad as their gas (or diesel) counterparts. The downfall of propane generators is they generally are not as large, usually 5000W or smaller but, for the use we're talking about, is still plenty.

 

I also have a well and electric hot water. Electric hot water is typically 4500W on its own.

I think most well pumps are 240v, so they probably draw a decent amount of power too. Mine's just a 3/4 HP 120v because I have a shallow well and it doesn't have to pull water from 400 ft down.

If you have a furnace, I think the fans will draw more current than the circulators on a boiler will so that's another factor.

 

Interesting... something I'll need to look into, especially now that we have kids. I actually have two 100 gallon propane tanks already, because I have forced hot air with a furnace that runs off of proprane, so maybe I could use the existing tanks already.

Thanks for all the info sir!

Yeah... the electric hot water and the well pump would probably be my two biggest "needs" because of the kids. We'll see. Gonna have to look into a generator like Mike was saying in his post.

 

I dont believe I lost power... Not even sure if I saw any branches down on my way to work today.... Then again its only 3 streets to get to work

 

You lucky bastard you.