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Jayson Smith @jaybird110127@dragonscave.space
4mo
As of around 11:21 AM Central time, we have power! I repeat, we! Have! Power! This was an approximately 124-hour power outage, which makes it the second longest I've lived through. And our whole house generator did a wonderful job of keeping everything going. Clarification: How do I know we got utility power back? Good question! We have an automatic transfer switch installed. Thirty seconds after power originally failed, it commanded our generator to start, waited until it was producing stable power, then switched our house to it. Then this morning, it saw that utility power had returned, probably waited a bit to make sure it was stable, switched our house back to it, let the generator run for a while with no load, then commanded it to shut down. Had I been fully awake I might have suspected utility power was back when we were switched to it, but the real giveaway was when the generator suddenly shut down but power didn't. Whew! It's over!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
4mo
@jaybird110127 I have a hole home battery backup. However, I don't switch to it automatically. I want to ration power, so I switch circuit by circuit based on what's going on. For example, in the summer I don't put the hot tub circuit on it, but in the winter I have to in order to prevent the pipes from freezing. I also shut down the servers and then take the battery backup away from them. Assuming I ration to use only the essentials (medical equipment, lights, refrigeration) I can keep everything going for up to five days without electricity or a fuel delivery. Also, the battery system can be charged by a Tesla charger, or any other electric car charging station. And it's multiple batteries, so if I think after 60 hours I won't be getting power back, I can take one discharged battery and recharge it, and bring it back without interruption to the power.
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Jayson Smith @jaybird110127@dragonscave.space
4mo
@fastfinge Wow I bet that cost a pretty penny. We have a generator hooked to our main breaker box, which gets fuel from our main propane tank.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
4mo
@jaybird110127 It actually cost me less than putting in an automatic switchover. Because I could do it myself, without requiring a licensed electrician, inspection from the power company, or a disconnect from the grid while it was installed. I looked at a propane generator with automatic switching, and between all the licenses and completely replacing the breaker box, it was going to cost me around 20 thousand dollars. I did this system for only eight thousand.
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Martin @mcourcel@allovertheplace.ca
4mo
@fastfinge @jaybird110127 Oooo, very cool. And you have a hot tub? Aren't they great? What battery system did you go with?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
4mo
@mcourcel @jaybird110127 They are! And I went with a bank of interconnected EcoFlow's.
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Martin @mcourcel@allovertheplace.ca
4mo
@fastfinge @jaybird110127 Ah, noice. Yeah, those were the ones I was looking at as well.
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Martin @mcourcel@allovertheplace.ca
4mo
@fastfinge @jaybird110127 Just don't think our current house would have the space unfortunately.
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