Beryl Barreling Our Way?

[ZX9RCAM]

That's good news finally. Longest I've been without power is 8 hrs during Harvey. I can't imagine how miserable nearly a week must be.

Won't be our first time to be without power for 7+ days.

 

[CodyK]

Here in Kingwood, still no power, or any estimate on when it may be back! Monday morning will be a week, that’s the longest I’ve been without, and that was Ike. My daughter in Atascocita got power back last night, so I may head over there tonight. A shower in AC may bring a tear to my eye! Nothing worse than sweating in the shower!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rafe]

CenterPoint says on-hold message about purchasing generators has been deleted

CenterPoint Energy’s emergency line on-hold message about an advertisement encouraging customers to purchase generators from partners drew criticism online.

www.houstonchronicle.com

(Satire...except the part about the generator, that's what the actual message was before CenterPoint took it down.)

"Please state the nature of your call."

We're on day 6 of the power being out. I can't refrigerate the insulin my daughter needs, and my mother-in-law's oxygen machine can't run. We need help!

"Please hold while we connect to a service representative."

(Short background music interlude...)

"Don't be left in the dark! Make preparation your best protection with a qualifying standby generator from participating dealers. With a natural gas standby generator your home can be up and running within seconds of an electrical outage including your air conditioning, so act now. Visit centerpointenergy.com/generators for details on current program offers."

 

[Texasgordo]

Won't be our first time to be without power for 7+ days.

Well that's good you don't mind being without power. Being upset about it won't help the situation.



You probably don't need electricity anymore.

 

[Coiled]

The oil change intervals seem a bit . . . flexible.

 

[no2gates]

Here's a lesson in what NOT to do with a generator in a scenario like this:
I bought a generator about 6 or 7 years ago brand new and put in the garage. Never unwrapped it or tested it.... Until February freeze of 2021.
Filled it up, 2 pulls and it started. THANK GOD! I was such a dumb shit to have never tested it to make sure it worked.
That thing ran for 5 days with only stopping for about 3 or 4 minutes twice a day when I refilled it with gasoline.

 

[Coiled]

Phucking power just went off due to a storm

Or MAYBE a storm damaged tree ! ad infinitum


Edit: back on so likely related to storm repairs.

 

[benenglish]

After Frederick (Or was it Frederick?), my poor grandmother had a tree through her house and didn't get power for 6 weeks.

She just about died but had the right mindset. Having grown up in rural Mississippi in total poverty, she just said "This is like when I was a child."

She was made of sterner stuff than me.

 

[lightflyer1]

I am in Galveston today for a cruise. Most things working but you need cash. Not a credit card for buying anything at most places. Barely managed to find a hotel in Galveston after our hotel in Houston was without power and canceled. Other than that we had a pretty easy time as traffic was lighter than usual. Not to mention we're leaving right away on the cruise so no problems there.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Hope the power doesn't go out...

 

[glenbo]

Power back on at 4:23.

 

[Moonpie]

Power just came on! WOOT!

I'm leaving the generator running for a bit just in case.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

There are houses in my subdivision which now have power.
But they are on the far side from us.

Hopefully we will soon too...

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Not doing too bad.
Streaming stuff to a little TV on the bed.
Old lady Luna has front row seating...

 

[Vaquero]

Not doing too bad.
Streaming stuff to a little TV on the bed.
Old lady Luna has front row seating...

View attachment 461589

I like your priorities.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Just refilled the generator after running 12 hours.
Still have close to a gallon left in the 5gal can.

 

[tedwitt]

Well I survived 108 hours with my 6000 watt generator. Extension cords everywhere.
I'm waiting on the propane company to come put aT in my gas line on my house and put a ball joint and propane connection on it. I have a propane kit for my generator, I'm tired of chasing gas. Tired of setting my alarm to get up and put gas in the generator.

Thinking of that Westinghouse,13500 watt, my Grandson can put a transfer switch on my house and hook it up to automatically come on.

 

[MountainGirl]

Well I survived 108 hours with my 6000 watt generator. Extension cords everywhere.
I'm waiting on the propane company to come put aT in my gas line on my house and put a ball joint and propane connection on it. I have a propane kit for my generator, I'm tired of chasing gas. Tired of setting my alarm to get up and put gas in the generator.

Thinking of that Westinghouse,13500 watt, my Grandson can put a transfer switch on my house and hook it up to automatically come on.

We're pretty happy with our new Westinghouse. (5000 watt dual fuel inverter gen) Runs very quiet.

 

[Texasgordo]

 

[Brains]

A quick recap of running for 5-1/2 days on a Generac.

My unit ran from 9am Monday until like 3pm Saturday. This was its first extended run, the longest it ran previously was with the derecho, about 12 hours. It ran great and handled all our power needs. So that's the good part.

The "bad" part is I had planned to do the break-in oil change before the recommended 25 hours and blew right past that because I didn't have the filter in hand yet. It was sitting in my shopping cart, thinking I had some time. I didn't. Thankfully I had plenty of oil on hand that meets the manufacturer's requirements, and I stopped the generator periodically to keep it topped up. Oil did look good on the dipstick with minimal discoloration as expected with gaseous fuel. Maintenance kit arrived yesterday, waiting on a new set of feeler gauges to check valve lash (30+ year old ones are showing their age - they aren't stainless and got a few spots of rust).

A lot of people learned the hard way that whole-home air cooled generators are not maintenance free. They seem to go about 4 days or so before they'll burn enough oil to trigger the low pressure shutdown. These little engines only have a 2 qt. crankcase. It's a super simple process to stop the generator, check and fill, and start back up. But, a lot of people were sold on the benefits of a maintenance contract, and made to feel like that would take care of everything. One widow in my neighborhood asked on the neighborhood facebook group about her generator when it stopped. Her late husband always handled those things. She quickly learned the process, took care of business and was back up and running in no time.

Worst reports I heard are that some of these units were subbed out or contract built after the freeze with substandard parts. An alarming number of people have had slip rings disintegrate, brushes wear or crack, and a couple rocker failures. As in the metal pushrod cup in the rocker failed, and the pushrod came THROUGH the rocker. Crazy. Fixable of course, but crazy. So part of my maintenance is going to be a pretty thorough inspection of as many failure points as I can identify, and I'll source some spare parts to keep on hand should mine ever fail.