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Twenty-four hours on gasoline power here. Forty-eight since we lost the electrical feed. A pole about 50 feet away is snapped, the top held up by the wires.

We went out yesterday on a quest for a generator. Went a few places, then to a local Sears store. They also didn't have any, but the guy said that they were expecting some later, and asked if I wanted to put my name on "the list." I gave him my name, but still looked elsewhere. Struck out everywhere, then got a call, "We have a generator for you." Awesome! It's a cute little unit, 5600 continuous watts with 8600 surge. Pull-rope for a starter, which is fine with me.

We took the Jetta, since it's a bit easier to get large boxes in its trunk than the 210's. But no sedan expects to carry a box this big. I went down the street to Enterprise and rented a 15 passenger van. A cargo van would have been better, but they had this one. They gave it to me for a car price since I only needed it for two hours. Cheaper than paying for delivery, more than I wanted to pay to get it home, but everything came together. We have heat, lights, refrigeration, cable TV and internet access.

Cool!! Glad you have POWER!:D

Power is good ... esp. this time af the year ;)

Glad you found a generator. I have the same one, except mine says Wheel Horse on it. We lose electric all the time, sometimes a few hours, sometimes for a day or two. I made a cord and plug to plug it into my 50 amp welder line in the garage and back feed it through the breaker. I just shut off the main and all the 220 breakers and life goes on as normal. Beats running extention cords all over the place.

Hope you get your electric back soon

I have a friend who feeds his panel the same way. Just be sure to turn off the main before powering up the generator.
Good ole yankee resourcefulness!

Yes, please switch off your main breaker.

As an electrical contractor here in the hurricane zone, the ways i've seen people attach secondary systems to their homes would make your jaw drop. Not to mention the linemen getting zapped by back-fed cables.

Glad you got juice!

I did it the way kbannister suggests. The only difference is that the generator is plugged into a 30A outlet in the garage, with a cord going out the window to the generator, which is chained to a large tree.

I did ensure that the main breaker in the house was off, and all the other breakers to start as well. Then I turned them on one by one (while referencing the incorrect legend on the box) to get the fridge and furnace, determine which leg they were on to find out what other outlets can have a few consumers. Most of the house is dark, but at least it's warm.

I use the outlet breaker in the garage to isolate the generator from everything to start it and shut it off. Upon starting, I first turn the power on just in the garage and check that the overhead lights work properly, then throw the garage main.

The only downside of this generator is the fuel tank size. It claims five gallons, but that must be in somebody's dream. I can only get about 4 in it, but it runs all night on that, with just the fridge and furnace turned on.

A BUNCH of people in and around St. Louis still have no electricity, many of them are the same ones who lost power for days on end over the summer when some storms came through. It can be a real kick in the behind when your modern conveniences are all gone.

Lots of people have it on by now, but they're putting down poles at the bottom of the list. I can understand the reasoning, but have no idea when they'll fix the damage. Nobody but the tree trimmers have been out.

dont forget to change the oil specified by the manual ;)

dino or synthetic??? Just kidding

I read the manual in full after the thing had been running all night. 5 hours is specified for the first oil change, so I did last night when I refueled it.

I used synthetic, since I had some in the correct grade. I'll have to get some more. The interval is 50 hours, or about two days. It's whining about its air filter which supposedly needs service, but as there's almost no dust in the air, I don't think it's a problem.

Still off the grid
 

This is day seven. We lost power Thursday night, and the broken utility pole has not been replaced.

I changed the oil in the generator again last night. That thing is working like a trooper.

Dayum. Good thing you found one when you did. I'll bet there isn't one available now within 500 miles of St Louis. Keep it chained to the tree :D

There is a lot of things you can do to keep lights on, we use those small 5 watt candle lights in some rooms, changed the bulbs in lamps to those flouresent ones that give out 40 watts of light using only 20 watts of power. I even turned on the electric water heater once a day so everybody could get a shower. I shut off everything else in the house when I did that.

Hope you get it back on soon.

The compact florescent bulbs do save on power, but they do it by using a low power factor. They still take a lot of current, and current is my limiting factor right now. I use an inverter to power a bulb when servicing the generator; a 60W incandescent lamp shows 60W on the inverter display, whereas a 13W compact florescent (equivalent 60W of light) shows over 100W due to the high current demand. A large capacitor in the feed line would reduce the current demand (I assume that it's an inductive load), but I don't have one handy.