Hello Relatives, Friends and Fans:
Soon we will have our Power Project and Lift Projects
completed. While wandering through Home Depot, I saw automatic stand by
power supply generators. Living in the woods at the end of the power line
means we are the final house to be restored after a storm causes a power
failure.
If we have bad winter storms, it can be a PIA. Lots of
trees with branches ensure outages. No electric means no pump for well
water, hence no water or toilets. Oh S...., but you can't, unless you collect
water before the storm. Plus no heat as the furnace needs electric. No
nothing. Bummer. Cold, Dry, Dark and you cannot even take a .... .
Therefore I purchased a
"Generac Guardian" Generator at Home Depot for about $3000. About
20 seconds after a power outage occurs, this (propane gas powered) generator
starts and powers most of the house and even the barn 83' away. (My wife
calls it the barn. It is really an additional detatched garage.) It automatically
cut out after the normal electric power is restored and also automatically
turns itself on and runs a 12-minute test once a week to check readiness.
Yee ha! No more electrical outages here. Home Depot delivers for $45 and
it is well worth it, as it's a quarter ton.
Today the electrician installed
the new circuit box and hooked it into existing house wiring. The job was
somewhat more complicated because this house has one main box with 36 circuit
breakers and 2 more remote sub-boxes with even more circuit breakers. I
wanted to have different circuits from all of three boxes powered in an
outage. The electrician and helper took 4 hours and $825 when they left.
He had done these before. Note that Home Depot wanted $3000 for the install
if their subs did it. The instruction book is excellent and says you could
complete the installation yourself - but recommends a professional electrician
for safety.
Now we will have POWER
for the furnace, well, refrigerator, microwave, and lights no matter what
happens. For safety, I also wanted power in my barn in the events of a
power outage - because the lifts must first be raised slightly to disengage
the locks (i.e. they need electric) before they could be lowered. I want
to be able to empty the barn quickly, should I ever need to.
workNow Now that one lift is assembled in the single bay of my barn, I will begin building the other 3 lifts simultaneously in the main room with 3 bays. Although the instruction stink, they are not difficult to assemble. Just bulky and heavy. The ceiling is 9'2" and allows stacking.
We could use a golf cart to run between the barn and the house. On the right side in the trees is one of the new bird houses I put up. No tenants yet. Rain today, so the ponies could not get exercised.