Oh yes indeed. Yesterday we got several inches of wet stuff, necessitating a very careful drive to the office and an early departure from it. Snow has been moving off the roof, making an assortment of threatening noises before the great THUMP! Today I’ve stayed home because at some point it’s supposed to do the freezing rain thing, and I’ve had my adventure on ice for the year. Then there will be another couple of inches of snow.
Ooh. The wind has picked up. The predicted Fast Freeze is moving in (lows tonight about -5, tomorrow about -10). It is going to be Vermont Cold. Now my friends and neighbors and I can go into Winter Mode and feel normal.
The installer from BrookField Service came this morning about putting in a generator. When power goes off (and we lost power for 3 days after Irene), I have no water as well as no electricity. No electricity is one thing. No water is quite another.
Here is a summary about the generators that you and I know about. “Portable” generators, which are only portable in the sense that you can move them if you have a truck, run on gasoline. They must be sheltered from the weather, but not fully enclosed. The water begins to separate out of the ethanol after about 6 weeks, and then gasoline-powered engines (cars, lawnmowers, and generators) fail to start. This means putting an additive into the generator tank, and also means buying gasoline in relatively small quantities so that it doesn’t degrade waiting for the generator to be needed. You also have to test the generator every month or so to make sure it will start, and when the need arises you have to start the generator. Portable generators do not attach to the main line into the house. They attach power to a circuit, and then you run big orange extension cords to the (carefully chosen) things you want to run. When the power comes back on, some kind of alarm sounds so you can head to the basement and turn off the generator. The generator and supplied power must not run at the same time. Bad things happen.
The generator I heard about this morning is permanently installed near the house, along with its propane (ugh) tanks. It is operated by a box attached to the house and the electric meter. When the power goes off, the magic box tests for several minutes to be sure the power is OFF (not a blip), shuts down the electric meter, and awakens the generator, which begins to feed power to the entire house. When the power comes back for long enough that the box is confident the power is on, the box shuts off the generator and brings the meter back to life. It tests itself every month to make sure that the system is working (how it lets me know that it’s not is something I do not know). This means no bad gas problems, no starting the generator problems (most generators are pull-started), no worries about shutting the generator off in time, and power to the whole house, not just selected circuits. (The only thing that I can’t use is the oven.) This means that if I go on vacation, or to NJ, and the power goes out for more than 20 minutes, the generator will kick in and turn off without my supervision.
For the kind of life I live there’s a lot of value to this system. It means no quality-of-gasoline problem, which is very significant. Some folks have siphon systems to pull gas out of the car, which is the “freshest” source of gasoline, assuming you can get to a gas station to fill your tank again. It means there will not be, given the location of my circuit board, the pump and the other necessary appliances, umpteen miles of extension cords to run whenever the generator is in use. It means not constructing a weather-proof generator shelter within 10 feet of the house (It cannot go on the porch unless I leave a window open year-round. I put new windows in to keep snow out ). It means that no one needs to be looking after the house and the water pipes when I'm away in case there’s a long power outage.
So how much is this added value going to cost? Gulp. A whole lot more than I thought. And the propane, which is a fourth power source after oil, wood and electricity, still irritates me. I have to talk to the fuel company to find out what the propane installation is going to cost. This little house that started life as an equipment shed is getting expensive. I haven't decided, but I still think that this is a worthwhile investment.
(The installer said “We could do this in a couple of weeks.” “The ground is frozen! There’s snow on the ground!”, I said. “Best weather we could ask for”, he said. Who knew?)
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