Flooding in Ohio was RE: [AT] stiff tractor day (OT) and ramble

[CBear81438 at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/6/2005 10:48:23 PM Central Standard Time,  
rowilson at infinet.com writes:

Rob;
Just got power back this afternoon. Was off all  last night. Have a
lot of tree damage in the yard from broken limbs. The  big cedar tree has
lost about half the limbs. Have a lot of 6 inch limbs  down from the
other trees.
I drove over through Jackson  Center and they are much worse than we
are. Mile after mile of electric  lines down and poles broken off at the
ground. Will require a lot of  construction to get them back on line.

Gene     (DeGraff, Ohio)




Sounds like the Oklahoma Ice storm of Jan 2002.  we were off grid for  27 
days....
 
Ran for a week on a 15 KW generator (gas)  6 cyl continental engine,  used 60 
gallons a day.  At about 2 am it would almost die from carburetor  icing.  
Found out that unleaded gas has water added to lower combustion  temperature.  
Started adding 1 gallon of methanol to 30 gallons of  gas.  It ran fine then 
and cleaned out the tank.  Then fan belt broke  at 3 am the next morning.  Had 
to install a belt that was too short  and would not run the generator.  Plugged 
in a  battery charger  to the generator to provide electrical power for the 
distributor and kept  running.  About 2:30 am the next morning, the fuel pump 
went out.   Bypassed the pump since it was a gravity system.  We were trying to 
run 2  houses on this generator.  One was a double wide with propane heat.   
the other was a superinsulated conventional with ground source heat pump.   I 
thought the generator was a 30 KW, but when I took al lthe covers off found  
out it was only 15.  The governor spring had weakened and It was only  running 
fast enough for 55 hz..  Really caused a heat pump to  groan....  A week after 
the storm we got a 75 kw generator end coupled to a  3-71 detroit.  Put out 
62KW continuous, also 3 phase for the shop.   Connected everything up and got 
it running about 12 midnight!!!!  Talk  about lighting up a runway.....  the 
115 side on a 3 phase is really about  130 volts.  Ran this one for another 20 
days then had to go back on  generator a day later for about 12 hours.  
 
Figured out that detroit used about 75 gallons a day!!!!!!!!!   Whew!!  Then 
farm fuel was about $1.10 a gallon...
 
I have been looking for a corn burning stove to provide heat.  I have  a 12 
kw PTO driven generator that I just got working.  Bought 2 military 20  hp 
diesels to couple to this genereator to provide cheaper  power..    Both homes 
here have elect hot water  tanks.   They take 3500 watts to run..  A 5KW diesel 
will run a  house with an electric hot water tank if you don't try to run the 
dryer. A  dryer takes about 4500 Watts..  I have a 10 KW backup resistance unit 
in  the house with the heat pump.  Probably would have been better off to run 
 it when on generator.  Heat pumps really pulls the  amps...     We ran the 
propane heat house on the 5 KW diesel  for about 36 hours on 3 gallons of fuel 
!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Sorry for the ramble, but maybe this experience will be beneficial to some  
others if they are in the same situation..  
 
Cecil in OKla