Powering home during minor emergency
Posted by Throwawayconcern2023@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 11 comments
Hi all. Hoping for some feedback on what to choose for a power source. The type of emergency I am considering (living in Bay Area, California) is the after effects of a large earthquake, regional fires or perhaps some type of social or health emergency that knocks out normalcy in the region for a few weeks to a month.
I had originally been mulling a generator, but thinking about it, the chances of it being stolen during civil unrest would be high. I live with houses all around us, 15-20 ft apart in a large town. My understanding is an inverter generator would need to be housed outside due to C02, whether powered by gas or propane. Wouldn't the risk of it being stolen or attracting attention be high with some minor civil unrest? I have given up preparing for larger scale emergencies (apocalyptic-type events, war etc.) as I don't feel our home is defensible given where we live.
This has me mulling over some sort of large electric battery pack type generator. Yet how to recharge once it's dead? I have enough mini power packs to power stuff like cell-phones, but that's about it.
What we'd likely want to power:
-Fridge/Freezer unit
-Cellphones
-Laptop
- Some type of heat source. We have a gas furnace and gas hob (but electric oven) so I'm not sure how I'd go about powering those. My limited understanding is I could get a larger generator and have it linked directly to fuseboard, but this takes me back to problem at very start. I guess I would focus on heating one room, right? Any recommendations there?
-EV vehicle - yes, I know in retrospect this was an unwise purchase :( The wife insisted and I caved. We had at time a gas vehicle too but that got totalled a few months back, so back to one. I guess this is not too important. We keep it charged daily and in event of emergency like the ones above, leaving with it would get us about 200 miles. No doubting the next purchase should be a hybrid at most though. Realistically, this would not be possible to recharge I'm thinking in an emergency.
Thanks!
TacTurtle@reddit
To put it bluntly, you will not be running electric heat using a battery pack, the draw is too large and inefficient.
If you still have natural gas service, you could run the furnace thermostat and fan off of a battery as that would draw a fraction of the power of a space heater or two.
Throwawayconcern2023@reddit (OP)
I do have natural gas. How would one connect it (or in my useless case, who do I hire?!)
TacTurtle@reddit
Your furnace already runs on natural gas, right? You would just need to supply 120v using the battery / power station to run the thermostat and fan so the furnace can operate like normal.
Internal_Raccoon_370@reddit
Just be aware that the typical gas furnace blower fan uses anywhere from 300 - 700+ watts when in operation so you need to take that into consideration. I have a Bluetti AC200Max with about 5 KWH of battery that will keep my gas furnace going for around 12 - 20 hours depending on weather conditions.
As for how to power it, the furnace uses standard 120V AC. If you know what you're doing you can find the line feeding the furnace and go from there. In my case I put in an emergency generator transfer switch with the furnace wired to one of the circuits fed by the transfer switch, along with the lines feeding the fridge, freezer, and some lights. The Bluetti plugs into the transfer switch's socket just like an emergency generator would.
Dmau27@reddit
You can build a sma fenced in area for the generator. It doesn't need to be war proof, if someone tries to steal it while it's running your lights and everything will go off. You just lock it in the shed when you need to store it..
Radiant_Device_6706@reddit
I just went through a power shut off for 4 days. My gas generator wasn't stolen, but many people reported that theirs were stolen in an area pretty close to where I live. Mine was chained up and I do have a dog that will not let people in the yard. Also there was someone home the entire time. BUT it does happen. My small generator lasted for three days and it never ran out of gas. I had my freezer plugged in and we used it to charge cell phones.
Speaking of generators being stolen, I heard that the police arrested someone in the fire area of California just yesterday with several stolen generators.... Generators were one of the things the stores sold out of quickly. We had to use cash because of no internet. The bigger stores stayed open, but the smaller mini market gas stations closed.
We lost internet service. Our phones ran through power quickly because of roaming. We used a Mr. Buddy heater to heat one room. One night it got down to 34 degrees. I left the heater on until I went to sleep and got up the next day and turned it right back on. We used lots of blankets.
We used the 4patriot power cells to keep our phones charged at night. I cannot say enough good things about this company and this item. These power cells have saved me more than once. I just bought 4 more, because last year I gave two away as gifts. The other two are in my get home bags. I want to keep them there and the new ones I'm keeping in the house.
Another thing about gas is you have to put an additive into it if you store it, you don't have to do this with propane. Since I'm already on propane, I'm intending to buy a propane generator.
My understanding is a propane tank of 100 gallons will last a week or more if it is conserved. Our Mr. Buddy was hooked up to a full 5 gallon tank and it seemed like that tank was still full when we unhooked it. We did have an adapter.
We still had a stove top and our hot water heater. Both of these ran on propane.
NewYorkRagdolls@reddit
I would invest in a small portable Honda gas generator and a couple of gas cans so that you could charge your car on the go plus you could use it to power items in your home. Just for a back up situation. I have both gas generator and Ecoflows. The big Gas gen is loud and don’t want to run it all night. After Sandy and 16 days with only gas generator I figured out exactly what would make life easier. You must have back ups to your back ups anyway.
RonJohnJr@reddit
Not as high as you fear. (I rent in a very blue-collar neighborhood, spitting distance from the murder capital of the country. Never had a problem when needing to run my generator. YMMV, of course, being in the Bay Area.)
(They're not generators, no matter what marketers gunning for your money say.)
I have four: two older 500 watt-hour power stations and two newer 1150 watt-hour power stations. You probably need bigger.
Note that their compressors don't run nearly as often as you might think they do (especially if they're full of cold stuff, and you don't stand there with the door open and your thumb up your butt).
I recharge them using a portable dual-fuel generator connected to a 20 lb tank, and have a spare tank. Propane is much quieter and less noxious than gasoline, but generates about 10% less electricity (a max-continuous 2000W generator would only generate max-continuous 1800W).
What I do is run the generator during the day to charge the power stations, so the night is quiet (not only for me, but for neighbors).
You might be able to get away with some larger power stations than mine, and simply charge them using the small generator. It'll take more time, but modern power stations charge pretty quickly, and even a generator like mine that creates 1650W on propane could charge two 2000 watt-hour stations in about 8 hours..
And you might be able to use the EV as a power source. After all, it's mostly a bunch of batteries.
jazzbiscuit@reddit
I've got a combination of Jackery solar generators, portable solar panels and a gas generator on wheels. I rewired the gas furnace to allow me to plug it into a Jackery to keep the heat on, and additional Jackery units to move around the house to power fridge, freezer, internet etc as needed. I can toss out the solar panels if the weather is decent, or pull the gas generator out of the garage and run it long enough to recharge the batteries. Since I only have to run the gas generator for a few hours at a time for a full recharge, I can time it so I can keep an eye on the generator and deter theft - it also extends the timeline I can keep everything powered using the gas I have on-hand. If I get a few days with some decent sun - I can extend that even more.
newarkdanny@reddit
If you can afford it get a whole house generator like a Generac. There for the most part goes your stolen unit problem which tbh really won't be a problem, so my actual more affordable recommendation is to get a regular fuel generator, something large like this https://www.harborfreight.com/9500-watt-super-quiet-inverter-generator-with-co-secure-technology-epa-71365.html, then you pay a electrician to wire it up for your house, with a couple of contain of gas you will be able to keep everything running like nothing happened. There are also cheaper ones, the cheaper you go the more you limit what you can run and yes there are quiter versions, this Honda https://www.amazon.com/Honda-2200-Watt-120-Volt-Portable-Generator/dp/B079YF1HF6/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=17N64QGLI4Q7Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fXrDdkoo8eiHRDTOfVQN6UCRBEq0HhbY9tdQzsgWTDJuxPytMG2HmvShKd1TPzC6wPPP9fw_CfEyil5kz3NMnIxq5LIHa43tl0i7keM0g_iVSZz9NrMQdCUSCOA504TfSuGwIZ2vNvp9FRx20PqfuOw0kCIvNX-98orAfcHcdU212uxKatx_1PCXQ3iq1R6PKla4PoxIVHZX23I5MQMj3Q.4-ktMunrdfw1KRkcdNHxIcAdrZMCuKl_s6mX6vLhr3c&dib_tag=se&keywords=honda+generator+eu2200i&qid=1737146803&sprefix=Honda+ge%2Caps%2C390&sr=8-3 is basically silent as far as generators go. Can these be stolen? Sure but if you are at the point where groups are going door to door taking generators you have a much bigger problem.
Then lastly you have the completely silent option of getting power stations which can/should be kept indoors look into EcoFlow, Bluetti, Jackery or Anker. Limitations on those is they are essentially giant batteries that need either power or solar once they run out.
Personally I like a combination of gas generator and power stations. Use your Honda generator to charge up your power stations once they run out juice. Again with the power stations and smaller generators you are going to have to be more hands on with manging what you can or can't run. With the Generac you do nothing, power goes out it turns on and the very larger generator all you will need to do is take it outside, fuel it and turn it on.
TheSensiblePrepper@reddit
I would recommend you check my post about preparing for a Power Outage. It has a list of things that would be very helpful in any emergency.
Regarding the EV, I have a Model S myself. I love it but I also have solar panels and a battery bank that would allow me to charge it without grid power. If I were you, I would map out a route or two for you to leave but that has charging stations along the way. I will say that because of the Infrastructure Bill passed a few years back, more charging stations are going to start popping up with weeds all across the country. The idea is for people to be able to drive from East to West on EVs and the charges need to be there to do it. For the record, I do still have regular gasoline vehicles as a backup.