"Hi All,

I know Sandy is far from ""just for fun"" ... but I thought I'd ask how everyone is doing so far. I hope everyone made it through without too much property loss, damage, or physical discomfort.

This morning my wife told me that the local politicians were ""spitting mad"" after hearing that our community would be without power for another week. We roughed it for the last eight nights -- no power, running water or heat (we have a well with an electric pump). We have natural gas piped in so we were able to boil water & cook ... the BBQ grille performed very nicely as well.

My brother's generator became available this afternoon after his power was restored ... so I was getting ready for the long trip to go get it ... and viola! ... the lights came on. So we're very happy campers. Tomorrow we start the inside clean-ups ... no damage to the house ... just lots of smelly refers to clean out.

Anyway, I hope all you and your families are safe and warm.

Best Regards,
--JB"

Hi JB, glad to hear your Ok except for stinky fridge and discomfort.

"My, my ... that's a big one! I had a friend who bought one of those army surplus diesel jobs with the trailer hitch ... kept it in his garage alongside a 150 gal. diesel tank. It was enough to run his entire home and then some. I thought he was crazy ... then last week I _knew_ he was a smart man.

I decided to get an electrician in here to put in a sub-panel (or two) with a 240v/2-phase feed. I'm looking around for a natural gas generator. I was told they're more efficient and considerably quieter ... but also considerably more expensive. After I get things back to normal I'll start my search.

I also wanted to get some sort of solar panel that I can use to charge the batteries for my radios. I use (have used) the 6v rechargeable type that you might find in a home alarm panel. They're big enough to keep things running for a while, but small enough to carry.

--JB"

Man how big is your generater???? I just installed a 20kw and I thought that was the cats meow, but if your helping neighbors too, wow that must be one helluva unit. Congrats I wish I had neighbors like you it would have saved me $10,000.

Hi heeler,
It is just a 15kw Generac portable. Was $2300.00 on Amazon.com. One of my friends is an electrician and he wired in everything for a few hundred. Mine has a 50 amp (the one that connects to the house). It also has a 30 amp, a 20 amp, two 15 amp, and a 12 volt connections. The 50 amp is good for a total of 12500 watts (12.5kw). If I were to turn on everything in my 6 room ranch style house at the same time I'm at just over 10000 watts so I have some leeway. I can use the two 15 amp connections to run lines to my neighbors if needed to run a fridge, a heater if needed, and maybe a light or two. It's not much but it beats the hell out of freezing your balls off in the dark while your food goes bad. If they want to chip in for a bit of gas I don't mind helping out. I thought about getting the permantly installed unit but it was much more expensive. I did the research and found at this size the engines are the same, it is the nice weatherproof housing and auto transfer switch that you pay extra for.
Maddawgs

I fired my blower up a couple weeks ago. just in case.there is an old saying I just made up. "Wind blows....and so does snow"
c-ya. off to work.