Well water and power outage plans...what do you do?

[Gloria]

[QUOTE=msj;8346730]
Gloria, I had the smaller portable gasoline generator for yrs. Even though I ran it at least once/month (and often every 2 wks) I still had problems with it.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated NJ and the people with generators couldn’t get gasoline (gas stations devastated as well), I decided that with the grid in country not being terribly reliable I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me (not being able to get gas for the generator). That’s when I decided to go for the whole house generator to cover the house and the barn.

I turn 70 in a couple of weeks and honestly don’t want to have to out, start the generator and HOPE that I have enough gas to keep it going if we do have a serious power outage. After watching the people in NJ after Sandy hit, I made the decision to go with the whole house generator. I’m totally on electricity so I also bought a 500 gallon propane tank and had it buried so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.

I did have 5 different companies come and give me price estimates and decided to go with the one company that ONLY did whole house generators rather than the companies that did HVAC as well as generators.

I figured if I never needed anything beyond the gallon of propane used/month the propane in the tank would last 12 yrs. Also, if we did have a big power outage like we had during the '91 ice storm (some people didn’t get power for 2 wks)I’d have enough to last me about a week and hopefully the roads would be open that they could deliver more.

Have I regretted it? Not on your life! Yes, it was a fairly big outlay of cash. With buying and burying the propane tank and filling it plus the buying and installing the generator, it ran $12K. So far we’ve already had a 10 hour power outage and several shorter ones (5 minutes to 3 hours). I was fine. Had it gone on longer I think I’d have several families moving in. :)[/QUOTE]

Thank you! A lot to think about. The joy of country living, lol. At least we already use propane tank, so don’t have to purchase one just for the purpose. A few years ago we suffered a gigantic ice storm, and my little farm was without power for two weeks. We were forced to move into hotel, along with the rest of the whole city, for that duration of time. Had to scramble to buy a big water wagon, fill the water at my company high powered water hydrant, truck it home and fill the water troughs that way. Very very stressful time.

[atr]

Like MSJ we have a whole house generator that runs of propane. We’ve had ours for 14 years, and it has served us very well. We heat and cook with propane too, so we have 2 x 1000 gallon tanks of the stuff. We also have a bunch of solar feeding back into the grid, but that’s not much good when the power goes out!

We generally tend to be the neighborhood magnet when the power goes out, too

[2miniB]

We have a generator for the house and one for the barns. Very helpful when we have long power outages during winter.

As far as water goes…the well is connected to the house and supplies both the house and the barn. Water goes up to a 500 gallon reserve tank in one barn and can gravity feed our automatic waterers when power goes out.

We also have photovoltaic panels that used to charge batteries. The batteries could power the barns during an outage. The batteries failed last year after 7 years. Still working on a replacement. Until then, we have the barn generator for when we need it.

[Doctracy]

I set a couple of troughs under the barn roof last weekend as I don’t have well and electric at the barn yet. (Soon,says the electric company,3 weeks ago!). Anyway,I had 250 gallons of water in a couple of hours just from runoff. Just dipped buckets in and hauled to each stall.
My horses are usually outside with pond access but as most people know, we had this little storm near southern North Carolina last weekend.:eek:

[clanter]

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[Maythehorsebewithme]

My current barn has a generator. Automatic waterers, but they keep clean buckets on hand. The one time there was a power outage the BO got the generator rev’ed up, and each horse got a full bucket within one-half hour.

Previous barn was a terrible situation–BO just waited for the power to go back on. One night I and another owner went to a CVS and bought 50 gallon jugs of spring water to tide our 6 or so horses over. Luckily power was out for hours, not days, as that could have gotten expensive. Glad I am not there anymore.

[Simkie]

Wow, old thread. We don’t even live in that state anymore :lol: We never lost power for any length of time besides the one outage that inspired this thread.

Here in CT, power outages are common–yeah, great idea to put power lines on poles with all the trees no one maintains :rolleyes:–and we installed a whole house generator last spring. Nice peace of mind.

[paintedpony]

We have two generators. One is PTO driven, and the second is a portable gas unit. Both have value.

The PTO setup was costly. Purchase of the unit about 20 years ago was roughly $ 4500 plus installation of a power line disconnect and generator attachments. The bonus of this unit is the ability to have full electrical supply to all aspects of our property. The operation of generator is not hard work for our tractor. We have on farm diesel tanks, so fuel supply is never an issue The down side of this unit is the work of set up. Honestly, to drag it out of the shed, connect it, run the lines etc is over an hour of work, followed by the same to put it away. (I am no longer physically able to do this work without help) For shorter outages, the work involved in set up outweighs the convenience. We don’t bother unless the outage drags on. I can’t tell you how many times we have connected, to have power return in a brief time. We purchased this unit before automatic generators became popular. If buying today, I would install a Generac type unit.

Portable Honda generator (on wheels) is useful for many things.Throw it on the pickup, and take it anywhere! Easy turn key start, (back up pull start) and provides for minor needs and comforts. Purchase was less than 1K. The down side…it is very tempting to put the backup gas supply into a car, the lawnmower or ATV. Somehow, that container is often empty. They are very easy to steal, so be prepared to chain it to something if you think that could happen.

[TheJenners]

Some of the small portable gennies can be switched to propane fairly easily Less likely to steal the propane than the gasoline, plus it won’t go stale like gasoline does.

[Gainer]

Where I live, the most frequent power outages we have are due to high winds. Not a big issue in the warmer months. Then I just make sure the troughs are full whenever high winds are predicted. Worst that can happen is I’ll have to haul some water inside for the horses to drink.

Winter is a whole other thing. I’m leasing the property, so I’m unwilling to pay for a generator. I keep an eye out for predictions of ice and/or high winds. When it happens, I keep two large troughs of water (300 gals.) inside the barn to pull from in case the power goes out. If it’s really cold and the power goes out, the outside troughs freeze solid pretty fast. I’ve had them freeze solid in 12 hours. If I need to water the horses outside while there’s no power, I use my heated muck tubs. Even without power they don’t ice up as fast as the Rubbermaid troughs do.

[mmeqcenter]

We did not have a generator when Irma hit. We lost power for six days. To prepare, we filled every possible container we could find with water and stored it in the barn. We only had four horses on the farm at that time, and I believe we stored about 500 gallons of water in addition to the full troughs outside. It lasted us through the whole week, but about halfway through we went and bought a portable gas generator with a 220V plug, and have since fitted a special unit to the wall that controls power to the well pump. When house power goes out, we flip a switch to change the power source, plug in a big extension cord type thing from wall unit to generator, and voila, power to pump.

[SonnysMom]

@Gainer

Where I live, the most frequent power outages we have are due to high winds. Not a big issue in the warmer months. Then I just make sure the troughs are full whenever high winds are predicted. Worst that can happen is I’ll have to haul some water inside for the horses to drink.

Winter is a whole other thing. I’m leasing the property, so I’m unwilling to pay for a generator. I keep an eye out for predictions of ice and/or high winds. When it happens, I keep two large troughs of water (300 gals.) inside the barn to pull from in case the power goes out. If it’s really cold and the power goes out, the outside troughs freeze solid pretty fast. I’ve had them freeze solid in 12 hours. If I need to water the horses outside while there’s no power, I use my heated muck tubs. Even without power they don’t ice up as fast as the Rubbermaid troughs do.

It may be worth it to buy a small portable generator. We do what mmeqcenter does. Throw the main breaker to off, plug the generator into the 220v outlet for either the compressor or the dryer and we can run the well, boiler for hot water, fridge and a few lights. It isn’t big enough to run my stove or the boiler for heating the house. With this set up you can take it with you. DH bought ours used from Craigslist.

PSA- if you use a generator to backfeed the house please make sure you disconnect from the electric grid. Apparently you can shock the lineman that are repairing the lines. They shut off the power from the electric company but a generator can feed it back on what they think are shut off lines. Per a friend of mine that was a former lineman.

[Palm_Beach]

This thread is from 2015.

[Guilherme]

@Palm Beach

This thread is from 2015.

Indeed. But the problem is the same now as it was then for people who live rural and the solution is the same: a properly wired in generator connection.

G.

[SonnysMom]

@Palm Beach

This thread is from 2015.

True the OP chimed in to mention that already. It is still a good resource to update. Other people for the 2019 update were talking about how they deal with power outages without generators. Other people have shared what they do for generators.

[Palm_Beach]

@SonnysMom

True the OP chimed in to mention that already. It is still a good resource to update. Other people for the 2019 update were talking about how they deal with power outages without generators. Other people have shared what they do for generators.

So nothing has changed. You need a generator to get along for more than a few days.

[SonnysMom]

@Palm Beach

So nothing has changed. You need a generator to get along for more than a few days.

It certainly makes it easier but isn’t the end of world if you don’t have one.

Many years ago I had my horse at a co-op board. The barn used to be the hack barn at a “resort”. The bank had taken over the resort and we rented it for a few years as a private barn. The bank at one point turned off the electric to everything except the golf course. We were without it for about 3 weeks. We trucked in water from the stream on the golf course. We would scoop the water into new trash cans in the back of a pick-up truck and dump them in other ones back at the barn.

We would dump water with a bucket into the back of the toilet to flush it.

We ran lights off of the car batteries if we needed to be there when it was dark. Battery lamps in the aisles.

It was a PITA but doable. It would have been less doable if we had a long hard freeze. It was getting barely below freezing at night so the water was just getting a skim of ice. Thankfully the bank finally gave us electric back and a partial refund on rent. A generator would have been nice but not necessary.

I even know people that don’t have electric at their barn. The pasture has a stream. If they need to confine the horses they dip the water from the stream. They use head lamps and car headlights. Once again maybe not idea but doable.

Also part of this discussion has been about whole house versus portable generators. Heck I learned that there was such a thing as a PTO driven generator. I knew about portable, whole house, propane or gas ones but not PTO.

Heck with Super Storm Sandy plenty of people had generators. It didn’t do them much good after a few days as the gas stations didn’t have generators so couldn’t pump gas. Many of those houses and presumably barns were without power way more than a few days. Unless they had a lot of stockpiled gas or used propane they were likely without power and no useable generator for days. Most people figured it out.

[Palm_Beach]

Well prepared people with generators would also stock up on enough gas to run them. And you can turn them on and off. Turn them on, do what you need to do with the electric, then turn them back off to save on your gas. When you have a massive event like Sandy, you know the power is not going to be up for a long time, and you budget your gas accordingly. You can “what if” this thing to death, which seems to be happening above. There is always a situation that is an outlier, but for most people, common sense and preparedness go a long way.

[lorilu]

I bought a generator a few years aog big enough to power the fridge, well, and microwave… Rather than just plug it into a 220 outlet (which would require a long cord considering how my house is set up), I had an electrician come and set up the proper hook up into my panel. He wrote instructoins on the panel door LOL - switch off #s ABC… and leave #s XZY on… so it willbe easy in the stressful times of no power. I lost power for 7 days last storm…

[S1969]

@SonnysMom

It certainly makes it easier but isn’t the end of world if you don’t have one.

Sure is if it’s winter. There is no way to get water to my barn if I didn’t have a generator to pump the well. Short of having someone bring me water. I have a pond but it had ice about 8 inches thick last week.

I used to store some water in the house but with horses, it’s really not enough to have 20 gallons set aside. That’s a day. And, without heated tanks, it’s just a block of ice.

I miss having candles in the house when the power goes out…that was kind of fun. But, nope, don’t miss the anxiety of not knowing how to supply water to animals.