Beryl Barreling Our Way?

[tedwitt]

I am in Galveston today for a cruise. Most things working but you need cash. Not a credit card for buying anything at most places. Barely managed to find a hotel in Galveston after our hotel in Houston was without power and canceled. Other than that we had a pretty easy time as traffic was lighter than usual. Not to mention we're leaving right away on the cruise so no problems there.

I've been on 5 or 6, I don't think I would want to be in a hurricane.

 

[tedwitt]

A quick recap of running for 5-1/2 days on a Generac.

My unit ran from 9am Monday until like 3pm Saturday. This was its first extended run, the longest it ran previously was with the derecho, about 12 hours. It ran great and handled all our power needs. So that's the good part.

The "bad" part is I had planned to do the break-in oil change before the recommended 25 hours and blew right past that because I didn't have the filter in hand yet. It was sitting in my shopping cart, thinking I had some time. I didn't. Thankfully I had plenty of oil on hand that meets the manufacturer's requirements, and I stopped the generator periodically to keep it topped up. Oil did look good on the dipstick with minimal discoloration as expected with gaseous fuel. Maintenance kit arrived yesterday, waiting on a new set of feeler gauges to check valve lash (30+ year old ones are showing their age - they aren't stainless and got a few spots of rust).

A lot of people learned the hard way that whole-home air cooled generators are not maintenance free. They seem to go about 4 days or so before they'll burn enough oil to trigger the low pressure shutdown. These little engines only have a 2 qt. crankcase. It's a super simple process to stop the generator, check and fill, and start back up. But, a lot of people were sold on the benefits of a maintenance contract, and made to feel like that would take care of everything. One widow in my neighborhood asked on the neighborhood facebook group about her generator when it stopped. Her late husband always handled those things. She quickly learned the process, took care of business and was back up and running in no time.

Worst reports I heard are that some of these units were subbed out or contract built after the freeze with substandard parts. An alarming number of people have had slip rings disintegrate, brushes wear or crack, and a couple rocker failures. As in the metal pushrod cup in the rocker failed, and the pushrod came THROUGH the rocker. Crazy. Fixable of course, but crazy. So part of my maintenance is going to be a pretty thorough inspection of as many failure points as I can identify, and I'll source some spare parts to keep on hand should mine ever fail.

I looked into the Generac's, I didn't want an air cooled, I wanted one water cooled, but you have to go with a 24,000 watt to get that. They wanted $15,000.00 to set me up, NOT doing that. It may be inconvenient but my 7,000 watt pulled me through. Still looking at the Westinghouse 12,500 watt that will handle my whole house for what I need.
My neighbor's Generac died after 4 days of running. Just turned itself off.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Power just came on here.

 

[popper]

Daughter's scheduled for power the 19th. They run out of transformers?

 

[CodyK]

Daughter's scheduled for power the 19th. They run out of transformers?

I just looked at the map for Kingwood. Looks like we’re the 19th also. We will see!


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[sucker76]

A quick recap of running for 5-1/2 days on a Generac.

My unit ran from 9am Monday until like 3pm Saturday. This was its first extended run, the longest it ran previously was with the derecho, about 12 hours. It ran great and handled all our power needs. So that's the good part.

The "bad" part is I had planned to do the break-in oil change before the recommended 25 hours and blew right past that because I didn't have the filter in hand yet. It was sitting in my shopping cart, thinking I had some time. I didn't. Thankfully I had plenty of oil on hand that meets the manufacturer's requirements, and I stopped the generator periodically to keep it topped up. Oil did look good on the dipstick with minimal discoloration as expected with gaseous fuel. Maintenance kit arrived yesterday, waiting on a new set of feeler gauges to check valve lash (30+ year old ones are showing their age - they aren't stainless and got a few spots of rust).

A lot of people learned the hard way that whole-home air cooled generators are not maintenance free. They seem to go about 4 days or so before they'll burn enough oil to trigger the low pressure shutdown. These little engines only have a 2 qt. crankcase. It's a super simple process to stop the generator, check and fill, and start back up. But, a lot of people were sold on the benefits of a maintenance contract, and made to feel like that would take care of everything. One widow in my neighborhood asked on the neighborhood facebook group about her generator when it stopped. Her late husband always handled those things. She quickly learned the process, took care of business and was back up and running in no time.

Worst reports I heard are that some of these units were subbed out or contract built after the freeze with substandard parts. An alarming number of people have had slip rings disintegrate, brushes wear or crack, and a couple rocker failures. As in the metal pushrod cup in the rocker failed, and the pushrod came THROUGH the rocker. Crazy. Fixable of course, but crazy. So part of my maintenance is going to be a pretty thorough inspection of as many failure points as I can identify, and I'll source some spare parts to keep on hand should mine ever fail.

Good to know about the oil burn. I mostly didn't know. I will have to check when I get back to town.

 

[sucker76]

I looked into the Generac's, I didn't want an air cooled, I wanted one water cooled, but you have to go with a 24,000 watt to get that. They wanted $15,000.00 to set me up, NOT doing that. It may be inconvenient but my 7,000 watt pulled me through. Still looking at the Westinghouse 12,500 watt that will handle my whole house for what I need.
My neighbor's Generac died after 4 days of running. Just turned itself off.

I also wanted a water cooled machine but got an air cooled instead for cost.

 

[Mowingmaniac 24/7]

No power from Sunday to Sunday, but only tree limb debris...we got off lucky!

 

[tedwitt]

I have the Champion 7000 watt/ 6000 running watts. I did OK but didn't run the whole house. I have gas stove, gas water heater and gas furnace, so the only thing big I need is to run my A/C. I'm looking looking at the 12500 Westinghouse. My Grandson is an electrician, he can hook it up with a transfer switch for me. It will run on propane from my house supply and have a battery minder on the battery so it's always ready to go. I'm looking at less than $1,500 turnkey.

 

[tedwitt]

Good to know about the oil burn. I mostly didn't know. I will have to check when I get back to town.

One of my neighbors said his uses about 1 lb propane per hour, which is just under a quart because propane is 4.24 lbs per gallon. So hats about 4 1/2 hours per gallon. Better than no power at all.

 

[kbaxter60]

I just looked at the map for Kingwood. Looks like we’re the 19th also. We will see!


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We heard today that there are still 50,000 homes without power.
May those of you still affected be blessed with restoration very soon.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

One of my neighbors said his uses about 1 lb propane per hour, which is just under a quart because propane is 4.24 lbs per gallon. So hats about 4 1/2 hours per gallon. Better than no power at all.

What size generator?
Consumption varies depending on size and load.

 

[benenglish]

We heard today that there are still 50,000 homes without power.

Both my insurance agent and his office are still without power as of the middle of yesterday. He's in the Atascocita area. I'll try to contact him again today.

 

[Brains]

My neighbor's Generac died after 4 days of running. Just turned itself off.

Let me guess. He never checked the oil at any time during those 4 days.

 

[deemus]

My buddy in Spring got his power last night.

 

[Rafe]

Some friends in the Entergy service area up near New Caney got their power back this afternoon.

Time for Texas to start looking seriously at Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Over 3/4 of the state is on its own grid and doesn't participate with either the Eastern or Western Interconnect. We need to start looking to the future. Beryl exposed that our localized delivery systems ain't up to snuff come a serious storm, and February 2021 showed us what can happen to the grid itself if we can't produce a lot more energy on demand...energy that doesn't depend on solar or wind.

 

[oldag]

Some friends in the Entergy service area up near New Caney got their power back this afternoon.

Time for Texas to start looking seriously at Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Over 3/4 of the state is on its own grid and doesn't participate with either the Eastern or Western Interconnect. We need to start looking to the future. Beryl exposed that our localized delivery systems ain't up to snuff come a serious storm, and February 2021 showed us what can happen to the grid itself if we can't produce a lot more energy on demand...energy that doesn't depend on solar or wind.

All the generation capability in the world doesn't help when the main issue is downed lines.

But yes, we do need more capacity that can generate on demand.

 

[CodyK]

Got my power back this afternoon. Kingwood slowly getting back online. Still quite a few without through!


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[Younggun]

Daughter's scheduled for power the 19th. They run out of transformers?

It’s possible.

During the big freeze we had to stop our work at one point and get a bunch of damaged transformers on pallets to be sent off for repairs so they could be brought back out and put on poles. Mostly stuff that had broken bushings from fallen tree limbs.

Also had some techs out in the field checking transformers that were taken down to see if they could be put back up, but I don’t think that went very far.

I have no idea if that’s the situation there. Not involved in any way.

 

[tedwitt]

What size generator?
Consumption varies depending on size and load.

22,000 Kilowatt Generac