Currently Running on MEP Power

[Chainbreaker]

Weather forecast was for 1-6" of snow last night in the Southern Willamette Valley (Eugene, OR area). Woke up this morning to over a foot of snow and power was off. Went out and started the MEP-002 and had the house powered up and coffee made before the wife was up. She didn't even know the power was out...lol. Nice to be prepared! Then I had to go down to the barn and start up the other generator for the horse barn, shop and 2nd well pump for horses.

Right now both generators purring along and life is good...well except that I got my 4x4 JD Gator stuck several times and had to shovel it out due to being on an incline with snow on top of wet slick clay and it was high centered. Got er done though and Gator is back up at house ready to roll!

Last I heard several thousand, including us, are still without power due to lines/poles down. In our County, no matter how much they trim the trees in the power line right of way a branch or tree seems to manage to make a direct hit on pwr lines during snow, ice or wind storms.

MEP POWER Yea!!!

 

[Scar59]

Good for you, nothing like being prepared. Stay warm.

 

[frank8003]

lot of outages caused by the wind...........
https://poweroutage.us/

 

[Chainbreaker]

lot of outages caused by the wind...........
https://poweroutage.us/

Yeah that map tracks with what our Electric provider's recorded message indicates. We have over 8000 without pwr in our County. Utility company said to be prepared for outages to last up to 1 week in some outlying areas. They said lots of trees down on lines all around the County.

Just saw a snow plow come down our road so will be able to get out whenever I need to refuel. I have at least 100+ hrs of fuel on-board each generator. I'm soooo glad I invested in AUX tanks for each generator plus several Jerry cans in reserve. As long as my MEP-002's keep purring along all is good!

 

[Farmitall]

Gotta love'em!! Stay warm!

 

[kloppk]

Lost power here in Massachusetts at 4:30 pm today. Rolled out the 802A, fired it up and continued to cook dinner in the oven. Latest (very optimistic) outlook for power restoration in around midnight. I highly doubt it seeing there are over 1,200 outages at the moment in the region.
So nice to have the lights on, heat on, cold fridge, a hot dinner, cable and internet up during the outage.
Gotta love a MEP!

 

[Light in the Dark]

Plenty windy here, but lights still on. Drove through some outages coming home, but we are spared as of now.

 

[mavucci]

The wind hasn’t stopped howling I’m waiting for the chimney cap to fly off. The lights only flickered once but my 802 is ready to go!

 

[Bmxenbrett]

Had 60mph winds here. Many limbs down in my yard, hot tub cover blew off 2x before i ratchet strapped it down. Saw 2 power poles broken but we still have power.

I think sandy/irene and a few snow/leaf storms really helped clear the trees by the power lines.

 

[kloppk]

Solar battery bank and 5K inverter kept the whole house running quietly thru the night.
Fired up the 802 his morning for coffee and to cook breakfast on the electric range.
Switch to an 831 after breakfast since the house only needed about 1,500 watts to run everything after that. Didn't want to wet stack the 802 with too light a load.
After 18 hours the power company restored power to our neck of the woods this afternoon. Yeah!
Two of my gensets got a little workout
They performed flawlessly!

 

[Chainbreaker]

Well I’m still running on MEP power. Local news said we set a record for most snow in 24 hrs, broke our 1917 record. News also said there was an Amtrack train with passengers stuck at a standstill for over 30 hours until downed trees were removed from tracks. City of Oakridge, OR has been cut off with over 200 trees on main hiway, but they said cleared parts of it enough to get a fuel truck & other critical traffic into main stree of city.

Neighbor lady called me to see if I had a chainsaw to remove a big oak limb that fell on her fence and in front of her gate.
She said she was bailing out of her house as she only has a small generator to run electric heaters. No water & no sewage! I would bail out and head for a hotel too.

I got her tree limbs cut up & her gate open but she got her 4x4 truck stuck in deep snow in driveway. I cant get up it with tractor due to steep angle. She’s now working on plan B.

We just got another weather alert for more snow! Sheesh, I just got our driveway passable after my wife’s Audi all wheel drive got stuck coming up our drive going up hill. Being prepared and fortunate to have whole house & barn generators is fun for the first day. On multiple days though, it gets a bit old though when you have horses to take care of that are now stall bound & sliping & sliding in the Gator. But we have MEP power so once your in the house all is fairly normal.

 

[Bmxenbrett]

Plan B could be letting alot of air out of her tires. More contact with the ground makes for the vehicle not sinking in the snow as much.

Places that get next to no snow can be a real hazard with only a few inches. People with summer tires in the snow are the worst. I usualy dont go out the first few storms to let them crash into each other and not me.

 

[justacitizen]

it's a lot more fun getting ready than it is having to use them for extended time. just be glad you got a warm dry place to come rest for a little while so you can go out and bust your ass again clearing snow carrying fuel and the regular chores. still though without them and your time would be quite miserable.

 

[csheath]

You guys can have that cold weather! Stay safe and warm.

Our line trimming crew came through a couple of weeks ago. Wind blew a little the other day and out went the power. We were going out so I didn't bother starting the generator. My monthly test was last Sunday so I got that done and all was well except it has a wet spot at the oil drain hose. Not enough to puddle so going to keep and eye on that.

 

[Chainbreaker]

Places that get next to no snow can be a real hazard with only a few inches.

Very true! Here they handle heavy rain and a few inches of snow quite well but when over a foot of snow dumps in a single day it presents added challenges...trees & big branches come down plus unprepared drivers end up in the ditch, etc. Our area has now declared an "emergency status" which allows the state to deploy added resources for infrastructure repairs and obtaining added resources to clear downed trees and open roads, etc. Unfortunately, there have already been some structural damages with carports coming down like they were built with a deck of cards. Around here, typical construction of out buildings, etc. with somewhat shallow roof pitches really don't allow much in the way of heavy wet snow loads.

Anyway, my generators are purring along quite nicely. I'm still good on fuel with the Aux tanks keeping the day tanks topped up, no schlepping of jerry cans required!

This is my second long term power outage event in two years and has really emphasized "advance preparation" as key to surviving events like this comfortably. Having generators well maintained and adequate fuel on hand with any necessary spare parts is key. Also, having contingency plans for the unexpected is wise. I can see how one might end up cut off from the outside world for days due to what mother nature dishes out or whatever else is tossed our way.

 

[Bmxenbrett]

Ny declairs a state of emergency for everything.

 

[Light in the Dark]

Ny declairs a state of emergency for everything.

Yet I saw no declaration for Eli Manning this year...

 

[Chainbreaker]

Finally, power was restored to our street around 10:00 am this morning. My Powerback alarm was screeching in the garage when I had to go back up to house to pick a snow shovel I had left there. Otherwise, hard to tell during the daytime with our whole compound powered up by 2 generators. So glad power was finally restored!

Certainly not as long as our last big ice storm outage a couple years ago thank goodness! However, dealing with heavy wet snow shoveling paths to everything & clearing snow drifts off our low pitch outbuilding roofs was somewhat challenging. Then having to run back & forth across 2 ft snow drifts in Gator, getting stuck at times, between house/barn/shop and keeping an eye on 2 running generators 700 ft apart at two separate service entrances, and then dealing with caring for stall bound horses was starting to take its toll on me. I will sleep sound tonight though!

Can't guarantee we won't have another storm...always a chance for wind with heavy rains, ice or snow this time of year. So time to refuel when I can safely get out of our snow packed long steep driveway to street. Looking at tank gauges it appears that house MEP-002a genset consumed roughly 14 gallons during the total 35 hours run time (no overnight runs) at house so that would come out to approximately .4 GPH burn rate. However, won't really know true burn rate until I top off tanks.

We pretty much ran everything we wanted using common sense...we didn't turn on hot tub or oven. However, we used plasma big screen home theater, well pump, sewage pump, inside & outside lights, fridge + garage freezer, microwave, espresso machine, other small kitchen appliances, HVAC heater fan motors, hair dryers, etc.

Be MEP prepared & not scared!

 

[Guyfang]

You guys love it! Stop all this carrying on. Every one of you love it.

 

[justacitizen]

You guys love it! Stop all this carrying on. Every one of you love it.

your right yes you are!!!! i think i will wait until the weather is 72 degrees with bountiful sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. get all my MEP sets out and have a pretend ice storm. much much better than the real thing!!! SMILE