Pet peeves - Ugh!

[Northmount]

8 hours ago, Handstitched said:

My "Jenny "is on permanent standby. 

 

7 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

Yep, one of the first things I did when I moved here was install a Generac 2200 KW whole house generator

My son has a Generac 2200 kW on natural gas with auto transfer.  He has 2 sump pumps in the basement and one in a well just outside the basement.  His house is in an area close to a creek, and only has about 6" of top soil on gravel, the ground water level gets pretty high during mountain snow melt and rain in June each year.  When they coincide, there is water from the creek across the road into his acreage.  Power poles in his area have fallen over during these rains and floods knocking out power in the area.  While we were putting in the generator, we got the heavy rain and huge mountain run off due to rain in the mountains.  He had a 2" trash pump running continuous to keep the basement dry.  The gas fitter wouldn't come out in the rain to make the last hook up, so we switched the generator to propane and brought in multiple propane bottles.  Was a really stressful few days.  Now it's all automated and fewer problems, but the gasoline trash pumps and hose are on standby just in case!

 

[kgg]

8 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

Yep, one of the first things I did when I moved here was install a Generac 2200 KW whole house generator

Having a generator is a must when living out in a rural area. Last summer I had to replace my Briggs 10,000 watt whole house generator. I did look at the Generac generators but $20,000 wasn't in the cards. The old generator finally gave up the ghost and to repair it would have cost more then a brand new unit. The old one had 930 hours run time on it so I didn't feel to bad. This time I got smart and built a generator house with AC lighting, DC lighting and with my batteries on flood charge all the time. No more standing outside during a snow storm, wind storm or pouring rain. Open the shed door, turn the DC lights on, start the generator and way to go, comfort.

kgg

[bladegrinder]

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

[Northmount]

21 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

10kW Generac at Home Depot $5000 CAN

22 kW $7500 CAN

Auto Transfer switch 100A 120-240VAC $1200 CAN.  Probably over sized, but a reference point for interest.

[kgg]

22 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

 

37 minutes ago, Northmount said:

10kW Generac at Home Depot $5000 CAN

In Ontario a 22kw(propane)/ 19kw (LG) Generac is about $7500 at Homedepot but...then it will cost another 10-12k for installation (site location /preparation) / approvals (electrical / propane / township / protected lands / insurance) / inspections (electrical / site / propane) for it to be allowed. Other then the site preparation most people are at the mercy of the certified electrical / propane contractors that will be needed. A neighbor last summer had one installed and said by the time it was all said and done you couldn't buy a pack of smokes out of the what was left over from 20K. The way around this for a lot of us is a portable 10kw multi fuel generator (gasoline/propane/LG) for about $2500 installed in a prefab 100 square foot shed for about $1000. The drawback is you don't get auto start / auto transfer.

kgg

[bladegrinder]

Ok, I forgot you were in Canada so the price would be higher. I also didn’t take into account the propane tank or piping, at the time of my install I worked for a natural gas utility that also did LP and I got the tank, piping and fittings from there at a good price. I did all the installation of the tank, underground piping and final connections myself so I saved a lot there.

[bladegrinder]

I also have a 8500 Kw portable I bought years ago to run my well in the woods when I just had a camper there. Then I converted it to run on natural gas and had a hose connected to my meter at the house in the city, to the back yard where my electrical panal was and back fed the panal thru a 50 amp breaker. One time it ran for two days non stop

[bladegrinder]

Well, I got starlink. took about a week from ordering it to delivery. setup was fast and pretty uncomplicated, once the dish is in place, cable run and router plugged in you just set up your account in their app.

at this point they can tell the equipment is on and they know who you are. the app walks you thru adjusting the dish in real time, that was pretty cool, as you turn the dish is shows it on your phone, once you get it into an outlined rectangle it tells you your set. then it's just going to your phones, computers and TVs and setting them to the starlink wifi.

it comes preset at 5 ghs or you can change it to a split signal 5 ghs - 2.4 ghs. I added some cameras that only ran on 2.4 so I'm running a split signal. some older things only run on 2,4 so it's good it comes with this option.

The signal is good even during storms and bad weather although it did drop once last night during a really bad thunder storm. I live in the Florida panhandle by the Georgia border and we've been having some really bad storms and tornadoes, watching the weather radar it showed a tornado passing thru my area when starlink went out for about 10 min. we got 5" of rain from that storm last night.

I've been running a Verizon hotspot with my phone plan for three years, I did a couple speed test before and after on two different days so far......

 

                                                                Download speed                                Upload speed

Verison hotspot.........                                    1.34                                                  1.97

Verison hotspot.........                                    3.13                                                  1.67

Starlink.......................                                   140.3                                                 12.8

Starlink.......................                                  224.9                                                  23.6

The starlink does fluctuate, my highest reading was  over 300 download and over 30 upload. the readings posted above were in the first 12 hours of set up.

So......I got to say this to me is kind of unbelievable being in the deep woods and getting signals like this. I'm glad I finally bit the bullet and went with starlink.                     

 

[Northmount]

31 minutes ago, bladegrinder said:

when starlink went out for about 10 min. we got 5" of rain from that storm last nigh

A few weeks ago, my son's Starlink went out.  He had 16" of snow overnight.  So the dish goes into a horizontal position searching for the satellites. Told him he needs to set it to dump the snow!

[bladegrinder]

I've read that the generation 2 dishes had heaters built in, I don't know about the gen 3 I've got but on the app it does have a place where you can activate a heater for melting snow.

What I need where I live is an anti hurricane - tornado button.