On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 04:33:53PM -0800, bn1@pacbell.net wrote:
>
> Hi List,
>
> I have elderly parents, in their 80's, that live in Mt. Shasta, CA.
[..]
My house is about the same size. In the santa cruz mountains I
don't get quite as much snow as the town of Mt Shasta, but I
do get snow most every year and we have a lot of power outages.
I run the blower for the furnace, or the fridge, plus
lights and computers off a Honda 5500 watt generator.
I have to switch between the fridge and the blower
(heat the house, cool the food, heat the house, etc)
for longer power outages. It'd run both at once but not
if they both start at the same time.
It won't run the TV but that's ok.
If your parents have wood heat, they don't need the furnace as much.
We have wood heat but the fireplace sucks and does
not heat the house much.
Propane works ok for generators. It's especially convenient
if you already have propane for heat & cooking, then you
just plumb into the tank. Tank should be "free" from the gas company.
The smaller Generac units they sell at Home Despot are pretty crappy
but I don't know about the larger ones.
Noise is an issue- after a day or two you get real tired of
hearing the damn generator. We often turn it off and read
by gas lantern. Make sure the unit is in an enclosure.
Eric
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