I bought a 5600 from Sears for $749 during Frances. Lowes and Home Depot had 5500s for about $780, but never any in stock. During Frances our DSL stayed up, but we had no phones or cell service. I got Vonage before Jeanne, but then our DSL was out. :) I think our neighbor had an 1100 that he picked up pretty cheaply that ran his fridge and a small TV.

After Jeanne at night before the power was restored I kept thinking... it is costing me $2/hour to run these two fans. haha

I do have to do a bit of electrical work very soon so that I don't have to run suicide plugs.

With the 5600, I could run two computers, laptop, router, switch, home theater (without the subwoofer), fridge, microwave, ceiling fans, two portable fans that I bought at Walmart........ and the hot water heater. :) We had lighting throughout the house and the ceiling fans worked fine. I did eventually go on a kick and replace most of the overhead indoor floods with compact fluorescents and replaced most of the lights in the vanity. I think I figured I was saving $5/month for the ones in the living room. Not saving much on the bathroom lights since they are rarely on anyhow.

I hate fluorescences, I have everything on dimmers and you can't use them with dimmers.

How much fuel does something like a 5600 use per 24 hours? Did you just switch off the main and plug the generator into your house's circuit or did you do extension cords all over the place?

Yeah fans, fridge, TV, music, MICROWAVE, a few lights and I would be in heaven. I don't want to ever have to BBQ morning coffee in the hot humid morning again.

it used about 1/2 a gallon per hour at light load (fans, etc), about a gallon per hour when we were watching DVDs and using lights. My home theater is a bit of a power hog. I think I calculated it costs about $1/hour at FPL rates to watch it.

I turned off the main breaker, ran two suicide plugs, one to each phase of the house. I built a cable for my neighbor which used the LS-20 twistlock and went into his dryer plug. Slightly safer when you plug in to the generator AFTER you have unplugged the dryer and plugged in your cord.

What I have partially installed is an outdoor recepticle, I intend to pour a concrete pad for the generator once I can come up with some method to make it difficult enough that any thief will take a neighbors generator rather than mine, and I have a subpanel for the inside.

http://store.yahoo.com/ekimco/t020n.html
http://www.gen-tran.com/Merchant2/me...roduct_Count=4

One day I will get around to installing this. I have the outdoor enclosure installed and the conduit to the garage attic, but this weekend I might do the preliminary work and put a few circuits over on it. Theres a lot of planning going into it because I want to put my office and the master bedroom on their own subpanel later on so that I could run those off battery. Running two fans off a battery is much quieter and the neighbors wouldn't really scream much.

If you really just wanted something easy, and didn't want to go the subpanel route, and didn't mind flipping breakers, I would probably run an outdoor box like this, get a 6' twistlock Male to Female cable, and run the box to the dryer outlet with a disconnect switch. Then, with whiteout or tape, mark the unnecessary breakers. During a power outage, turn off the main, turn off the marked breakers, flip the switch at the dryer, plug in the generator and power up.

The subpanel route if you hired an electrician would probably cost $1200-$1500 including parts.

I thought about a whole-house generator, but, I lack the cash for that right now. Although, if I had A/C, during Frances I'm sure I could have charged $30/head. I do intend to buy a window air conditioner prior to this season so that the bedroom can be cooled off. Perhaps a second one in case we have guests.

morning ppls
I don't have much...
But I did enjoy National Treasure MML, some of it was like The Da Vinci Code, which I enjoyed reading a while back. Am keen to see that movie.

Thank Gawdess...i was worried for a minute there..


actually it was France. napoleon installed his brother in law maximillion (or something like that) as king of mexico.. and this was the 1st battle towards their defeat or something close to that.. so maybe we should drink drink margaritas while eating snails au poive.

I may need to think about going to Home Depot anonymous meetings.

Si, bueno cinco de mayo!

Como estas tu?

cd, you can pour a pad, and set islets into it that you can chain down to. Surround the entire pad with a cage. It won't stop it from being stolen from someone who is really into it, but it will slow them down.

Alex

good morning!
Hope everyone had a good Cinco De Mayo.:)