What are y’all buying for the next grid failure?

[phdhorn 6224]

5 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

coleman two burner camping stove is a great thing to have 

Yup when I was young, dumb, and poorz I had electric burners installed.  What was I thinking?  I know.  We're flipping the kitchen this summer and wife wants one of those cool convection or whatever stoves (electric) but I'm insisting on a separate burner or couple.  But I also want a portable, and yup, we're gonna get one.

[Mileslong 4727]

It will keep them warm too. So philanthropic for the community. 

Yes, this was the fake Jerry Jones who also said that his wife Jean needed a new box of wine, and since his driveway was frozen, he had to have his helicopter fly her to the store to get her some. Said the damn box of wine cost him $5,000. Next time he said he was going going to hire people to lay down in his driveway until their body heat melted the ice.

lmao

[phdhorn 6224]

16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

OK, this is a stupid question.  Having a generator seems like a good idea in the abstract.

But you can't run it inside, so you have to run extension cords to it on the porch or whatever.  Is there some way I'm not thinking of that avoids having an open window or something?

 

9 minutes ago, Dewey said:

Neighbor has an outlet outside in which he hooks the generator up to, powers most of the house. 

This.   Plus I can put one in the laundry room which can be shut off from rest of house.  I have 2 outside outlets and it's not hard to fix a little thing to run chords into the house and not exchange heat/cold.

[Dewey 3286]

This is badass, I'd probably sit in a cold ass house for hours before I realized I could use my truck.

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/18/2022-ford-f150-powerboost-hybrid-generator-texas-winter-blackout/

[Post Oak 20213]

Among everything listed I'll add an easy fix for us will be french doors.  We huddled in our loving room by the FP for 3 days. 

I want a set that closes of my hallway and my dining room to keep warm air from escaping our bubble.  

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

30 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

OK, this is a stupid question.  Having a generator seems like a good idea in the abstract.

But you can't run it inside, so you have to run extension cords to it on the porch or whatever.  Is there some way I'm not thinking of that avoids having an open window or something?

Yeah that is a problem I have. Now the window only needs to be open a 1/2 inch and you can put a towel over the open area to prevent much temperature loss. As @Dewey said there are some more permanent options.

Another problem is placement of the generator outside. I wouldn't put it on the porch especially if there is an open window. Carbon monoxide risk. And there is some noise. I've seem people leave them out in the open while it's raining but that seems risky for the long term. Personally I have a carport off my garage that I place it and then run a long extension cord to my house. 

Not perfect but it works.

[Dahobbs 17534]

Here is one: whole home humidifier. In houston texas. This dry air has fucked me up. I wake up feeling like I smoked all night, with the cottonyist cotton mouth. My skin bleeds if anything looks at it. 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Dahobbs

[Enchubben 5510]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Here is one: whole home humidifier. In houston texas. This dry air has fucked me up. I wake up feeling like I smoked all night, with the cottonyist cotton mouth. My skin bleeds if anything looks at it. 

THIS. my daughter has been having nose bleeds at night that look like a straight up murder scene.

[TwiceHorn 31471]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Here is one: whole home humidifier. In houston texas. This dry air has fucked me up. I wake up feeling like I smoked all night, with the cottonyist cotton mouth. My skin bleeds if anything looks at it. 

QFT.  I'm snoring and boogery.  It's nasty.

[TXSG8R 3362]

10 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Easy answer. With battery storage, yes. Even without battery storage yes, during the day, but battery storage would be key. Tesla Powerwall or similar. 

If your solar panels are grid tied, they are useless during an outage. Most panels are grid tied.  

[Enchubben 5510]

1 minute ago, TXSG8R said:

If your solar panels are grid tied, they are useless during an outage. Most panels are grid tied.  

All the Tesla panel/powerwall systems I've seen disconnect from the grid during an outage.  The two people in my neighborhood with them said they worked perfect during the outage this week. 

[TXSG8R 3362]

6 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

All the Tesla panel/powerwall systems I've seen disconnect from the grid during an outage.  The two people in my neighborhood with them said they worked perfect during the outage this week. 

Yea, powerwall is a battery based system, which is different than grid tie. Grid tie is cheaper because you don’t have the added expense of the batteries. I should have read the whole thread before replying, Dahobbs already covered this base. 
 

Edit: I am curious though how much capacity your neighbors have and if they were able to run much heat off of them. I know we had a couple of decent days of sun during this, but winter generation is already weaker and any heating element just eats power. If you can, ask them what their panel capacity is, and how much storage they used, and what size/type their HVAC systems are. 

Edited February 19, 2021 by TXSG8R

[gyroprotagonist 2592]

11 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

A generator. Anyone have recommendations? And are they ok to sit with gas inside for years at a time?

i have a Honda 2000 genny that I converted to run on LP for that very reason; to not have to worry about the gas going bad and keeping extra gas (and rotating that in and out).  bought a kit online and it was fairly simple to do.  

I got a 100lb LP tank that I can hook up to it to run for longer spells.  I normally break it out every 3 months or so and fire it up and check the oil.    Need to put a gauge on the tank next time i fill it though.  it's hard to lift and shake to get an idea of what's left.

biggest 'to-do' for us would be to try and insulate our 100 yo house much much better.  After turning off the gas fire place overnight, the bottom floor dropped to 47F with power on the morning it got down to -2F.

Those freeze miser spigot things are cool.  may try those as I was team drip.

I got one of those huge Lithium batteries ~5years ago.  Those are great for keeping phones, tablets and even running a lamp, laptop, speaker for hours.  amazon no longer has the page, but it looks like this

  about the size of a six pack of cans.

keep some of those shark bite pipe fittings on hand

also some spare parts for the gas fireplace.  not sure what it is called, but the flared aluminum pipe that carries gas from the outlet to the manifold broke the first night.  I dug through the garage and found the old setup from a previous house that we saved.  Did not have a torch so used our gas stove to heat up and bend the pipe to fit.  so maybe throw in a little propane torch for good measure.  that would be good for thawing pipes as well.

 

[Guest Lobo]

I'm buying a different group of political "leaders."  Time was a corrupt politician at least got shit done.  

Everybody from Adler to Abbott to ERCOT should have to sit in a deep freezer and have Texans who lost a loved one to the elements or CO2 poisoning pelt them with chunks of ice.  /noCR

Also, I'm purchasing better quality pipe insulation for the attic.  I let the HVAC installers do it last time, you want something done right...you do it yourself.

[Captainant 27669]

12 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

A generator. Anyone have recommendations? And are they ok to sit with gas inside for years at a time?

I bought this genny for my inlaws back when Harvey hit and they didn't end up needing it so they left it boxed up in their garage. When they lost power they unboxed it 3 years later, assembled it, filled it up with oil and gas and it started on the second pull. Really impressed with its performance, it ran all day on 2.5gal of gas with a load of the fridge, a TV, a shitload of charging bricks/batteries, and some well usage. 

Big thing with these smaller generators is to treat the engine like a lawnmower engine - don't store it with fuel long-term, and a little preventative maintenance goes a loooooooong way for reliability.

If yall are looking at a generator for your whole home and don't want to run extension cords, you should get an electrician to install a transfer switch so you can use your home wiring without zapping a linesman

[BayouBill 835]

9 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Missing out on the finer things in life.

Hope that's not the door the robbers come in through first

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

1 hour ago, Dewey said:

This is badass, I'd probably sit in a cold ass house for hours before I realized I could use my truck.

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/18/2022-ford-f150-powerboost-hybrid-generator-texas-winter-blackout/

How do you hook it up to your furnace in the attic?  Or can you get one of those transfer switches and hook that up outside?  7.2kw is enough to power a lot of stuff - certainly my two heater fans and kegerator

[Dahobbs 17534]

29 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

Yea, powerwall is a battery based system, which is different than grid tie. Grid tie is cheaper because you don’t have the added expense of the batteries. I should have read the whole thread before replying, Dahobbs already covered this base. 
 

Edit: I am curious though how much capacity your neighbors have and if they were able to run much heat off of them. I know we had a couple of decent days of sun during this, but winter generation is already weaker and any heating element just eats power. If you can, ask them what their panel capacity is, and how much storage they used, and what size/type their HVAC systems are. 

Since I'm in the process of adding these, I've done some research on this. Powerwalls are 7kw peak, 5 kw continuous. A single powerwall is definitely good enough for a gas furnace. And you may be able to power a smallish (under 3 tons) ac/heat pump. 3 ton units likely need 2 powerwalls (what I'm getting). The bigger heat pumps use north of 15 kw, so you'd need 3 power walls just for the heat pump. Resistance heaters use a lot more power for the heat generated, but those are usually much smaller and designed for single room use. 

[TXSG8R 3362]

I’m definitely getting a generator, just wrestling with a whole home unit or something portable. Either way I’ll be installing a transfer switch to plug in something to my main service panel.  My biggest issue during this was the septic tank not pumping and the tankless WH not having the electrical ignition to run. My spray foam sealed envelope kept the house livable without central heat or air. The capacity to run central heat would be nice, but we could probably be fine with some space heaters to stretch the capacity of the generator for keeping the fridge cold, stuff charged, etc. 

Whichever I get will run on LP and I’ll be installing a dedicated tank (targeting 500 gallons).  I have a tank for the house now, but it would be pointless to tie it to my existing tank and be caught out close to a refill by something and not have the gas to run it. Also thinking I can tie the two tanks together with a manual valve to feed some gas to the primary tank that runs the WH, range, etc if they ran dry during an emergency.  I would hope that’s possible. 

We already had a pretty good base of emergency supplies because of all the camping and traveling we do.  Plenty of extra batteries for charging things, lights, etc. I also got to use some stuff from my business that helped a ton. I’ll list some things that shined:

Dewalt DCB090 - this little guy allowed me to use the massive amount of Dewalt batteries I have for my workshop, yard work, and side business to charge phones and stuff after all our travel batteries got smoked. It’s slow, but you can get a lot of 5AH and above batteries. Multiple phones and tablets. 

Dewalt DCL074 - this is a work light, but it has a huge output and run time and you can hang it from the ceiling to brighten a room.  Way better for stuff like cooking than a candle or flashlight. Downside is it’s big as hell, and if you aren’t invested in a lot of Dewalt batteries already, probably not a great option.

Black Diamond Moji charging station/lantern - I’ll be buying more of these in lieu of flashlights. It has two power cells, one is rechargeable and one is AA, massive run time (200 hours on low) and you charge devices off of it in a pinch. Can also be hung to provide room lighting. https://www.rei.com/product/893628/black-diamond-moji-charging-stationlantern

Ravpower 26800mAh power bank - originally bought this to charge our Nintendo switch while traveling, but it’s a beast for charging phones and tablets  it supports fast charging too, so devices get topped up quick.  
 

 

 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

30 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

i have a Honda 2000 genny that I converted to run on LP for that very reason; to not have to worry about the gas going bad and keeping extra gas (and rotating that in and out).  bought a kit online and it was fairly simple to do.  

I got a 100lb LP tank that I can hook up to it to run for longer spells.  I normally break it out every 3 months or so and fire it up and check the oil.    Need to put a gauge on the tank next time i fill it though.  it's hard to lift and shake to get an idea of what's left.

biggest 'to-do' for us would be to try and insulate our 100 yo house much much better.  After turning off the gas fire place overnight, the bottom floor dropped to 47F with power on the morning it got down to -2F.

Those freeze miser spigot things are cool.  may try those as I was team drip.

I got one of those huge Lithium batteries ~5years ago.  Those are great for keeping phones, tablets and even running a lamp, laptop, speaker for hours.  amazon no longer has the page, but it looks like this

  about the size of a six pack of cans.

keep some of those shark bite pipe fittings on hand

also some spare parts for the gas fireplace.  not sure what it is called, but the flared aluminum pipe that carries gas from the outlet to the manifold broke the first night.  I dug through the garage and found the old setup from a previous house that we saved.  Did not have a torch so used our gas stove to heat up and bend the pipe to fit.  so maybe throw in a little propane torch for good measure.  that would be good for thawing pipes as well.

 

Those huge lithium batteries really degraded over time for me.  At 5 years it was 1/2 or less.  I did all the "keep it 20%-60% charged" maintenance too. 

I had better luck buying each member of the household a $20-30 powerbank that holds about 30000 mAh. The ones I bought really hold charge - took them out of the drawer on Saturday and they were at 58% from being charged to 60% for storage around 6 months ago.  Mine charged my iphone and ipad over and over this week.  Topped it off each time we had power for an hour or two.   Fast charging through the USBC port was about as fast as plugged into the wall.

I want to foam insulate the underside of my roof where the (damn near useless) radiant barrier foil is.  Is that a bad idea?

[TXSG8R 3362]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Since I'm in the process of adding these, I've done some research on this. Powerwalls are 7kw peak, 5 kw continuous. A single powerwall is definitely good enough for a gas furnace. And you may be able to power a smallish (under 3 tons) ac/heat pump. 3 ton units likely need 2 powerwalls (what I'm getting). The bigger heat pumps use north of 15 kw, so you'd need 3 power walls just for the heat pump. Resistance heaters use a lot more power for the heat generated, but those are usually much smaller and designed for single room use. 

Yea, we have a 4 ton HVAC, all electric. If I could do it all over again I would have installed gas appliances for everything with a heating element. Unfortunately we don’t have LP or NG connections to the street, it’s all tank based. I would probably need a 1k gallon tank to support an entire house worth of LP appliances. 

[phdhorn 6224]

17 minutes ago, BayouBill said:

Hope that's not the door the robbers come in through first

LOL, got the ammo right there.  Load 'em up, boys!

[BrazilHorn 6606]

11 hours ago, LABEVO said:

Anyone else?

This for exterior pipe or interior plumbing?

[fuggled 576]

1 hour ago, Dewey said:

This is badass, I'd probably sit in a cold ass house for hours before I realized I could use my truck.

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/18/2022-ford-f150-powerboost-hybrid-generator-texas-winter-blackout/

If it's just for emergencies: https://www.cargenerator.com/

[PantsTent 2002]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

OK, this is a stupid question.  Having a generator seems like a good idea in the abstract.

But you can't run it inside, so you have to run extension cords to it on the porch or whatever.  Is there some way I'm not thinking of that avoids having an open window or something?

I was able to close my front door with cord pressing in the rubber jams. Maybe I need to fix the gap under my front door.

[gmr548 16580]

Ticket to Cancun. 

[Biff Tannen 45685]

12 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Sawyer Squeeze my friend. Like $30 and good for a million gallons. 

Looking back at this suggestion, this is good for an individual, but you would be better off doing some type of a gravity system for large volume filtering.  There are various set ups you can do.

[CHIEF 5087]

1 hour ago, Dewey said:

Neighbor has an outlet outside in which he hooks the generator up to, powers most of the house. 

This is what I'm gonna do. I have a 10kw welder/generator. Just gonna have my electrician wire in a 240v receptacle. I have access to generators up to 40kw through an oilfield buddy.

CHIEF

[next2naus 439]

those Gas Gene's like the WEN are nice, but I opted for the NG model as I don't want the wife or kids to have to deal with moving it, connecting it, fueling it. 

[Enchubben 5510]

1 hour ago, TXSG8R said:

Yea, powerwall is a battery based system, which is different than grid tie. Grid tie is cheaper because you don’t have the added expense of the batteries. I should have read the whole thread before replying, Dahobbs already covered this base. 
 

Edit: I am curious though how much capacity your neighbors have and if they were able to run much heat off of them. I know we had a couple of decent days of sun during this, but winter generation is already weaker and any heating element just eats power. If you can, ask them what their panel capacity is, and how much storage they used, and what size/type their HVAC systems are. 

 

9.6kW system, 19 solar panels, 4 Powerwalls, full house backup.  As far as HVAC I think he has a 4 ton and 2 ton AC (Lennox) not sure about furnace. 

[Nivek 16930]

 
No, they tend to require upkeep and maintenance. Given their cost, I have always argued that is more economic to plan to stay in a hotel. I don't have kids so my tolerance for house that doesn't fully function for a few days is higher than most. 

I have a “craftsman” (Briggs and Stratton) that I bought for Hurricane Ike. That fucker survived my son pouring water into the gas tank, and me not knowing and trying to run it. I replaced the plug and cleaned the carb before I figured it out.

I tested it before the storm and noticed it was smoking. The gas in it was about 3 yrs old. It ran but shitty for a bit and then ran fine after 15-20 minutes.

Storm hits and I see an oil alert on it after 30 minutes of running. I open the oil fill and it is milkshake, and gas/water. I flush the crankcase and add some 10w30 synthetic because it’s all I had on hand. The SOB runs 8 hours like a champ, and she even gave power to my neighbor. Ran between 10-20 percent with our fridge, tv, Internet, phone chargers and some space heaters and used about 4 gallons of gas.

I bought it for about 5 or 6 hundred in 2008. Never changed the oil, replaced 1 spark plug, and my kid tried to kill it with water.

Completely worth it.

[USCATX 1078]

We had power the whole time but not gas for heat, so I’d like to see if my air handlers can be modified to use propane or electric resistance as backup to the heat pumps.  I’ll probably buy a small generator as a just in case and make sure we have some small propane bottles to run the camp stove if needed.  A few more space heaters would be nice as well as a full MF’n cord of dry oak for burning.  Finally, a couple more gas jugs that I could run back and forth to the gas station in either my truck or side x side.  That Yamaha was money for getting around in the snow. 

[davidg 4038]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

OK, this is a stupid question.  Having a generator seems like a good idea in the abstract.

But you can't run it inside, so you have to run extension cords to it on the porch or whatever.  Is there some way I'm not thinking of that avoids having an open window or something?

I’ll do a post in a bit to show the parts I bought to connect into my breaker box so that it is quick and easy to connect and isolates the mains power so you don’t back feed the supply lines in case someone is working on them.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

Another tip for the gas generators, look for ethanol free gasoline for use during the random, short term power loss. The ethanol free is harder to find and more expensive but better for the generator.  Bucee's often has ethanol free on some pumps. I think its the blue handle pumps.

But in an emergency, ethanol gas will do.

I also like gas generators that easily allow you to run them dry by with a fuel cutoff switch. My WEN has while my old Yamaha did not. This is supposed to help protect the engine or carb.

[Post Oak 20213]

https://www.jackery.com/collections/featured-products/products/jackery-explorer-500-solarsaga-100w-solar-generator

 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yeah that is a problem I have. Now the window only needs to be open a 1/2 inch and you can put a towel over the open area to prevent much temperature loss. As @Dewey said there are some more permanent options.

Another problem is placement of the generator outside. I wouldn't put it on the porch especially if there is an open window. Carbon monoxide risk. And there is some noise. I've seem people leave them out in the open while it's raining but that seems risky for the long term. Personally I have a carport off my garage that I place it and then run a long extension cord to my house. 

Not perfect but it works.

If I have to buy a 20,000mw generator and put it up 3' to make it flood proof, then a purifier for my water to make it potable, then a gun for the looters, and a safe for my valuables, I'm just gonna move to Belize or some such place and do all that where it's fucking beautiful and the taxes are more avoidable.  

[BradInATX 9208]

5 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

If I have to buy a 20,000mw generator and put it up 3' to make it flood proof, then a purifier for my water to make it potable, then a gun for the looters, and a safe for my valuables, I'm just gonna move to Belize or some such place and do all that where it's fucking beautiful and the taxes are more avoidable.  

Yeah, this is sort of where I'm at. I'll spend a few grand to make our house survivable for a week or so. But if I'm spending enough money on generators and whatnot to buy a vacation house, Imma just buy a vacation house and bail out to it next time this is in the forecast. There's a cost/benefit line and I think it starts to get crossed when we talk about whole-home generators and 1,000 gallon underground propane tanks. But I'm probably not as much of a doomsday guy as most.

[crimsonlonghorn 2306]

2 hours ago, Dewey said:

Neighbor has an outlet outside in which he hooks the generator up to, powers most of the house. 

My brother is the risk officer for an electric coop and says this is a bad idea. You either plug stuff into the generator itself or you need to use a proper cutoff switch. It's extremely dangerous to others upstream of you if you are "backfilling" power into the house and onto a line that they think is dead or cutoff from the power source. 

See video below. 

 

[kevwun 15788]

There are installers that specialize in whole home generators.  They will handle pad installation, electrical work and gas hookups for you.  You can get a 20kw installed for about 8-10k.  You will need a 20kw if you want it to run things like your ac, dryer, microwave, etc that draw a lot of power.  They have smaller options where you have to pick which things you want to run, but that seems like a bad idea when a few thousand more will get your whole house powered.

Edited February 19, 2021 by kevwun

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

17 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

https://www.jackery.com/collections/featured-products/products/jackery-explorer-500-solarsaga-100w-solar-generator

 

eh..... I guess. Do you have anything that can run a blender for longer than 7 hours?

[texhorn 351]

Another tip for the gas generators, look for ethanol free gasoline for use during the random, short term power loss. The ethanol free is harder to find and more expensive but better for the generator.  Bucee's often has ethanol free on some pumps. I think its the blue handle pumps.
But in an emergency, ethanol gas will do.
I also like gas generators that easily allow you to run them dry by with a fuel cutoff switch. My WEN has while my old Yamaha did not. This is supposed to help protect the engine or carb.

QT is also a great source for ethanol free gas. They have it at nearly every station. I’ve never seen ethanol free at bucee’s but hear some locations have it

[TXSG8R 3362]

5 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Yeah, this is sort of where I'm at. I'll spend a few grand to make our house survivable for a week or so. But if I'm spending enough money on generators and whatnot to buy a vacation house, Imma just buy a vacation house and bail out to it next time this is in the forecast. There's a cost/benefit line and I think it starts to get crossed when we talk about whole-home generators and 1,000 gallon underground propane tanks. But I'm probably not as much of a doomsday guy as most.

I guess I’m not a big enough baller.  $10k for a generator setup to ensure your house stays cold/warm enough to avoid secondary disasters like busted pipes and all your food going to shit versus $200k for a vacation home and all the taxes and upkeep for something you aren’t living in?  

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

1 minute ago, kevwun said:

There are installers that specialize in whole home generators.  They will handle pad installation, electrical work and gas hookups for you.

Might need to check with your HOA before getting that done, too, just to avoid hassle. Some HOAs have strict regulations about whether and how a whole-home generator can be installed. I think my Dad said his neighbor was getting pestered by the HOA because he'd put one in without checking first and (among other things) the modifications he had to make to his fence line/etc weren't to HOA regulation. It's not like he can easily change anything now that the work is done.

Now, all of that sounds pretty stupid and I'd rather have a pissed off HOA and power than freeze my nuts off and remain in compliance, so none of that is my point. Just mentioning that you can head off some trouble by checking w/the HOA first. 

[kevwun 15788]

Luckily I don't have a HOA to worry about, but good advice still.

[crimsonlonghorn 2306]

This what Mrs CL and I are discussing this morning to add to our house plans. Solar panels and the backup generator are probably redundant, but I'd rather spend money up front than not in case the weather prevents the solar panels from working right.

Only problem is that the back of the house with the best real estate for solar panels will face NE which is the worst direction to point the panels. We probably won't get as much from the panels as we would hope. We probably don't want to put the panels on the front of the house because of the angles and aesthetics. 

We were on vacation for a whole week last August, which is why July was the highest month without having the highest day or hour. 

Someone check my math. I have no idea if this is right or not, but it seems to be in the right order of magnitude. 

 

[XYZ 2154]

I have a natural gas-burning fireplace. It’s the kind with fake embers and fake logs. It radiates some heat to the space but not much, mostly decorative. Anyway, I’m thinking of replacing the burner with one or those “radiant” burners, assuming that they make such a thing.

I’m also thinking, my furnace is natural gas also but the fan needs electricity. I may buy a small generator (1 kW should suffice), and use it to power only the furnace. That way if I lose power I can still heat the house.

[kevwun 15788]

Electric oil radiator heaters are great.  They put out a ton of heat, make no noise and aren't a fire hazard.  We have a honeywell that has 5 temp settings.  I have had it for 7 years or so and use it every winter to keep the living room which is on the north corner of our house nice and toasty.

[XYZ 2154]

6 minutes ago, crimsonlonghorn said:

This what Mrs CL and I are discussing this morning to add to our house plans. Solar panels and the backup generator are probably redundant, but I'd rather spend money up front than not in case the weather prevents the solar panels from working right.

Only problem is that the back of the house with the best real estate for solar panels will face NE which is the worst direction to point the panels. We probably won't get as much from the panels as we would hope. We probably don't want to put the panels on the front of the house because of the angles and aesthetics. 

We were on vacation for a whole week last August, which is why July was the highest month without having the highest day or hour. 

Someone check my math. I have no idea if this is right or not, but it seems to be in the right order of magnitude. 

 

Your new house is gonna be 7000 sq.ft.?

[crimsonlonghorn 2306]

Just now, XYZ said:

Your new house is gonna be 7000 sq.ft.?

Too small? 

[TXSG8R 3362]

5 minutes ago, crimsonlonghorn said:

This what Mrs CL and I are discussing this morning to add to our house plans. Solar panels and the backup generator are probably redundant, but I'd rather spend money up front than not in case the weather prevents the solar panels from working right.

Only problem is that the back of the house with the best real estate for solar panels will face NE which is the worst direction to point the panels. We probably won't get as much from the panels as we would hope. We probably don't want to put the panels on the front of the house because of the angles and aesthetics. 

We were on vacation for a whole week last August, which is why July was the highest month without having the highest day or hour. 

Someone check my math. I have no idea if this is right or not, but it seems to be in the right order of magnitude. 

 

Are you going from like to like WRT insulation, efficiency of appliances/HVAC, etc?  Makes a big difference. My previous house was 1600sq ft and had a 4 ton AC unit probably 14 or 16 SEER that ran all day during the summer, two story blown insulation. My new house is 3k sq ft and has a 4 ton AC 20 SEER that usually runs in first stage, easily half the usage of my previous house. The new house is single story, sealed envelope spray foam. It can throw a lot of your numbers way off.