California PG&E Customers Take Note

California May Go Dark This Summer, and Most Aren't Ready

If you have eggs in the incubator or a chest freezer full of f/t reptile food (to say nothing of your own food) then having at least a backup generator to keep the food cold and the incubator at the proper temperature would be a smart purchase right about now.

Last fall, we had tornadoes go through and lost power for three days -- that was a long outage for us. I bought a generator (Honda EU2000), and later installed a transfer switch so we can power two chest freezers, two aquariums, my reptile room, some house lighting, the kitchen fan and fridge, the sump pump and the propane furnace. I'm really surprised how much equipment that little generator can power.

Though cutting power because a company's equipment can't deal with pretty normal weather events seems like a third world solution, at least they plan to give notice of a cut. Most people aren't going to spring for a auto-start generator; I wasn't willing to.

Anyone have any favorite UPS units?

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

Most people aren't going to spring for a auto-start generator; I wasn't willing to.

While they're great if you can afford one, a whole-house natural gas or propane generator really isn't needed when a $500 portable that runs on gasoline will get the job done for a few days.

I think a generator is a good idea. But I also feel considering a broader approach for your own food and household management, if one has the time and inclination, might also be a good idea. Learning to can, growing some food if possible, and storing a year's worth of food. I have a small hand powered washer, the Lavario, that is excellent and takes up little space. And I have taken advantage of a legal loophole to stock up on various antibiotics sold on Ebay.

I do not know whether California communities are like the communities here. Not only are the vast majority of people here completely unprepared for almost anything out of the ordinary, but some in conversations also imply that buying insurance is all one needs and that any more prep than that is weird.

Canning does significantly change the texture of meat. I have not heard of anyone trying to can a few mice in a pint jar and then offering one of them to a snake, but if these electric outages are to become commonplace I would think that the small expense of a test jar experiment might be worthwhile.

I have canned bone-in meat (not mice, though), and it becomes very, very tender. I do not think that a snake could deal with that -- the mouse would just fall apart.

I didn't leave the skin and fur on, though. Hmm.

Originally Posted by bcr229

While they're great if you can afford one, a whole-house natural gas or propane generator really isn't needed when a $500 portable that runs on gasoline will get the job done for a few days.

I agree. I was thinking of the fact that many incubators will lose heat fairly quickly when power is lost, and many people are not home to start a generator.

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

I agree. I was thinking of the fact that many incubators will lose heat fairly quickly when power is lost, and many people are not home to start a generator.

From the article though, PG&E does plan to at least announce the outages in advance when possible so you could arrange to have someone available to fire up the generator. If you can't, you can at least load up the any empty space in the incubator with additional bottles filled with water for thermal mass to help slow the heat loss.

I wouldn't feed canned meat to my snakes. My adults would all survive a week or so without food should it be necessary, and in a pinch I could feeders from a big box store if I had hungry babies.

I've got a 20kw Onan standby generator that I bought for the reptile business years ago. Auto starts when the power goes out. At least it used to. Now it just tries to start up, and either dies, or pops the breaker in the control box and then dies within seconds. I can't see anything obviously wrong, so trying to get someone to come out here to check it out.

Came in handy during hurricane Michael as it kept the power going for the four days it was out. Connie and I had evacuated, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting back in time in order to put power to the chest freezer in the old reptile building to keep everything from thawing out and going bad.

It's a handy thing to have around, so hopefully it won't cost me too much to get it fixed. Unfortunately it doesn't run the house, only the old reptile building and mouse building. Oh yeah, I have the garage tied into that circuit too. But the freezer gets power as does our water pump. And in a pinch we can set up cots in the reptile building if needed.

BTW, if you do get any sort of UPS system, make sure you get a true sine wave output or you could wind up burning out anything you use it on. Some electronics and even motor windings don't react well to a modified square wave power source.