> On 11/11/2007, Virginia Tupper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > We have well water at the farm. I, being a city girl, haven't even > > thought of power outages and wells...great....another thing to think > > about and consider. Do I need a generator? >
How long power outages vary from place to place and the storm that caused it. Over a 9 year period we have had many (too many to count) outages that lasted less than 4 hours. Probably only one or two that were 12 hours long. One that was 2 days and one during a severe ice storm with below zero temps that lasted 7 days. Living in a hilly and heavily wooded area, you may have 40 people on a downed line, and this will be down the list for being repaired as opposed to lines that have hundreds or thousands on a downed line. We do have a generator and have used it. We bought our 5000 watt Honda generator back in 1999, when prices and demand were higher. While we were building, we had the electrician wire a plug outside in a covered area and we have to wheel it out of the garage, plug it in and throw a switch in the electric panel box. It's enough to run the well, a few lights, a small tv, and the refrigerator. We use our wood stove that will heat the whole house (works way better for heat than a fireplace). We also have a large south facing window wall for passive solar heat during the day. During the week long power outage and ice storm, the 150 gallon water tank had 4 inch thick ice covering it. What I did was put warm water from the house in 3 gallon buckets in the corner feeders in the stalls and packed hay around the the buckets. Easy enough to do for 2 or 3 horses. It would keep the water from freezing for 12 hours. The first night I went down to the barn after 6 hours (3 am) to make sure that the water wasn't frozen solid. Since it was so cold the horses were eating lots of hay to keep warm and I didn't want to risk impaction colic from lack of water. I would also give them what I called hot toddies. I would put a little molasses in a bucket of warm water. They would drink it up right away. They liked it and I felt better because I could see each horse drinking it. I don't know what we would have done without the generator that week. We knew many people that just moved to hotels for the week. -- Anna Southern Ohio
