Pacific Gas & Electric power outage in Northern CA affecting your reef tank?

[flagg37]

@flagg37 here’s a Honeywell generator you can get from Costco.

https://www.costco.com/Honeywell-20KW-Standby-Generator-with-Transfer-Switch.product.100466089.html

Oooh that’s nice. Only $4300 too.

 

[Urban]

I'm lucky and am just out of the shutoff zone.

I am in Los Gatos, and a large portion of the town is going to be without it, but got lucky in that we happened to be right outside of the cutoff zone too. According to an email from the school, it could be turned back on as early as tomorrow. This situation definitely has me eyeing generators... I have a Schumacher Electric 1200-Amp Car Battery Jump Starter with two plugs on the front that I would think could power one of Gyres and return pump for several hours, but I am in no hurry to find out.

Living on top of the San Andreas keeps the quake possibility front and center more than I would like it to, and I constantly find myself trying to think of ways to make that pending disaster as painless as possible. Do any of you have anything extra in place given THAT risk? From what I have heard, it seems as if rock work toppling over has led to the demise of quite a few reefs in that situation.

 

[Stoney]

I'm pretty sure it’s delayed as I still have power an hour after it was supposed to be turned off! Generator fired up and ran fine on propane. So I’m ready to go if it does actually happen. It’s a little louder than I imagined it would be, but this is my first generator. I should have taken that 56dB in the spec sheet with a grain of salt.

Same. Just stepped outside, some wind huh? I know predicting the weather is hard, but seems pretty far off.

I too am just outside the current power shut off.
I have a 12 kilowatt DuroMax portable generator that is duel fuel and ready to run the all of the tank and the fridge and if needed a ton of other things that plug into an extension cord. Don't have it configured to plug into the house grid yet...next year.
If the generator was not so loud I would probably boycott PG&E for a week even if I had to pay more in gas/propane. They should do their job. If I wanted to live in a 3rd world country it would be WAY cheaper then California!
Annnyywayyy... good luck to all who have to deal with this.

I'd boycott for sure if I didn't have 10k in livestock. Ouch that hurts extra to read lol. 12kw, how big is your tank??

Living on top of the San Andreas keeps the quake possibility front and center more than I would like it to, and I constantly find myself trying to think of ways to make that pending disaster as painless as possible. Do any of you have anything extra in place given THAT risk? From what I have heard, it seems as if rock work toppling over has led to the demise of quite a few reefs in that situation.

My rockscape is pretty minimalist, but I do have a rimless glass tank. Kind of regretting not going with a eurobraced acrylic tank. My friend has one that looks earthquake ready from the start.

 

[Paul Sands]

FWIW, I grew up in the southeast and when I moved to California, my pay tripled and my taxes decreased by about half. But believe whatever you want. I’m sure life is way better wherever it is that you live.

It always surprises me that when California suffers a natural disaster, there are people here on R2R ready to bash their fellow Americans instead of offering help and sympathy.

 

[Zuma]

I live in the northbay, power has been out since 2am last night. Luckily I bought a small 2300 watt generator a few weeks ago and it’s been running the return pump (varios 6) an Mp40wqd and 150 watt heater plus our refrigerator no problem,only about half load and runs for about 10 hours on a gallon of gas.

 

[Stoney]

I live in the northbay, power has been out since 2am last night. Luckily I bought a small 2300 watt generator a few weeks ago and it’s been running the return pump (varios 6) an Mp40wqd and 150 watt heater plus our refrigerator no problem,only about half load and runs for about 10 hours on a gallon of gas.

Are you planning to run the lights at all?

 

[pirate2876]

@flagg37 here’s a Honeywell generator you can get from Costco.

https://www.costco.com/Honeywell-20KW-Standby-Generator-with-Transfer-Switch.product.100466089.html

Anyone have any experience with these? I've been looking to get one for my home.

 

[Ethirtysix]

My power got shut off last night in Santa rosa but I got tank and some appliances running off my generator hopefully will turn on by Thursday sometime

 

[Zuma]

Are you planning to run the lights at all?

I might for a few hours tomorrow if the power does not come back on, even then I don’t think my xr15s will add much more load to the generator. I highly recommend a small generator over a battery back up; can be acquired off CL for a fairly good price.

 

[Ethirtysix]

I kept lights off. Though I could I chose not too just to have the extra power from generator and the tank is near a sliding glass door so I just kept curtains open to keep it light inside. I just wanted to keep water flowing in the tank just left skimmer, wavemakers, and return pump running. I don’t have any corals yet so I wasn’t to worried about the lighting for a day or two.

 

[Stoney]

I might for a few hours tomorrow if the power does not come back on, even then I don’t think my xr15s will add much more load to the generator. I highly recommend a small generator over a battery back up; can be acquired off CL for a fairly good price.

Yea sounds like you have plenty of extra power. Doesn't seem like gas will be an issue either.

I kept lights off. Though I could I chose not too just to have the extra power from generator and the tank is near a sliding glass door so I just kept curtains open to keep it light inside. I just wanted to keep water flowing in the tank just left skimmer, wavemakers, and return pump running. I don’t have any corals yet so I wasn’t to worried about the lighting for a day or two.

Makes sense if there's no corals yet. Are you guys running the generators 24/7?

 

[Ethirtysix]

Yes my generator is running 24/7. Full tank will last about a day and half. So it’s not bad and it’s a pretty quiet gen so noise isn’t a big issue at night

 

[Stoney]

Yes my generator is running 24/7. Full tank will last about a day and half. So it’s not bad and it’s a pretty quiet gen so noise isn’t a big issue at night

That was the main reason I didn't want to run it at night. Didn't want my neighbors to hate me lol. Mine isn't loud enough to hear in the house, but the neighbors can pretty clearly hear it from the yard. Saratoga's usually pretty quiet though. But good to know that others are doing it, thanks.

Oh man, just got another call warning about outages and now my internets out.

 

[Ethirtysix]

I have nothing just using cell data at this point and charging phone with battery pack. At least it’s not out for 3 weeks like when the fires hit Santa Rosa. It sucked not being home for 3 weeks living in a hotel with a 1 year old at the time.

 

[Stoney]

So am I safe or not lol. What are the odds

I have nothing just using cell data at this point and charging phone with battery pack. At least it’s not out for 3 weeks like when the fires hit Santa Rosa. It sucked not being home for 3 weeks living in a hotel with a 1 year old at the time.

An actual fire would be way worse. Cant imagine doing it with a baby, that's rough.

 

[Bob Weigant]

So far my neighborhood has not been affected. I’m ready for a few days if that changes. My feeling is this is our future so we will invest in a generator.

 

[Ethirtysix]

So am I safe or not lol. What are the odds

An actual fire would be way worse. Cant imagine doing it with a baby, that's rough.

that’s a trip the map shows it going-though half my house also.

 

[Ethirtysix]

So far my neighborhood has not been affected. I’m ready for a few days if that changes. My feeling is this is our future so we will invest in a generator.

It’s a good investment. I work in the construction so I use mine all the time. And it’s handy for these situations

 

[divewsharks]

If anyone is affected and needs to borrow a generator, I do have a small one and at least this go round I am not affected.

 

[hatfielj]

This is why solar systems combined with battery back ups are so vital moving forward. I'm having a system installed on my house next month. 2 Tesla Powerwalls to start. Going to add an extra Powerwall every year until I can go fully off grid with our electric.