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Haha smartIts not a shed, its a native plant grow out greenhouse
Its Texas. They dont believe in permits here. *-'
I guess it depends on the HOA. Not mine. I did have to have city permit to get new gas like from the gas main to the generator site. Very close for me so it did not cost much.Did you need to get an HOA permit?
Attwater Prairie Chicken hatching facilityHaha smart
I found by heating 2 gallons of "tank water" on the gas stove every hour worked for me. I started as soon as we lost power. My house did remain warm never dropping below 55F.not completely prepare for the cold induce power outage,
We do whatever we can to save our tank. I try to plan so I don't have to spend all my time baby sit the tank. I am working full time in my office even as the city is out of power and many place out of water at the same time.I found by heating 2 gallons of "tank water" on the gas stove every hour worked for me. I started as soon as we lost power. My house did remain warm never dropping below 55F.
Be careful with O2 and open flame
I also live in Texas. Our power went out for ~24 hours on the coldest night. Then it came back intermittently for a couple more days. Like many others, my grid down preparation was centered around high temperatures. Mainly a small generator and a window unit AC. I have no gas, or any way to burn wood in the house. So a low of 13F with no power was problematic.
My tank is a 220G display with a 75 gallon sump. I have a DIY automatic battery backup on one of the icecap gyres that will run for ~4 days unattended. I have a pair of 300 watt heaters, but they use the grid only. So when the power went out, I pulled out my cheapo $150 1500 watt generator and plugged in the heaters and the return pump only. I also plugged in a couple of phones and ipads.
An inline power monitor showed about 840 watts of power use.
I also taped a couple pieces of R5 foam insulation I had to the front and side of the tank.
The next day I started heating up water on my BBQ and bringing it in the house. We also hung blankets and closed doors to try and thermally isolate the living room. After the first ~15 hours, the house was in the low 50's, but the tank was holding to 1/2 a degree of the 78 degrees I try to keep it at.
The house was also noticeably warmer in the living room than the rest of the house. I would suspect that 600 watts of water heater is very similar to running a 600 watt space heater and was heating the house a little bit. After 3 days of nonexistent or intermittent grid power the tank, and the rest of my house came out just fine.
Going forward we've decided to invest in a small mini split heat pump. A 12000BTU (1 Ton) heat pump uses about 9-12 amps of power and I should be able to run it on my old cheapo generator. A heat pump will make both cool and hot air and should get us through grid failures year around. It's also a backup for when the main HVAC unit has problems, which has been more common in my house than power failures. As an added bonus, 20 seer is more efficient than my HVAC's 16 seer rating and may lower my monthly power consumption. It will also be a lot easier to just plug the generator into the mini split than storing and dragging out the window unit when needed.
Anyway, that's my former and future grid down tank/house plan.
I also live in Texas. Our power went out for ~24 hours on the coldest night. Then it came back intermittently for a couple more days. Like many others, my grid down preparation was centered around high temperatures. Mainly a small generator and a window unit AC. I have no gas, or any way to burn wood in the house. So a low of 13F with no power was problematic.
My tank is a 220G display with a 75 gallon sump. I have a DIY automatic battery backup on one of the icecap gyres that will run for ~4 days unattended. I have a pair of 300 watt heaters, but they use the grid only. So when the power went out, I pulled out my cheapo $150 1500 watt generator and plugged in the heaters and the return pump only. I also plugged in a couple of phones and ipads.
An inline power monitor showed about 840 watts of power use.
I also taped a couple pieces of R5 foam insulation I had to the front and side of the tank.
The next day I started heating up water on my BBQ and bringing it in the house. We also hung blankets and closed doors to try and thermally isolate the living room. After the first ~15 hours, the house was in the low 50's, but the tank was holding to 1/2 a degree of the 78 degrees I try to keep it at.
The house was also noticeably warmer in the living room than the rest of the house. I would suspect that 600 watts of water heater is very similar to running a 600 watt space heater and was heating the house a little bit. After 3 days of nonexistent or intermittent grid power the tank, and the rest of my house came out just fine.
Going forward we've decided to invest in a small mini split heat pump. A 12000BTU (1 Ton) heat pump uses about 9-12 amps of power and I should be able to run it on my old cheapo generator. A heat pump will make both cool and hot air and should get us through grid failures year around. It's also a backup for when the main HVAC unit has problems, which has been more common in my house than power failures. As an added bonus, 20 seer is more efficient than my HVAC's 16 seer rating and may lower my monthly power consumption. It will also be a lot easier to just plug the generator into the mini split than storing and dragging out the window unit when needed.
Anyway, that's my former and future grid down tank/house plan.
I also live in Texas. Our power went out for ~24 hours on the coldest night. Then it came back intermittently for a couple more days. Like many others, my grid down preparation was centered around high temperatures. Mainly a small generator and a window unit AC. I have no gas, or any way to burn wood in the house. So a low of 13F with no power was problematic.
My tank is a 220G display with a 75 gallon sump. I have a DIY automatic battery backup on one of the icecap gyres that will run for ~4 days unattended. I have a pair of 300 watt heaters, but they use the grid only. So when the power went out, I pulled out my cheapo $150 1500 watt generator and plugged in the heaters and the return pump only. I also plugged in a couple of phones and ipads.
An inline power monitor showed about 840 watts of power use.
I also taped a couple pieces of R5 foam insulation I had to the front and side of the tank.
The next day I started heating up water on my BBQ and bringing it in the house. We also hung blankets and closed doors to try and thermally isolate the living room. After the first ~15 hours, the house was in the low 50's, but the tank was holding to 1/2 a degree of the 78 degrees I try to keep it at.
The house was also noticeably warmer in the living room than the rest of the house. I would suspect that 600 watts of water heater is very similar to running a 600 watt space heater and was heating the house a little bit. After 3 days of nonexistent or intermittent grid power the tank, and the rest of my house came out just fine.
Going forward we've decided to invest in a small mini split heat pump. A 12000BTU (1 Ton) heat pump uses about 9-12 amps of power and I should be able to run it on my old cheapo generator. A heat pump will make both cool and hot air and should get us through grid failures year around. It's also a backup for when the main HVAC unit has problems, which has been more common in my house than power failures. As an added bonus, 20 seer is more efficient than my HVAC's 16 seer rating and may lower my monthly power consumption. It will also be a lot easier to just plug the generator into the mini split than storing and dragging out the window unit when needed.
Anyway, that's my former and future grid down tank/house plan.
Thanks for all the replies!
I had clamped a comforter around the tank and a towel across part of the top to try to hold the heat in it and had 2 battery-powered air stones in there (I have 6 of them and thought I had plenty of D batteries squirreled away just for them but could not find them) but I could hear water splash once in a while and thought the fish were suffocating so I started scooping out water with a pitcher and pouring it back in in between the pans of heated water.
And you better believe I bought a bunch of D batteries while I was at Harbor Freight!
I should have mentioned it's a 150 gallon mixed reef.
I'm definitely leaning toward the Generac whole-house natural gas generator, but like I said, the natural gas system froze up and areas of TX were without natural gas so I have to have a back-up plan for my back-up plan just to be safe.
I saw a video -- -- where he tells how to stay warm in your house (ex. make a fort under your kitchen table so you're only trying to heat a small space) so I'm looking at the tank thinking if I attach a tarp to the wall over the tank and make a tent and just focus on heating a small space for the us, the dogs and the tank....
Food for thought... if the jet stream had dipped anywhere else, this nightmare could easily have happened to Arizona or Florida instead so everyone needs a back-up plan for their back-up plan.
I question the 9-12 amp draw for your 1Ton unit.
Today, my 2 Ton unit with a moderate load is drawing 2.4A @ 240V. At max load, it draws 8.5A @240V which is 1840W. In general, for calculation purposes
1Ton is 1HP is 746W is 12K BTU/Hr.
I agree that the compressor will draw less than 9 amps, but most also have a fan in the internal and external unit. Of course not all units are created equal and some use less electricity than others. I do know that my 5000 BTU window unit draws over 5 amps. One mini split says up to 13 amps for heating, which may include a heating strip.
My unit has a 22 SEER Rating and uses 240VAC. Efficiency on above unit is much less. The big reason for much higher amps is listed unit is 115VAC which doubles amp draw of 220VAC for same wattage.
PS: When I measured amps, I measured all amps going to system. With respect to heat strips in ductless systems, this would be deicing cycle when compressor is off.
With respect to my 22 year old central unit, the heat pump doesn’t even list efficiency ratings. When temperature gets below 40 degrees, this unit is useless, so I get off heat pump on central unit and use heat strips if required. Normally, I run 2 ton ductless unit in living/dining/kitchen area and if required I turn fan only on central unit to distribute conditioned air to remote rooms. Also, I have a wood burning fireplace to distribute more heat.