I've called Front Royal home for almost five years now, retiring here after 22 years in the Infantry [Army]. Originally an Oregonian, I like to consider myself the President of the Unofficial NW VA Chapter of Quacker-Backers...huge Oregon Ducks fan.
I'm currently in the Pacific on a six month rotation for an organization near the Beltway....but will be home in July, back to my loving family, my Harley, and my guns.
I'm interested in increasing my arsenal, possibly building an AR for the first time, and generally building up my self sufficiency in regards to electric power, food and such. Not that I'm or anything....
I hope to meet other shooters and .mil professionals in my area, as they have seemed few and far between so far.
Má throideann tú, go dtroide tú i leith do bhráthar,
Agus má ólann tú, go n-óla tú liom féin.
Whole house generators are nice to have, if you have natural gas hook up or propane for heat they can run off that. With natural gas you are still reliant on the gas company, but they seem to have much less issues in VA disasters than the power, phone, cable or water companies. The generators themselves up to 20 KW are air-cooled and pretty inexpensive (Generac and its brand names are most common), hooking them up to the house electrical system can expensive, probably close to as much as buying the generator and switch. Just looked up the ones at Home Depot, looks like they are coming with a 200 amp switch. Ours we bought from Sam's club only had a 100 amp switch. Looks like they are up to 20 kW now. Ours was only $2500 with switch, so I do not know if prices have gone up or Home Depot is just a bit expensive.
The advantage of whole house gas generators is really no issues when the power goes out, it takes a few minutes then you are back on power. How much power, depends on how big a generator you get, ours at 17 kW covers two AC units, gas furnace, all the wall outlets and light, microwave oven, 2 refrigerators and freezer. We left off the stove, dishwasher, washer and dryer, exterior plugs.
We can cook on the grill if we need more than the microwave, of course if you have a gas stove and dryer then those can be kept active. Our hot water is gas so that stays up.
At the old house we were out of power twice for more then 7 days, so with my new house we decided on getting the generator. So far we have used it for an hour or two a few times during thunderstorms, and one 6 hour outage due to a car hitting the only pole between us and the local substation. Beside installation, maintenance runs a few hundred a year if you hirer it out. If you work it out we have payed a lot per hour, but do have more peace of mind.
In 6 years costs have been, $3500 installation and unit, $1000 maintenance. So $4500 for about 10 hours of use. Plus gas costs.
During one of the long outings our neighbor had a gasoline generator and although he did have power he spent most of the week trying to find service stations with gas so he could keep his tanks filled. Most industrial installations seem to use diesel generators but I do not know how that compares in cost, or how easy it is to manage long term fuel storage, nor how long a 3 or 4 hundred gallon tank would last. I know I did not want to have to hunt gas, or store hundreds of gallons at the house, natural gas was the best solution for us. YMMV
or anything....
