I wake up Sunday morning to the sound of a boom at about 6:30. Oh, I bet a transformer blew and the power just went out. Get up, check everything, and all is well. So I go back to sleep, and when I finally get out of bed to make breakfast at 9:30-10:00 I notice all the power is out. Great. So I head over to mom and dad's to take a shower and all that good stuff. The hot tub started at 102 and the house was still 60 (I keep it at 62 at night anyway) when I left so I didn't worry about it.
I end up having dinner with a friend and then hanging out at that friend's place till about midnightish. Dad said he saw utility trucks down the road from me at about 10:30 so I run back to mom and dad's pick up the dog, and head home figuring power should be on. Nope, but the temp in the house is 57, and the dog is a great little mini furnace so I sleep there anyway.
The next morning dad brings a generator by and we hook it up to an exterior plug that runs to a subpanel that my furnace is on. Well, as long as we can get the furnace running I'm good. Well, that doesn't happen as planned, so I take stuff out of the freezer and stuff it in the snow banks to keep it frozen and head to work.
At lunch I come home and decide I will cobble something together to at least get the furnace going, and to get a waterbed heating pad tossed over the pump on the hot tub just in case for some reason the water freezes out. I don't expect it to with 350 gallons of warm water adjacent, but better to be safe than sorry. Luckily my utility room has no drywall, access to the subpanel, junction boxes, and an exterior duplex outlet comes in through the utility room.
So, I disconnect the exterior outlet from the current circuit it's on (it was at the end of the run) and find about 100' of Romex I had out in the workshop. I strip each end, wire nut the Romex at the junction box the outlet was tied to, and start figuring out how to get the furnace running from the other end of the 100'. So I pull the cover off the switch of the furnace, but to no avail. The common goes into the furnace rather than being twisted in the box and I don't feel like digging into the guts of the furnace.
OK, lets just hillbilly this thing together. I take the free end of the Romex and and just run it straight into the furnace breaker. Yep, two wires going into the furnace breaker. Definitely up to code, especially with 100' of electrical wire loose on the floor. But, the furnace works, and the fridge works. OK, that's the biggie for now, so it's back to the office after isolating that breaker so I don't backfeed to the rest of the house and to the utility lines.
I come home, still no power, so I figure I will head up to Lowe's, get some extension cords and a work light, so I can open up the hot tub, and get the heating pad tossed over the pump. I figure a hundred degree on the tub pump should work even if the power is out for the next 4 days, considering there's chlorine in the water also. So I get that all taken care of, and I figure there's enough extra wattage in the generator I will get another circuit working so I can watch TV. I make a jumper wire to run from the furnace breaker to a breaker on the other half of the panel (yes, I would have had 3 hot wires going directly into the breaker), and just as I'm about to connect to the other breaker all the lights come on. Figures the timing would work that way, right?
Even though it was 20s here, and I was out of power for 30 hours before the furnace got running, the house had only dropped from 62 to 52. And 36 hours before the power came all the way back on, the hot tub only dropped from 102 to 88. So that's some pretty good insulating I think. So, I put everything back the way it should be, and enjoy Christmas Eve Day and Christmas with power - only to wake up this morning with no power again. Arrrgh.
Well, since I got a rechargeable LED worklight for Christmas I put that to use today as I decided to go a bit more legitimate on the temporary set up. Cut the power to the sub from the main so i didn't backfeed, tied the Romex into a junction box in the utility room that was on a circuit to the subpanel, moved some breakers in the subpanel around so I could get the furnace, utility room (where my cable modem and router are), refrigerator, and back living room circuits running. So, even though the power was out from sometime before I woke up until almost 7pm this evening, I was able to keep warm, not have to worry about my food, and watch DVDs while the power was out. After it came back on tonight, I made the temporary solution permanent by cutting the 100' down, and running the wire as it should be run. That way when it goes out Saturday...
I end up having dinner with a friend and then hanging out at that friend's place till about midnightish. Dad said he saw utility trucks down the road from me at about 10:30 so I run back to mom and dad's pick up the dog, and head home figuring power should be on. Nope, but the temp in the house is 57, and the dog is a great little mini furnace so I sleep there anyway.
The next morning dad brings a generator by and we hook it up to an exterior plug that runs to a subpanel that my furnace is on. Well, as long as we can get the furnace running I'm good. Well, that doesn't happen as planned, so I take stuff out of the freezer and stuff it in the snow banks to keep it frozen and head to work.
At lunch I come home and decide I will cobble something together to at least get the furnace going, and to get a waterbed heating pad tossed over the pump on the hot tub just in case for some reason the water freezes out. I don't expect it to with 350 gallons of warm water adjacent, but better to be safe than sorry. Luckily my utility room has no drywall, access to the subpanel, junction boxes, and an exterior duplex outlet comes in through the utility room.
So, I disconnect the exterior outlet from the current circuit it's on (it was at the end of the run) and find about 100' of Romex I had out in the workshop. I strip each end, wire nut the Romex at the junction box the outlet was tied to, and start figuring out how to get the furnace running from the other end of the 100'. So I pull the cover off the switch of the furnace, but to no avail. The common goes into the furnace rather than being twisted in the box and I don't feel like digging into the guts of the furnace.
OK, lets just hillbilly this thing together. I take the free end of the Romex and and just run it straight into the furnace breaker. Yep, two wires going into the furnace breaker. Definitely up to code, especially with 100' of electrical wire loose on the floor. But, the furnace works, and the fridge works. OK, that's the biggie for now, so it's back to the office after isolating that breaker so I don't backfeed to the rest of the house and to the utility lines.
I come home, still no power, so I figure I will head up to Lowe's, get some extension cords and a work light, so I can open up the hot tub, and get the heating pad tossed over the pump. I figure a hundred degree on the tub pump should work even if the power is out for the next 4 days, considering there's chlorine in the water also. So I get that all taken care of, and I figure there's enough extra wattage in the generator I will get another circuit working so I can watch TV. I make a jumper wire to run from the furnace breaker to a breaker on the other half of the panel (yes, I would have had 3 hot wires going directly into the breaker), and just as I'm about to connect to the other breaker all the lights come on. Figures the timing would work that way, right?
Even though it was 20s here, and I was out of power for 30 hours before the furnace got running, the house had only dropped from 62 to 52. And 36 hours before the power came all the way back on, the hot tub only dropped from 102 to 88. So that's some pretty good insulating I think. So, I put everything back the way it should be, and enjoy Christmas Eve Day and Christmas with power - only to wake up this morning with no power again. Arrrgh.
Well, since I got a rechargeable LED worklight for Christmas I put that to use today as I decided to go a bit more legitimate on the temporary set up. Cut the power to the sub from the main so i didn't backfeed, tied the Romex into a junction box in the utility room that was on a circuit to the subpanel, moved some breakers in the subpanel around so I could get the furnace, utility room (where my cable modem and router are), refrigerator, and back living room circuits running. So, even though the power was out from sometime before I woke up until almost 7pm this evening, I was able to keep warm, not have to worry about my food, and watch DVDs while the power was out. After it came back on tonight, I made the temporary solution permanent by cutting the 100' down, and running the wire as it should be run. That way when it goes out Saturday...
