weather & power outages

So this winter we have lost power just
about ever other day.
We are thinking this year on getting
a generator.
There is one that runs on natural gas that
turns on after 10 seconds and off when the
power is restored. We are thinking this
may be the way to go due to our age and
if there is a bad storm and you can not
get out to get fuel you still have power.

I don't care about the lights just the well pump
furnace motor, fridge and freezer.

Would like to hear if anyone has one of
these and opinions.

Thanks

Hey Karona   We are looking at getting a generator as well because of the hikes that hydro will be taking in the future. I'm curious as to what kind of responses you get   

We have two generators, gas 4500 watts, diesel 10,000 watts, and we put the breaker-box in to not let the power down the line(about $2700.00). We did this in 2000, and have never had to use them YET!!!! First bought the 4500 watt one and the electrician (that put in the cut-off box) told us it would not run very much. We needed at least a 10,000 watt. according to him this will do the well pump, sewer, and three automatic waters and two furnaces. We are to un-plug all plugs as some use power just being plugged in. We can plug the two freezers in the 4500 watt one. We are also getting older and I looked at the one that the gas company has, just lately, but it was $20,000. Way to expensive for us. I'm hoping our system will work if needed. Wanted to try it out last summer but 'The Better Half', never wanted to, always a excuse!! Next summer it WILL be tried out. I'm going to watch this thread and hope to learn lots. Thanks for putting this up for discussion.

We have had a generator for some time, but with no legal or safe way of hook it up. A new generator panel is sitting in the laundry room and when everybody is off to school or work we will put it in place in the shop. Our biggest concern when the hydro is off is that we do not have water so the generator will run the water pump and the baseboard heater in the pump house. An extended outage like the 9 days we had in 2003 would require us to rotate extension cords to the fridges and freezers. An automatic switch over on the main farm service panel would be ideal, but we would need a large generator on propane. We could put in a microhydro system if we could convince the ranchers next to the river that they could pump water from the river for hay and watering rather than diverting our creek for a gravity feed water supply.

Good responses so far I guess several people
are thinking our way.
Hubby priced out the natural gas one and it
would be between $2000.00 & $3000.00 depending
on instilation cost and model.

I have an 8000 watt gas generator. I bought it slightly used...the previous owners had bought it 4 years ago, and tried it out once, and then never used it. I paid 800.00. I don't actually have it wired into the house, I just run extension cords to everything that I need. I have only required it a couple of times. It has electric and pull start. Darn good thing for the electric start, because when it is below freezing out and the oil thickens a little, there is no way I can manually start it, so that is something to watch out for.

Costco lists an automatic standby generator for our whole farm at $4299.99.  There would be some installation costs as Hydro would need to shut off the power while the system was installed.  The propane lines would need to be extended. Connecting to telephone lines would probably be needed as many automatic switches phone to tell you the power is off and the generator is running.

Many of the small generators produce "dirty" power which is not advisable for computers, televisions and other electronics. An "inverter" generator will run this type of equipment.