Sitting here in dreary Michigan in late October, we had a thunder/hail/snow storm pass through and poof, the lights went out. Not a big deal the generator kicked on 30 seconds later and all was well. Checked with the electric company and the power wouldn't be on until late the next day, still no problem as the generator was run by natural gas and it wasn't a wide spread power outage. No problems until the next day when the generator quit. Suddenly modern life stopped, stove off, washer in mid cycle and locked shut, TV and internet out, heat off, coffee maker not working, and the reality started to set in. Well the generator was out of oil, I had some in the garage-except for the fact that the doors were on electric openers and the side door has been permanently shut for decades. A quick trip to the hardware store, got oil put it in and the battery was dead. Jumper cables in the car were great but too short, more in the garage or my wife's car, also in the garage, finally found a pair in the truck and got the battery jumped and got the genny running just as the power came on. Lessons learned, get garage door fixed so we can at least get in when there is no power, teach wife how to check and start generator and how to jump it, get extra flashlights to keep around the house and start thinking of short term emergencies around here rather than putting our effort into a BOL. Not everything is a TEOTWAWKI, not everything requires 10,000 rounds of ammo (or more ) or the ability to plant a garden etc, sometimes it's just a quart of oil and a good battery and extras where you can get to them. We were lucky in that we stayed warm overnight (temps below freezing) our neighbors didn't, it was also a very short term outage. Man o man, there is more to this than I thought of.
And, another, smaller generator, in case your primary generators problems were to be worse than what yours experienced.
The devil is ALWAYS in the Details.... It is interesting that a Single Piont Failure, (Garage Doors are Electric & Man-Door Stuck Shut) should point to many other Single Point failures... No Oil next to Genset, Jumper Cables to short, Dead Battery, etc....
Lucky that you had a genset with a low oil shutdown or you would be replacing the genset. Almost all the small gas gensets brought in after the power fails were either destroyed by running out of oil, burned out by connecting them to the full house load and then trying to start them, or having the load improperly balanced so one section was trying to carry well over its designed load. If they would not start, it is usually either dead gas or dead starting battery. If you don't start the unit and run until hot, 15 minutes or so, every couple of months, don't either change the fuel or use a good stabilizer, and don't run at least part of the load to test the generator, switch part of the load at your transfer switch, if there is a power failure it may or may not work. If you want to have reliable power for over a couple of days, or minutes if run on natural gas, the amount of diesel or propane you must store is in the hundreds of gallons. Gasoline gensets will work for a few weeks if gasoline is available, but storing a large amount for years is well beyond my abilities at this time.
A good smartphone and a couple charger bricks will keep you online, and with phone/text/e-mail comms. My power was kff for four days straight, my first charger brick was still going, had a larger one in reserve. Just got a 10" screen rechargeable TV, and am setting up a marine battery box with charger/maintainer for inhouse use, to keep phone and miniTV going. However in many areas, the cell towers were down. There is only so much we can do when the infrastructure is down!
All vehicles must not block other vehicles. All vehicles must be able to move or to be towed, no flats or missing rolling stock. All batteries in all vehicles must be able to start the vehicle. No "stacking" of equipment, one in front of another. All doors stay locked but have keys available. No doors are blocked from being opened or from being closed. Same for all gates. Leave them like you found them unless you want to be found if you do not return as planned or at dark time 30. This means we have a certain way we leave a passed through gate to enable rescuers to know which way you passed. Each home/homestead needs a way to track their own residents as well as trespassers. Jumper cables should be connected in the middle with a sized quick disconnect such as used in electric fork trucks, this in case a problem exist at the batteries that may affect removing the jumper cable due to fire or arcing.
I'm still young enough to use a pull start, three times a year to be sure that a=it starts, and b=I still can.
Looks like things worked out well for you this time, but should the situation have escalated to longer range issues how are you preparing ? I have been in situations that after one storm and people were giving sigh of relief , another storm was brewing and no one took the hint . This winter could be a test of fortitude for all kinds of events both natural and man made , One of the things I anticipate having to do, is move out of my house and into the barn . I hope it never comes to that ,but I am working toward that possibility . Though I am on battery, solar, and wind , all that can be lost as well as the grid ,so I have kerosene lamps as well as gas and wood stoves for alternatives . Both my grand fathers ,though coming from very different backgrounds ,practiced "not" putting all your eggs in one basket . Thus I maintain several means to endure an event .
Working on fixing the things that we noticed this time. I know now that I need to shut down and check oil every day, need to fix garage door, need to have spares on hand. If the natural gas goes out we are in trouble, same if it's a regional power outage. I'd love to move to a BOL property and be independent, but at our age and my wife's temperament that isn't going to happen
If the NG goes out have a couple 100# Propane Bottles, and a Regulator to keep you going for a few more Days....
Not sure the city would allow that. This is after all, the Peoples Republic of Ann Arbor, they don't allow you to do a whole bunch of stuff on your own property. Moving to a better location would be first choice, someone in the family is not good with that.
Actually, there are Dual Fuel demand Regulators available for Gensets, that are easy to make the switch between Fuel Types.... It takes just a minute or so to do.....
