Drought conditions

46er

Piney
Mar 24, 2004
8,837
2,143
Coastal NJ
Yes, I am building what amounts to a large closet that is completely sealed off from the house and has a door opening directly outside. It is all the way at the opposite end of the house from the bedroom. And if I have any concerns, I have a heavy 10/3 twistlock extension cord to locate the generator in the yard or tool shed.

I put mine outdoors in one of those trash can sheds, similar to the one at the link. CO2 will find its way thru any opening, be vewey careful. This is located away from any windows, code calls for 2' and I went 3', and use an extension to a power inlet box at the house. You might check your town for what the code calls for to get some idea. If something goes wrong and it's not within code, insurance probably won't cover it. I will only use it for extended outages, short one's I have the Honda to keep the fridge working. I'm concerned mostly about winter outages.

https://www.suncast.com/sheds-storage/sheds/horizontal/bms2500.html

Got the idea from this video.

 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
That's pretty clever, but seems like kind of tight quarters. I have not cast anything in stone and am going to wait on the remodelling part. Would not want to run the generator inside for very long anyway due to the noise. I don't bother with the generator either unless the power is out for awhile. If it's raining, I put it on my open porch, otherwise it's in the yard 20 feet from the house. I may put it in the tool shed on a rainy day, that is 30 ft from the house with a big door.

Only had one long outage here in the past 10 years, 5 days during the derecho. I mostly use candles for lighting, just need the genny for the well pump, refrigerator and (now) the hot water. Woodstove heats the whole house, and I have a full winter's supply of wood ready. :)
 

46er

Piney
Mar 24, 2004
8,837
2,143
Coastal NJ
That's pretty clever, but seems like kind of tight quarters.

It works fine for the size of the gen I have, access to everything needed and easy to roll in/out. Some I have read about put sound insulation on the inside walls, but I barely hear it when it runs and no complaints from the neighbors. It gets a full gas tank test twice a year. Totally wind driven rain tight, tested that by hitting it with the hose. They do make larger sheds.

Looks like the big storm is headed out to sea, lots of rain on the way though. We had a short outage very early this morning of about one hour.
 

NJChileHead

Explorer
Dec 22, 2011
831
628
Hoping we get a good 2 inches more from the Nor'Easter plus the benefit of some rain bands from Joaquin.
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Well the NWS is now only predicting 0.75 to 1.25 inches through tonight, then just a trace through Monday and sunny skies Tuesday. They have been known to be wrong before. :D

We've had several inches already though. See the small orange rectangle with 4"-5" just below Cologne on this map? That's where I live. :)

http://water.weather.gov/precip/ind...pe=recent&units=eng&newest_forecast=12&zoom=8

rain.jpg
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Went for a walk out back this afternoon. It's amazing how fast the thirsty ground absorbed all that rain. Not even a puddle in the uplands. There were barely any puddles down by Stephen Creek where it would normally be very soggy. But the creek level rose quite a bit, about a foot higher than it was before the rain. Guess that will drop somewhat over the next couple days though.
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Thanks Dragonfly. The power came back on around 9:00 AM this morning, so it wasn't too bad, about a nine hour outage. And the new generator worked like a champ. :)

It was a Dorothy outage actually, looking on Atlantic City Electric's map, I was right on the edge and it affected a little over 300 homes.
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,506
2,768
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
It has been really dry since the big storm, looks like we are headed right back to drought condition….

below_normal.png


BTW, the fall color is beautiful here right now. Today may be very close to the peak - nice weekend for a drive through Atlantic/Cumberland/Cape May Counties. :)
 
Last edited:

bobpbx

Piney
Staff member
Oct 25, 2002
14,154
4,258
Pines; Bamber area
Has anyone seen my "drenching" rains? I know they were ordered, but have yet to arrive at my table.

Ahhh.... here they are.
 
Last edited:
Top