Livin' in the Runner

We decided after the big freeze in Houston in 2021, that we weren't gonna get caught with our pants down again, and bit the bullet on a whole house generator. It has come in handy, for these types of incidents.

Believe it or not, OP, I understand your frustration. It really amazes me how nothing changes year after year, with regards to improvements to our power grid. I'm in the Humble/Kingwood area, and our community now has power, and it is still surprising to me that I drive 3/4 of a mile in any direction, and the area is like a ghost town... People and businesses still without power.

In addition, a lot of people are complaining that Xfinity, another garbage company, still has a regional outage well after power has been restored in some areas.

I think we have gotten used to a society where customer satisfaction/retention is a thing of the past, and these corporations believe it's OK to keep milking their customers dry. We have AT&T for home internet, and at least had no service loss.

What can we do? Glad you are back in business, though!

Cheers,

Sean

 

If you already have a generator there are propane conversion kits. Took about 20 minutes to install. I was changing out 10 to 15 gallons of gas every 6 months, waste of time and money.

https://www.uscarburetion.com/type_2.htm

https://youtu.be/wP7Po_Hhq4I?si=loQuHNMKhzkZ2bO8

 

With a Midea "u" AC, tanks, fuel, oil, cables and a little storage shed came well under $1k all in for a pretty comfy setup (ordered while trying to sleep in the car during the last outage). Would definitely go whole house generator and/or batteries+solar if I was more settled in with a family, but going out in the rain to set it up only took a few minutes.

 

For running AC off generator, you need to be able to start it (spike current) without overloading generator. One way of doing it this is get soft start module.

https://www.eltwin.com/hyper/

 

If you find ethanol-free gas and put fuel stabilizer it can easily last 2+ years in a sealed container.

What makes gasoline go bad is ethanol content, it separates, then absorbs water, then you have acidic environment develop at the bottom of your gas tank.

You can also easily test gasoline for ethanol content - take a beaker, add gasoline to known line, then add water and stir. If level changes (water absorbs ethanol resulting in visually less gas and more clear liquid), there is ethanol in the gasoline.

 

From the man who brought us the term “Enshittification” comes “Too Big to Care!”

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/

It’s a Google-oriented piece but applies to any semblance of a monopoly/duopoly/etc. AT&T’s data breach is terrible (and includes MVNO’s) but do I want to shell out for Verizon or go to famously insecure T-Mobile?

I’m personally waiting to try out 5G home internet to buoy wired internet price increases since the couple years (total) I’ve spent in Texas (North Dallas area) we’ve had more outages (duration and frequency) both power and AT&T than a decade plus in northern and central Virginia.

It sucks that we feel we have to shell out for individual power solutions to compensate for Texas’ grid, but I guess that’s just the price of Freedom Electricity™ (/s)

 

Not needed for an inverter type AC since they are inherently "soft start"; I ran it off a small bluetti for a while just out of curiosity. Ramps up slowly to draw around 400w in normal mode. For a window unit the thing is decent looking, surprisingly quiet and cools really well in our brutal humidity.

 

Oh yea I run non-ethanol in my old 4Runner, but there can still be water intrusion anywhere in Florida in any fuel. Not willing to risk it anymore. Propane lasts for decades if you keep the tank from corroding.