- Joined
- Nov 11, 2019
- Messages
- 33
- Reaction score
- 92
So I'm in Texas and as you all know the power went out... It stayed out for about 11 hours on Monday and that evening I was here on R2R scouring threads trying to figure out what I could do to keep my tank going when the power went out again. That was at 7:45pm and didn't come back on for 19 hours. As the temperature inside the house was dropping, I was heating pans of tank water on our gas stove and pouring them back into the tank one pan after another until 2pm the next day so the tank only dropped to about 72 degrees (until I went to Harbor Freight to hunt for an inverter and my husband let it get down to 70 degrees) while inside the house was down to 54 degrees. Everything looks ok now so I think I dodged a bullet there.
While I was at Harbor Freight looking at the inverters, I was reading the manual on the 1000w model and it said at so many amps it would last one hour and at another amp it would last 3 hours. How many deep cycle marine batteries do you need to power heaters and the pump for 19 (or more!) hours???? Plus, my buddy who was with me said if I got the battery right then it probably wouldn't be completely charged up. He said Auto Zone, etc trickle charge the batteries they sell and count on your car to finish charging them up. With no way to charge one up right then I was still screwed.
I think this ordeal finally persuaded my husband into getting a whole-house natural gas generator but part of the reason Texas went thru this power outage is because the natural gas pumps, etc were frozen so some people didn't even have gas, so that kind of generator may or may not work if/when this happens again.
So not only do I need a back-up plan, but I need a back-up plan for my back-up plan. So I need ideas.
We don't have a fireplace so we need a way to heat at the very least the area around the tank (which is in a pretty large space). I have one heater in the tank and to try to help it warm up the tank after the power was restored, I pulled the one out of my saltwater mixing tank and threw it in the overflow, but those 2 together wouldn't have made a dent when the house was 54 degrees. So I need to be able to keep that area around the tank warm when the power's out in the winter. Do I get a ventless gas space heater and a boatload of cans of the gas for it? A big enough Honda generator wired directly to the HVAC? [Let me mention that my car was out of gas and in case we were going to have to spend the night in the car with the heater going I had to go to 6 different gas stations before I found one that had power to run their gas pumps so I may not be able to get enough gasoline to run a generator for an extended period if/when this happens again]
Someone mentioned a single solar panel kit just for the tank - how many hours/days would that run the pump?
While we were driving I noted that houses with solar panels on the roofs were covered in 4 inches of snow so they were probably up the same creek I was.
What would you do if you were me?
While I was at Harbor Freight looking at the inverters, I was reading the manual on the 1000w model and it said at so many amps it would last one hour and at another amp it would last 3 hours. How many deep cycle marine batteries do you need to power heaters and the pump for 19 (or more!) hours???? Plus, my buddy who was with me said if I got the battery right then it probably wouldn't be completely charged up. He said Auto Zone, etc trickle charge the batteries they sell and count on your car to finish charging them up. With no way to charge one up right then I was still screwed.
I think this ordeal finally persuaded my husband into getting a whole-house natural gas generator but part of the reason Texas went thru this power outage is because the natural gas pumps, etc were frozen so some people didn't even have gas, so that kind of generator may or may not work if/when this happens again.
So not only do I need a back-up plan, but I need a back-up plan for my back-up plan. So I need ideas.
We don't have a fireplace so we need a way to heat at the very least the area around the tank (which is in a pretty large space). I have one heater in the tank and to try to help it warm up the tank after the power was restored, I pulled the one out of my saltwater mixing tank and threw it in the overflow, but those 2 together wouldn't have made a dent when the house was 54 degrees. So I need to be able to keep that area around the tank warm when the power's out in the winter. Do I get a ventless gas space heater and a boatload of cans of the gas for it? A big enough Honda generator wired directly to the HVAC? [Let me mention that my car was out of gas and in case we were going to have to spend the night in the car with the heater going I had to go to 6 different gas stations before I found one that had power to run their gas pumps so I may not be able to get enough gasoline to run a generator for an extended period if/when this happens again]
Someone mentioned a single solar panel kit just for the tank - how many hours/days would that run the pump?
While we were driving I noted that houses with solar panels on the roofs were covered in 4 inches of snow so they were probably up the same creek I was.
What would you do if you were me?