I feel like an idiot

The title of this thread reminds me of something I do when someone says, "I feel like an idiot"

I'll grab their arm or shoulder, squeeze a few times like I'd test squeeze a tomato and say, "Yes, yes you do"

The look of shock on their face is priceless, try it!

gnappi said:

The title of this thread reminds me of something I do when someone says, "I feel like an idiot"

I'll grab their arm or shoulder, squeeze a few times like I'd test squeeze a tomato and say, "Yes, yes you do"

The look of shock on their face is priceless, try it!

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The idiots I know never admit it.

eveled said:

The idiots I know never admit it.

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They may be extra special idiots, I figure everybody gets to stand in the Idiot spotlight every so often, letting their
personal stupid shine bright!
Hopefully not too often......

Well I did my stupid idiot trick yesterday. I have been taking Wifie to her doctors so I write on my calendar when they are. The night before I looked to see when the appointment was and I wrote 1:40 except it looked like 1140. When we arrived for the test we were told you sure are early. My response "well we are only 30 minutes early" Nope you are 21/2 hours early. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH CRAP. They were very nice and worked the wifie in as the RED Faced fat guy read his book. Now to make matters worse I was trained and worked as a Draftsman and should be able to make legible numbers.

Kevin said:

Are there any American made generators?

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Generac makes their engines in Wisconsin for the most part. They have 2 made in China.

Talking to the techs that maintain the big Kohler 60k gensets that supply emergency power for our Public Safety radio sites they all tell me the same thing; regular maintenance! We have enough problems with them anyway. Growing up and living in Hurricane Country I like to be prepared. I have had a Briggs portable 8500/5500 and a Chinese copy of the old Honda 3k generator since Charlie in 2004. They didn't get much use until Irma in 2017 when our power was out for four days. I just use a power inlet next to the garage. Our current house has two 3 ton HVAC units and the portables won't put out enough power to run the whole house, BUT now that we have a property with enough land to park our fifth wheel in the back yard the plan is to use the Briggs to power the RV. All the comforts of home!

I've used my Airstream for emergency housing a time or two. Pretty convenient but not all have the tens of thousands of dollars an RV costs. A good generator is, while not cheap, certainly more affordable.

As to maintenance I know folks, some relatives, that are challenged by starting and connecting a generator, much less maintaining one. In fact those fears have kept a few from even bothering.

But a generator is much like a vehicle. Most folks can put fuel in them but that's it. So they have a shop perform maintenance. I tell folks to do the same.

Starting and connecting still have to be learned. Nothing in life comes without education.

I live in the New Madrid fault zone so a "big one" is not if but when and FYI natural gas transmission lines shut down as per the gas company "when any tremor threshold is reached"
Propane is not an option (for me) in that a propane tank large enough to run just my small 8.7KW electric start w/ back-up recoil starter 5 days would have to be buried and against my rural HOA regs ..
My system simply plugs into an "RV" type socket at my house electric service entrance which then goes into a "switchover box" which locks out outside power and distributes to major items like furnace via my regular breaker box ..in essence the system is actually for winter power outages
The 75' RV type cord is on a hose reel and is simply activated by walking the male plug to the RV wall socket..
The OSB board box on the left is the fresh air intake box that takes in at the top (white Louver) and runs thru baffles like a pinball to the bottom outlet where the air flows out and up across the gen set for cooling (the exhaust is flex pipe run thru triple wall flu pipe to the outside then vertical with a tractor type self closing rain cap ..
The air intake baffle performs 2 functions ..it reduces noise emissions a TON and it keeps the intake up high but then redirects the air flow to pass over the gen set
The OSB board that the automatic exhaust fan is mounted to also is primarily for noise reduction as well as a stiffener
The floor is also lined with the OSB board as well as a heavy duty rubber horse mat cut to size (tractor supply) is important to sound deadening as well as keeps everything sitting exactly where you put it

Brokenbear,

We have the same generator... how about that? Mine I will move and put in my outside shower that is covered ... and then I can insulate it further from the noise if need be. I've got the two hookups already .... one is the line to our gas meter..(could use the propane bottles for my outside kitchen, I have 4-5 filled usually) the other power is to a plug in like yours on the outside disconnect box off the meter where I can throw the disconnect switch and then just trip a 60amp breaker on for the generator to feed the house. I also have inside the house on our 200 amp breaker panel ... each breaker is marked in three different colored tapes.. for priority. I have no plans to every put gasoline in the generator... I think that is the one issue with generators... leaving gas in them for any long period of time.

blume357 said:

Brokenbear,

We have the same generator... how about that? Mine I will move and put in my outside shower that is covered ... and then I can insulate it further from the noise if need be. I've got the two hookups already .... one is the line to our gas meter..(could use the propane bottles for my outside kitchen, I have 4-5 filled usually) the other power is to a plug in like yours on the outside disconnect box off the meter where I can throw the disconnect switch and then just trip a 60amp breaker on for the generator to feed the house. I also have inside the house on our 200 amp breaker panel ... each breaker is marked in three different colored tapes.. for priority. I have no plans to every put gasoline in the generator... I think that is the one issue with generators... leaving gas in them for any long period of time.

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Well they are great machines and produce very clean electricity which is vital these days ..everything from computers to furnaces are chip controlled and bad electricity eats electronics !!
I have no problem at all with gas in mine ..my set up is 4 years old ..I have never run ethanol gas thru it ..strictly non ethanol which can now be bought lots of places ..my Coop farm service for example, my storage fuel is heavily treated with Stabil and I rotate it every two years via topping off my 1/2 full vehicle tanks
..I also start and run my gen set the first and Monday of each month and run it for one hour ..I keep a can of starting fluid in the "shack" and have used it twice... both times when it was very hot .. I always shut off the fuel shut off valve after each Monday "run In" but I do not run the engine dry ..
I keep the tank on the gen set easily topped of after each run ... I have a tip to offer here..from Amazon I bought a battery operated gas (4ea AA batts) transfer pump (Tera Pump) which will pump a 5 gallon gas can dry in less than 3 minuets ..will pump many 5 gal can on one set of batteries and the pump has automatic shut off just like filling station pumps

I also use this handy pump to pump from 5 gal cans into my vehicles come fuel rotation time
I would urge you to gas it up and go thru the break in run at which time you will then need to change the oil for a good synthetic ..but at least learn how long you machine will run on a tank of fuel with the load you will expect it to carry
In my case mine will run about 9/10 hours on a tank and the tank on mine is like 4.5 gallons i believe

Good luck

Bear

That's all good info Brokenbear except I have no plans to run mine on gas... if I did I would try to follow your advise. On the very off chance my natural gas is turned off I will switch to propane and see how long a 20lb tank will last... I have 5 of those, (some neighbor put one out by the road last year half full). I keep 3 of those filled just about all the time, my outdoor kitchen uses two and I need to get a refill on those two about once a year. Kind of odd that the generator needed starter fluid when it was hot, I presume you mean the weather and not the Gen?