Generating trouble

Many of us around here are thinking deep generator thoughts.  Two spates of powerlessness in two months, some lasting days or weeks, made up our minds.  “As God is my witness, I’ll never be without power again!”   Especially those of us who had to clean out their refrigerators, twice.  There’s nothing like throwing out hundreds of dollars of groceries to encourage deep thinking.

Generators are a very tempting item right now, almost too tempting.  I’ve had one for the last ten years and although I only use it once or twice a year I would gladly spend that money again, in a heartbeat.  But I got surprised when I bought it, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  For instance, I didn’t know that when I paid $350 for a brand new generator at Costco, it would cost another $1000 to get the hook-up to the house put in.  Something I still haven’t done.  We run extension cords instead, and only plug in certain things.

That’s because of the other thing I didn’t know, all electric power is not created equal.  The power we get from the local utility (when we get it) is filtered, clean as clock work, smooth as glass, curry combed and consistent.  The power that comes from my handy Chineese bargain generator is, well, not.  Don’t feel bad Genny old girl, I still love you.  

Clean power generators cost a lot more, and there is a reason.  Utility power, at least mine, runs at between 121 and 123 volts day in and day out.  It is also 120 volt true RMS (Root Mean Square) power, which for us non-engineers means that every sixtieth of a second the power in the wall sockets goes from about 170 volts positive to 170 volts negative (we call it 120 volts, but that’s a kind of positive average over time).  It does this change smoothly, effectively and with amazing consistency.  Which is really important because some things in our houses are very picky about power.   Things like computers (or anything with a computer chip in it), TV’s, refrigerators, stereos, in fact anything that isn’t just a motor, or heater or light bulb don’t react well to power that doesn’t mean that standard.  They tend to, well, suddenly get more expensive.

I heard a story after the last outage (the cold one, the one where I was suddenly worried about heat as well as light) about a neighbor who didn’t realize that the voltage regulator on his handy bargain generator was going bad.  Why would he?  It’s not like there’s a little “You’re in trouble now” light on these things.  It was putting out an average of 140 volts instead of 120 every once in a while.  His generator faithfully lit his lights, but now he’s looking for great deals on a new big screen TV, stereo, and several other items this holiday season.  His original ones just “up and died” on him, the second day.

When my septic packed it up about 8 years ago, the Township ruled that I would have to connect to the sewer.  The sewer that’s uphill from my house.  Consequently I now have a small holding tank in the back yard and a “poop” pump to move all the waste water up to the street.  This means when the power goes out, poop’n time’s over for us. That also means no showers, no washing dishes, no running water of any kind unless we want to see the contents of the holding tank drifting lazily across our back yard.  Power outages are serious around here.

I could try and hot-wire the generator to the pump, but it’s 240 volts which is past my limit of inventive fooling around.  It’s also possible that my pump could become a casualty of “bargain” power.  This is why I finally broke down and called my favorite electricians, Esposito Electric in Denville, and began to bite the bullet.  Electricians are not cheap, so it’s really important to find a good company.  Esposito’s is a great company.

I actually called them during the first storm to see if they would hook up my generator to the pump.  They raced over in less than two hours, in the midst of the aftermath of Irene to tell me they would not.  It was “against code.”  They did offer me the house hookup, for around $1200, but I balked and lost my chance.  Well, kind of.

This time after some subtle encouragement from my wife (she likes to poop indoors) I called them again and said, “Let’s do it!”   They said “OK” we’ll be over friday, “Awesome,” I thought, “by friday night we’ll have a guarantee of civilized bathroom behavior.”

Not so fast, me bucko.  Friday came and one of their estimators showed up with nothing but a pad and pencil.  “Where’s the generator and the panel?”  I said, eyeing the trunk of his car as the most likely place he might be hiding them.  “Well, we’ll have to order it, after the inspection.”  He commented politely. 

So, the inspection began.  It was pretty painless, actually,  no complex electrical questions, no “million details” to be worked out.  I had two options, get just the panel installed, now costing $1500, or get the panel and a new, bigger, cleaner, well behaved, auto-starting generator with whistle clean power. Twenty seconds after the power goes out, the generator kicks in, rain or shine, summer or winter, storm or no storm.  No carrying gasoline.  No pulling the cord start in the rain.  I wouldn’t even have to put on shoes, or even pants for that matter.  All for a measly five grand and change.

Wow, but that was actually a lot less than I thought it was going to be, impressive though it was.  He left me to mull over the estimates.  I did mull, I mull’ed mightily.  Christmas was coming, did we have a spare five big ones?  If so, why hadn’t anyone told me?  Do you know what kind of boat radar that can buy?  My wife didn’t show a lot of concern about “Boaty” paraphernalia right then, and shut down the mulling with just a look.  This, after all, was a poop'n priority.

So, we made the deal, secure in our decision that this was the “right thing to do.”  And then I learned yet another new thing.  Seems like everyone around here has had the same idea, panels and generators are now going like hotcakes.  12 weeks is the predicted wait time, but the very pleasant woman at Esposito’s said it probably wouldn’t take that long.  “Besides,” she cooed sweetly, “it can take a month to get the permit.”  The permit?  Uh oh.

Oh yes friends, the permit.  This is major electrical work (should have known by the price!) and surveys and permits are required.  So, not only do I get to write the check, now I have to go on safari to find the house survey.  I think it’s that folded bundle of paper that keeps the dining room table from rocking, or is that the deed?

However, she also told me that this qualifies as a “Capital improvement” and is sales tax free, as well as deductible.  There’s a little light to make winter in the dark, and cold, a bit more cozy.  I should have oodles of power when it's actually time to take that deduction.  Till then, looks like we better keep those extension cords handy.  Maybe I can keep a picture of our intended generator in my wallet, to whip out and brighten our spirits at sad, chilly moments while considering the location of the nearest bathroom.