Posted Update 3 below (See all my hurricane entries here.)
We have had way too much adventure around here (Orlando) recently. Three hurricanes in a six week period is pretty much enough for everyone for the next decade or so. At work, we joke about going around to all the "Florida - The Sunshine State" signs at the state welcome centers and changing them to read "Florida - We're Over It" instead. You really come to appreciate the small comforts of life when your bathroom fan has no power.
As with the previous hurricanes around here (Charley - hit, Frances - hit, Ivan - miss, Jeanne - hit), I have come across some new things. Much of this I have observed, other items were discussed with neighbors, and some others with co-workers.
As a recap, here are my posts on other hurricane lessons ...
... and now for some new stuff.
House Design - It is really simple. Houses constructed to current building codes survived the hurricanes with little or no damage. Hip style roofs are better than gable or flat. Roof tiles older than 8 or 10 years suffered varying degrees of damage - the older tiles were damaged more. Manufactured and mobile homes, especially older ones, were damaged more.
House Location - Houses located near water suffered more damage. Houses on the beach were damaged the most. Houses in older, more established neighborhoods, especially those with older trees, took hits not only from falling tress, but also from the subsequent horizontal flying debris. New neighborhoods had much less flying debris and less subsequent damage.
Spoiled Food - Some neighbors were away for the entire Hurricane Jeanne adventure. They returned late at night, ate dinner, and went to sleep. What they did not realize was that power had been out for 30 hours and had returned ten hours previously. That refreshingly cold food in their refrigerator and freezer was likely spoiled. Remember to ask neighbors who stayed about the duration of any power outages before trusting the refrigerated food.
Holes - This was particularly vexing to people who put up plywood for Charley (or Frances or Ivan), took it down, and wanted it back up for Jeanne. They found that they could not reuse the holes in the concrete for Tapcons because they were enlarged and the Tapcon would not grip. They had to drill new holes. This is understandable if you think about how a Tapcon is designed to work. Concrete anchors are intended to be a one-time-use system. They are to hold firmly once installed and should not be removed. People viewed them just like wood screws, which they are not. When you install a Tapcon, the threads bite into the concrete. This permanently deforms the brittle material. Since the next use will just grind away some more concrete, the hole becomes useless, unless you happened to have bought the next larger size of Tapcon. When I asked the builder of my house to sink some Tapcons a little more flush with a doorjamb, they refused since they did not want to strip out the hole. So what do you do with the holes? One solution is to use exterior caulk to fill them and then paint. Another is to use stucco patching mixture and then paint (probably best). Of course, if the hole happens to be located in a suitable position, you could actually make it larger and install a reusable shutter anchor system such as the PanelMate Storm Panel Anchoring System (details are here, here, and here).
Shutters - As mentioned previously, my thin interior plywood shutters warped after Hurricane Frances. I straightened them out by screwing 2x4s to the outside. Once they got wet from the storm, I left them up for two days (thankfully without rain) to dry before taking them down. I have painted some of them with exterior white paint to reduce water absorption.
If you are facing a time crunch, there is a priority sequence you should follow for installing shutters. Your decision depends on where the storm is coming from and which side of the eye you end up on. For all three hurricanes, we ended on the right (bad) side of the eye track. I will use Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne's almost identical tracks as an example. These storms approached from the southeast and the eye passed closest to our southwest. As the storm approached, winds started from the northeast. This is your first decision point. The winds will come from this direction, building strength, for a very long time. This is the time where the initial loose debris is picked up and blown along, so it is the best first direction to defend on your home. In my case, this required protecting the seven windows on the north and east side of our house. Only as the eyes approached did the winds swing around to the southeast and build to their strongest. This period was much shorter than the initial one, but it was much more intense, so it is your next priority. In our case, this added the sliding glass doors and bedroom windows under a sheltering porch, since the south side of our house has no windows. Optimally, you would like to protect everything, but sometimes you need to work in priority order or decide how to best use limited supplies.
Generator Purchase Decision - The money decision can be based on the cost of food you will lose based on the normal contents of your refrigerator and freezer space. This could amount to hundreds of dollars and may well make your purchase justified. The second is based on comfort, security, and reassurance. For example, warm food and cold drinks are wonderful to have. Do not underestimate the hassles involved with finding and maintaining an adequate supply of ice that will save only a portion of your food. (Coolers were sold out almost as fast as generators were.)
Generator Use - I talked about this first here. Small portable generators are not all-weather devices. You must be ready to protect it from the rain. If your porch is not sheltered enough, you should be able to build a plywood cover to shield it. Do not cover it completely since the generator and engine need airflow to stay cool. Carbon monoxide from a running generator can be a killer. We brought our power cables into the house via a window, but I then sealed the gaps using towels to keep engine exhaust gas and noise out. You should never run a generator inside your house or in an attached garage, even if the garage door is open. If you must run the generator out in front of your house, be ready with a very hefty chain and lock to secure it to your vehicle. (Generators became a hot target for thieves in Florida after the hurricanes.) Manufacturers generally specify run times for a single tank of gas at half load. Expect less than half of the stated run time at full load. Note that gas tanks get bigger with increased generator wattage. We used five gallons per day with our loads.
Generator Sizing - How big of a generator do you buy? When you are standing in line and are desperate, you buy whatever is available. If you have time and can plan your purchase, you need to think this through. Bigger is not necessarily better since it translates into burning more gas. Gasoline becomes a precious commodity during a disaster. Also, you will likely need to siphon and carry all those gallons of fuel for your supersized machine. We ran a 4000 watt generator and got power to everything we needed: one refrigerator, kitchen equipment (including an 1100 watt microwave and a coffee pot (vital!)), lights, ceiling fans, TV, DVD (our 14-month-old needs her Elmo), and miscellaneous stuff (baby monitors, XM satellite radios, etc.). Importantly, you must realize that you should not try to run all of that at the same time. (The generator loaded down noticeably when the microwave was used, but was not overloaded.) Generac has a useful generator sizing wizard here. As a point of comparison, most houses in the US have 200-ampere service. At 240 volts, this equates to roughly 48,000 watts of power. My Generac 4000XL 4000 watt generator is only 1/12 of the capacity of the standard electrical service.
Generator Features - Here are some good things to get on your generator if you have the choice.
- Full capacity locking electrical outlets to provide secure mechanical connection while delivering maximum power
- Low oil level shutdown - automatically shuts engine down when oil level drops too low
- Low oil pressure shutdown - automatically shuts down engine if oil pressure drops too low
- Automatic idle control - saves fuel by idling down engine when not in use
- Automatic voltage regulation - maintains steady voltage for electronics
- Automotive style oil filter to keep oil clean and prolong engine life
- As quiet a muffler as possible
- Fuel tank gauge
- Foldable handle for compact storage
- Wheels for easy movement
Powering the House - The attentive will notice that I mentioned running ceiling fans above. I didn't do this through creative rewiring, but through a simple process usually referred to as backfeeding. First, a caution: you need to know what you are doing with your home electrical system when you do this. Do not attempt to backfeed your home in ignorance. Now with that said, backfeeding is the process of powering your home from a generator through a stove or dryer connection. Done properly, it works great and can energize any load in your house. Of course, you are limited by the capacity of your generator, so do not expect to operate everything unless you have a humongous unit. My generator came with a four-prong locking plug for the 230-volt outlet that was protected by a 20-ampere breaker on the generator. Based on this 20A maximum, I went with type NM-B 12/3 indoor electrical wire with ground (4 wires: black (hot), red (hot), white (neutral), green (ground)). I would have preferred a larger wire to reduce the voltage drop, but all the NM-B 10/3 wire was sold out. Due to time constraints, I disconnected the dryer cord from the back of our clothes dryer and bolted the generator wire to the dryer cord terminal lugs. (Remember to use washers and lock washers for a secure fit.) I then heavily wrapped all connections with electrical tape and propped the assembly up where I could see it at the back of the dryer so I could keep an eye on it for overheating. With the generator cable ready, I did the following in order.
- Open the main service disconnect to remove the house from the utility supply
- Open all breakers on all power panels (we have two)
- Plug in the generator cable at both ends
- Start the generator
- Close the dryer breaker (this provides generator power to the power panel)
- Close individual service breakers
- Test operation of house loads
I did not close any large load breakers. For our house, that included the outside heat pump unit, inside HVAC air handler, water heater, stove, dishwasher, garbage disposals, heat lamps, and kitchen refrigerator (we used our garage unit). You could tell who was powering their whole houses off their generators from the doorbell lights.
Update 1: Let me say one more thing about backfeeding. It can be dangerous (i.e. deadly, as in not breathing any more) if done wrong. What I have described here relies on following the procedure for safety. Do not screw up the procedure. Better, do not follow it if you do not know what you are doing. The best thing to do is to have a qualified electrician install a transfer switch and emergency power panel.
Update 2: When you are running your entire house from a generator, whether by backfeeding or via a transfer switch, you need to eliminate standby or parasitic loads. These are the small current loads from equipment which is off, such as TVs, DVD players, VCRs, etc., as they wait for a remote control signal to awaken. A good PC Magazine article is here. I went around and turned off the entertainment center, unplugged all the small chargers, and unplugged everything we did not need from the outlets (like that clock radio in the spare bedroom). These loads may add up to several hundred watts depending on what equipment you have and how it was designed. Since this translates into gallons of gas hauled and used, you can do without the convenience for the duration.
Update 3: I wanted to bring some comments to this post up to the main item because they are important. Some houses have outside power panels near the meters to control 230V power distribution. I have one of these outside boxes and it houses my main service disconnect. It would be possible for a desperate person to shut it under the misconception that they would be able to power their house from your generator. In reality, I believe your generator would trip its output circuit breaker on high current when the neighborhood load is placed on it. I would solve this issue by locking the outside panel once you open the main service disconnect, since mine has such a provision. This requirement is not applicable if you use the recommended transfer switch method. Also, once you make your backfeed cable connections, do not disconnect anything with the generator running since you may be exposed to energized conductors.