Here in south central arkansas, there's power outages all over the place. They're saying it'll be close to 2 weeks before we get power back on. Very rural area. And we're the last house on the line. So it may take longer.
We have a pretty big gen going to power certain things in the house. I dug my old 1500w gen out and got it running. LOL.. Just have to use a shop towel for a filter. (Spread flat over the housing with a rubber band keep from sucking up too close to the carb)
Have taken two extremely cold showers. Gonna run the water hose out into the yard, (in the sun). So this afternoon, I'll run it through the bathroom window, into the shower for at least some luke warm water.
I've fixed 4 generators already. have two more that I know of, coming today. Luckily, they were just carb issues. Did some research this morning to learn about some other stuff. Like how to check the voltage coming out of one.
Still have a lot to learn though.
Gonna run the water hose out into the yard, (in the sun). So this afternoon, I'll run it through the bathroom window, into the shower for at least some luke warm water
Back country campers trick for warm water if you have the sun. Take a black heavy duty garage bag and fill half full of water and lay it on something that will not puncture it. Let it sit in the sun all day and by late afternoon you’ll have warm water. Does not have to be warm out, just above 40.
#5
tom3
I like that hose idea. Have several lengths of hose to reach all the sheds, could fill and heat, run in the tub a couple times and have warm rubber smelling bath water. Free solar heat.
#6
logert gogert
or you could just fill your tub up with water and just get all your heat guns and plop em in the water ?
@tom3 I've been noticing that orange car with that certain rim style in your profile pic, is that a uhhhhhhhhhh......chevy? camaro? chevelle?
#7
Hammermechanicman
I guess i am lucky. My house is on the same line as the town's small sewage plant. So when the power is out ours usually back before a lot of other people. I can see the plant from my house and i am on my own septic system and well. I still have a 6.5kw generator and a transfer switch. Feel sorry for you guys.
I like that hose idea. Have several lengths of hose to reach all the sheds, could fill and heat, run in the tub a couple times and have warm rubber smelling bath water. Free solar heat.
Just don't drink it or use it to clean your teeth.
Lots of nasty chemicals in garden hose.
It always surprises me how few people fit proper stand alone solar hot water to their houses.
#9
Hammermechanicman
30 years ago i bought a house with a supposed working solar water heating system. HA! The solar tank was rused out. The circ pumps were both too small and crap. The heatexchanger was made wrong. Only thing that was good were the 2 panels and the differential controller. I rebuilt the system with stainless steel Grundfos pumps, a proper cross flow heat exchanger. And converted a standard tank to a solar tank. The local power utility noted the drop in energy useage and came out to "investigate". After that they had a guy come to grade my system. He gave it an A and said it was better than most commercial ones he had seen.
I used a boiling tank I got from a closed down lolly factory
They used steam to heat the tank which was of course stainless .
Bought it for scrap price $ 150 then welded an outlet to it & ran it as a gravity tank
When we sold the property the new owner had it ripped out and installed a mains pressure off peak system
Some people have no idea .
#11
tom3
Trouble is here in Ohio the sun shines about two days a month in winter. I built a solar air heater many years ago for our old house, 4 x 16 heat panel, put out 85 to 100+ degree heat for 4 or 5 hours on a bright sunny winter day, for those two or three days. Would heat the living room. Take about 50 years to pay off, if ever. The water heater is probably the way to go economically. Use year around.
#12
PTmowerMech
They got power restored in town. But, we don't get power from town. Ours comes from the town on the opposite side. Which is about 20 miles away. And there's probably 20 places between here and there, where trees have fallen and broken either the lines or the poles. So it's gonna still be a while before we electricity. UHG!!!!!
Someone ran over the water hose and now I can't use it for warm showers. Double UHG!!!!!!!!
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