Anxious and Empathetic - Hurricane Milton

[Will.iam]

solar I just put in last year 25.5AMU for the panels inverter and install labor.  16AMU for the battery storage so that my panels can work when the grid is down. they cover a decent amount of time with the A/C on.  If I don't run the A/C then batteries can supply until the next day when the panels can power the house and charge the batteries.  If I wanted to completely get off the grid I would double the batteries so I could run every thing through the night but that only works if there is sun again.  My system is 20k of batteries.  If you get an electric Ford GM or BMW they have bi-directional charging so that you can power your house off of the vehicle when the grid is down.  And they have much bigger batteries like 100K so I could power my house for like 4 days with no sun and then just drive my car to a power station that did have power recharge the car and have another 3 plus days of juice. Tesla has not allowed bi-directional charging yet but might have to in the future as I see more and more people with solar panels getting cars other than tesla.

 

P.s. until 2026 you also get a 30% of the total value of your solar system back in taxes so that's nice.

[mike_elliott]

On 10/10/2024 at 11:23 PM, Will.iam said:

Tesla has not allowed bi-directional charging yet but might have to in the future as I see more and more people with solar panels getting cars other than tesla.

Check out Tesla PowerShare. A 80k cybertruck has the capacity of 10 powerwalls and who says the IRA credit of 30% for home batteries would not count if the battery has wheels? 
I know, You led Mary, and it matters

[Scott Ashton]

On 10/8/2024 at 12:53 PM, mmcdaniel33 said:

So, August 20th I, as a newly minted Mooney M20J pilot, flew N82KL down to Sarasota Avionics in Venice, Florida for some work and upgrades.  As a Mooney Service Center I figured I could kill two birds with one stone so to speak, get some great deals stemming from AirVenture installed and take care of the awful trim issues it had.

So, its still down there.  Ground Zero for Milton.  As nervous as I am for my airplane, I am really, really feeling for those folks who live and work there.  If my plane is destroyed, I have insurance.  If their livlihood, or lives, are disrupted, there is a distinct limit to what insurance can do.  I'm hoping for the best while fearing the worst.  But overall my heart goes out to all of the folks at Sarasota Aviation right now, and their families.

Just wow!

I was just up there for annual and saw your plane….pretty jealous!   Have you heard from Dan how they made out in the storm?

scott

[A64Pilot]

It’s been three days now on the generator. I’m burning under 10 gls a day of gasoline that was 2.77 a gl so figure $ 25 a day for a 7K 13 HP generator. I don’t run it all day, probably only 8 to 10 hours.

My use is unusual, when everyone else turns theirs off and goes to bed, mine has to run all night because of our CPAP’s. I was worried it wouldn’t make it through the night as I think it’s only a 6 gl fuel tank, but if I fill it completely full at 8 PM it takes 4.5 gls to fill it back up at 8 AM, but that’s just running the fridges and CPAPs, and an Engel 45 qt cooler and the well may cycle once I guess.

At the EAA meeting the neighbors running the Generac’s on Propane were between 65 and 100 gls in three days, I believe some were more.

Propane cost around here is $4.73

Until this I was considering a whole house Generac propane, but I hadn’t realized tge running costs were so high.

[A64Pilot]

On 10/10/2024 at 11:23 PM, Will.iam said:

solar I just put in last year 25.5AMU for the panels inverter and install labor.  16AMU for the battery storage so that my panels can work when the grid is down. they cover a decent amount of time with the A/C on.  If I don't run the A/C then batteries can supply until the next day when the panels can power the house and charge the batteries.  If I wanted to completely get off the grid I would double the batteries so I could run every thing through the night but that only works if there is sun again.  My system is 20k of batteries.  If you get an electric Ford GM or BMW they have bi-directional charging so that you can power your house off of the vehicle when the grid is down.  And they have much bigger batteries like 100K so I could power my house for like 4 days with no sun and then just drive my car to a power station that did have power recharge the car and have another 3 plus days of juice. Tesla has not allowed bi-directional charging yet but might have to in the future as I see more and more people with solar panels getting cars other than tesla.

 

P.s. until 2026 you also get a 30% of the total value of your solar system back in taxes so that's nice.

Tesla has pushed for a long time panels to charge your car, but does not support nor do I ever expect them to support powering anything significant from the car. Reason is battery degradation, they only have just so many cycles in them and I suspect they would be a very expensive source of power. All but one model of Tesla use Li-ion batteries, LifePo4 would be a much better choice for an off grid application as they have a significantly longer cycle life, but are less dense than Li-ion which is important for a car but not so much for a house, I have no idea what Tesla Powerwalls use battery wise now. I know they were Li-ion but suspect they may have changed to LifePo4 for a couple of reasons.

My “off grid” experience comes from cruising a sailboat for four years, I added up the cost one time of everything required to completely power everything on the the boat, amortized it out as to expected life expectancy and it came out to be if memory serves about ten times the cost of grid power and that was no labor because i installed it all, maybe I guess if you had a decent velocity stream for a water powered generator you could maybe break even or maybe come out ahead as it could make power 24/7.

I had two generators, a little Honda EU 2000 that I used 95% of the time I used a generator and a 3500W Diesel. I had a 660 AH bank and 1 KW of Solar as tgat was all that would fit.

Anyway I used just under 3,000 KWH last month in my house, but my monthly average is 2,048 KWH.

That’s about 80 KWH per day to make that kind of power on decent days depending on location you would  need I think at least 25 KW of panels and probably about 80 KWH of batteries much more if you need to get yourself through rainy days etc.  Depending on location and time of year you only get about 6 hours of good power output per day on average and about 3 or 4 peak hours, you never make rated power of course. You could probably get away with 80 KWH of batteries because during those 6 good hours of Solar they aren’t being used, they are being charged. But remember to get a good long life from batteries you don’t charge them to over 80% nor do you discharge them to less than 20%, if you do that it will add many years of cycle life over cycling them heavy, but you only get 60% of usable battery capacity too, so to get 60 KWH usable, you need 100 KWH bank.

I’ve tried to make Solar work $$$ wise, the best is of course just grid tie, no batteries and even then I can’t make it make $$$ sense. I could though by building a rather large array if I did all of the install and bought panels etc by the pallet, and those you don’t put on any roof of course and you  have to have the land already paid for.

There is of course Economy of scale as in most things. I didn’t figure tax breaks because being Retired I pay very little tax as I have already paid tax on my assets, most of my tax liability comes from my Retired pay which isn’t much.

Without incentives I just don’t think you can make it work, and of course this stuff doesn’t last forever and if it’s on the roof I assume it’s going to cost a pretty penny to have it removed and reinstalled come re-roof time.

I have read but do not know that in California at least it’s paid for by essentially putting a second mortgage on the house and it’s not uncommon to end upside down on your house loan like many did in 2008. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Oh and check with your insurance before you install panels on your roof, I know one neighbor’s insurance cancelled them and I’ve heard other say theirs went up significantly when they did, but maybe that’s because we are in Fl and get hurricanes. I know panels can handle extreme wind I think maybe the issue is the mounts maybe?

Edited October 13 by A64Pilot

[GeeBee]

You all can count the pennies to run it. The ROI over the years. Calculate your need. No mathematics will account for one intangible. Your wife. Do you really want to sleep in your own bed, or the couch?

Did I tell you I am a very happily married man?

[Pinecone]

On 10/10/2024 at 1:19 PM, EricJ said:

NIce. 

There's an Air Disaster episode of a NOAA Poseidon aircraft that lost an engine while penetrating Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and wound up in the eye unable to hold altitude and dealing with a partially disintegrated airplane.   It's a great story, but my favorite part was there was an Air Force C-130 in there, too, and they were able to come alongside and help survey the external damage to the aircraft.     Jeebuz, but I'd have definitely loved work like that when I was younger.

Full ep can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_E00cmcMWY

A friend of mine used to fly WC-130s (hurricane hunters ) out of Guam.

[Pinecone]

On 10/9/2024 at 5:03 PM, BlueSky247 said:

Hey guys - just as an example of what can be done if you really want to stretch things out. I just got through running for three days on a 2kw Wen inverter generator. I kept it on eco idle and it kept the fridge and freezers going along with a few led lights and assorted tool/battery chargers. I would temporarily switch it to the coffee maker and an induction hot plate in the morning, but that's it. 

You don't need to run the fridge/freezer all the time.  Especially the freezer.

I have a 6500 watt generator.  I run it for a few hours in the morning (cools fridge and freezer, lights if needed, coffee maker and MW for breakfast, well pump to top off pressure), then turn it off.   Repeat in the evening.

Water heater stays warm for several days if careful.  When it needs heating, I run just that for an hour.

[BlueSky247]

@Pinecone you are absolutely right. I have my freezer on a ups and treat it as more critical than necessary just because I have a lot of meat in there and I don’t want any temp swings that can possibly accelerate freezer burn. 

You are right about the water heater - that is a good plan. 

That said, this event was an outlier and my last outage was only about six hours. I think it would be good to have a two stage plan of what to do differently when it becomes obvious we need to lean back for a long outage. 

[BlueSky247]

Oh guys - here’s a datapoint I keep running across in the generac discussions in the years I have been following them. By and large they are decent and reliable, but some of the engines are not up to the caliber you would expect. Oil consumption, failed starters or control boards, etc. You would expect these to have a quality level approaching Honda, but that does not appear to be the case. 
 

Regarding propane prices, one of my local suppliers just quoted me $1.95/g delivered. That’s less than the local hardware store charges for tanks you bring to them. My costco no longer sells propane so it may not be worth going diy on the tanks in my case. 

[Pinecone]

21 hours ago, BlueSky247 said:

@Pinecone you are absolutely right. I have my freezer on a ups and treat it as more critical than necessary just because I have a lot of meat in there and I don’t want any temp swings that can possibly accelerate freezer burn. 

You are right about the water heater - that is a good plan. 

That said, this event was an outlier and my last outage was only about six hours. I think it would be good to have a two stage plan of what to do differently when it becomes obvious we need to lean back for a long outage. 

If your freezer is full, it will take days to have much of a temp swing.  Unless you keep opening the door.

 

[exM20K]

6 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

If your freezer is full, it will take days to have much of a temp swing.  Unless you keep opening the door.

 

We freeze a coffee cup of water, put a quarter on top, and leave that in the fridge as a low-tech thaw monitor for when we are away for extended periods.

-dan

[Pinecone]

I am a Mooney owner, I would use a penny.

But that is a good way to see if there has been an issue.  Put it high up in the freezer.  Last time one failed on my, by the time I found out, the upper half had thawed, but the stuff lower down was still frozen.

[Grant_Waite]

It’s astounding the level of effort some put into being a CB. We lost power 4 hours into it Thursday and ran on the whole house generator almost nonstop until Monday. We started at 67%, on a 500gal tank. We ran it down into the high 30s before the propane guy came Sunday to refill the tank. Thank God, because we weren’t expecting anyone to show up. Cost 900 something to fill it back up and we got power back early Monday. We could have gone without power for a whole month after he filled it. Our entire house ran 3 ac’s, two 5 tons another smaller one and mini split, 2 full size refrigerators, 3 wine fridge’s, well, hot water heater, and everything else. Our house turned into a refuge camp for those CB that didn’t have one. We had an extension cord and hose running to the next door neighbor basically the whole time. Needless to say a whole house generator is 1000% worth the investment in hurricane prone states… no question about it. Our house was built in 2019 and has spray foam insulation in the whole roof, so it doesn’t leak air at all. All the leds and everything else helps a lot too. Idk about some but sleeping without AC is truly miserable and a major first world problem. 

[1980Mooney]

3 hours ago, Grant_Waite said:

It’s astounding the level of effort some put into being a CB. We lost power 4 hours into it Thursday and ran on the whole house generator almost nonstop until Monday. We started at 67%, on a 500gal tank. We ran it down into the high 30s before the propane guy came Sunday to refill the tank. Thank God, because we weren’t expecting anyone to show up. Cost 900 something to fill it back up and we got power back early Monday. We could have gone without power for a whole month after he filled it. Our entire house ran 3 ac’s, two 5 tons another smaller one and mini split, 2 full size refrigerators, 3 wine fridge’s, well, hot water heater, and everything else. Our house turned into a refuge camp for those CB that didn’t have one. We had an extension cord and hose running to the next door neighbor basically the whole time. Needless to say a whole house generator is 1000% worth the investment in hurricane prone states… no question about it. Our house was built in 2019 and has spray foam insulation in the whole roof, so it doesn’t leak air at all. All the leds and everything else helps a lot too. Idk about some but sleeping without AC is truly miserable and a major first world problem. 

Here in the Texas Gulf Coast our whole house generator runs on natural gas, as does every other installation I know of in the Houston and Galveston areas..  Beryl knocked power out for several days during hot July resulting in the generator running continuously.   We are running three 3-ton a/c units, swimming pool pump, etc.  My July gas bill was only up about $60 over June and August (multiple gas hot water heaters and gas stove).  Through all the hurricanes and freezes over nearly 50 years, we have never had the natural gas pressure fail.  And natural gas prices remain near record lows.

[Grant_Waite]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

Here in the Texas Gulf Coast our whole house generator runs on natural gas, as does every other installation I know of in the Houston and Galveston areas..  Beryl knocked power out for several days during hot July resulting in the generator running continuously.   We are running three 3-ton a/c units, swimming pool pump, etc.  My July gas bill was only up about $60 over June and August (multiple gas hot water heaters and gas stove).  Through all the hurricanes and freezes over nearly 50 years, we have never had the natural gas pressure fail.  And natural gas prices remain near record lows.

We were planning to use natural gas, as we had a line for it down the street. But since governments suck we couldn’t use it because it was put there for commercial use. None of the people I know that have one in Florida, use natural gas. For whatever reason it’s all propane making it the one downside. That’s not to mention all our power lines should be underground by this point… but that’s circles back to shitty government 

[Pinecone]

I am considering a diesel powered one.  I use oil for heat, so already have a 275 gallon tank.

Plus, if I can't get diesel fuel (home heating oil is the same), I can go to the airport and get some Jet A.

 

[BlueSky247]

Just as a datapoint on the NG as supplied by municipalities... I personally would not be comfortable making an investment that relied on that. There was a news story recently out of New Orleans where people were complaining that their NG supply was not able to keep up during an outage and their $20k investments were not able to stay running. As a career IT guy - that kind of mindset baffles me. You always want to engineer for as much independence as possible. 

 

@Pinecone That's a great idea. It's too bad that Covid drove military surplus prices way up, because it used to be you could get a great deal on absolute tanks for diesel gens with beautiful sine wave outputs and excellent maintenance abilities. I personally am still considering one because offroad diesel is plentiful where I am and you cannot beat the energy density of that fuel. And it's getting very hard to find any kind of portable genny using propane that has an actual oil filter. Having an oil filter just went way up on my priority list after having a three day outage and finding tons of silvery paste in my low time portable genny after that oil change. 

[Pinecone]

Not sure if they are still made that way, but my Dad's house has an Onan, which has an oil filter.  I recently changed it. 

Back in the 90s there was a big ice storm along the US/Canada border.  Emergency management people did a straw poll in VT.  The only ones that lasted for the more then 4 weeks without power (mainly diary farms that HAD to have power for milking) were Onan, Honda (portable) and those with Kohler engines.

[exM20K]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Not sure if they are still made that way, but my Dad's house has an Onan, which has an oil filter.  I recently changed it. 

Back in the 90s there was a big ice storm along the US/Canada border.  Emergency management people did a straw poll in VT.  The only ones that lasted for the more then 4 weeks without power (mainly diary farms that HAD to have power for milking) were Onan, Honda (portable) and those with Kohler engines.

The Onan generators used on diesel pusher motor homes (I hesitate to call them RV’s for lack of disambiguation in an aviation context lol) are absolute tanks.  They just work. However, the manufacturer specifies 150 hr oil and filter changes and 500 hour fuel and air filter changes.  Maybe the fixed installations have longer service intervals, but if preparing for an extended outage, one would be well advised to have service kits at the ready. And ammo.  
 

it’s not going to stop working for want of an oil change, of course.

-dan

[mmcdaniel33]

Scott, thanks for the comment on my plane!  I just heard from Kirk yesterday.  The plane is finished and I can pick it up hopefully on the 22nd.  So I will be flying down commercially on the 23rd.  I plan to take some time to learn the ropes for the new stuff (Aspen Pro Max, PAR 200B audio panel/radio, CH93 digital clock with USB ports, JPI 900 with CEIS fuel senders, new 406 ELT, Surefly, and fixing the rigging that was horribly out of rig, and unexpectedly replaced a cracked front truss). 

I flew the plane down there after transitioning, so I only have 14 hours in a complex retractable and now 5 weeks out of the saddle.  Going to fly a couple of hours or so with one of their Mooney CFI's to get back in the swing and learn the new stuff.  His plane is similarly equipped.

Excited to get off the ground.

Sarasota Aviation made it through fine.  Due to Helene and Milton they had only about 3 fully productive days in 3 weeks.  I feel for all the folks in Florida and in the devastated areas of North Carolina.  I'm a senior pharmacy executive for the large health system here in northern Alabama and like all facilities that relied on Baxter fluids are reeling from the shutdown of their plant in NC that produced 1.5 million IV bags a day.  Lots of extra work going on in the 60% of the market that they supplied.  First their Puerto Rico plant fiasco and now the "redundant" new plant in NC.  Sigh.

Fly safely.

[1980Mooney]

On 10/16/2024 at 2:44 AM, Grant_Waite said:

We were planning to use natural gas, as we had a line for it down the street. But since governments suck we couldn’t use it because it was put there for commercial use. None of the people I know that have one in Florida, use natural gas. For whatever reason it’s all propane making it the one downside. That’s not to mention all our power lines should be underground by this point… but that’s circles back to shitty government 

I get it that everyone wants to blame the government.  It sounds like you want to tap into a commercial line.  I wonder how the pipeline got paid for.  If by the commercial users then they would say that is "freeloading".  Just like the Commercial Carriers say about GA freeloading on the ATC system.

And on blaming government for not having power lines underground in flood prone urban coastal centers, I am sure that you know it cost 10-14 times to put power lines underground in urban centers.  And maintenance in saltwater permeable soil is a nightmare.  Perhaps the majority does not want to foot the bill.

Maybe we should blame the "government" for providing State "Hurricane Catastrophe Funds" or National flood insurance.  All it does is motivate people to live and build in areas prone to disaster.  On Beechtalk, a member commented that his house on the east coast of Florida was at 3 ft. MSL. He went on to say he is directly across from the Intra Coastal Waterway.  And he said that he should probably sell and move.  I looked his house up - sure enough it is for sale on Ormond Beach.  I thought for sure it would be elevated on piers.  Nope....slab foundation with absolutely no build up of soil. When he said 3ft. MSL, he was not kidding. 

WTF - why are we subsidizing flood insurance for knuckleheads that build in a known flood prone area and take absolutely no precautions?

We have a place in Galveston - at 7 ft MSL, behind a seawall and on 10 ft. piers.

Ormond Beach homeowners wait for FEMA funding after flooded four times in six years – WFTV

Beechtalk Florida owner at 3 ft MSL. - front yard view of beach.