power outages ? (Coeur d'Alene: house, transfer, living in)

[cujo1950]

Hi, new to CDA and we are wondering how often and for how long does power go out during winter in town ? Is a generator neccessary if we only have forced air heating?
Thanks,
Steve

[Walkaboutcda]

I've been living in CDA since '96 and the only significant power outage I've experienced was during Ice Storm. The power was out for less than twelve hours. Those out of town had to wait several weeks before their power was restored.

[Sage of Sagle]

It's not a bad idea to have some form of backup power. Even if you're right in town unless you want your pipes to freeze up and your food to go bad you have to have SOME power on in an outage lasting longer than a couple hours. So you'd either want to have a 5-6Kw generator (which is pretty cheap) or at least some kerosene or propane heaters as backup. Since we're outside of town we did a 17Kw backup gen with 400 amp automatic transfer switch with 500gal dedicated LPG tank. But we're somewhere that falling trees can take out our power with some regularity in winter and even during summer storms so it's a necessity here.

[Shaner]

Live downtown and never have been without power for more than 7 hours.

[elkotronics]

We had a power outage the other night and they had it back on within 45 minutes. Really good electricity service here, and AAMOF, even though Avista is applying to raise electricity rates for their Idaho customers, they are really reasonable right now so it's not that big of a deal. Besides, when they do raise rates, it's only a couple of bucks per months per month, depending on how many killowatts ya use. Not a big deal.

Avista is not the monster some people complain about them being.

[lovecda]

In town, power outages are pretty rare and usually short--less than 5 hours. I haven't experienced one longer than 7 hours since I've lived in town. Outside of town can be a different story, depending on where you live and how many other people are in the same vicinity (priorities). For example, this summer I had a power outage that lasted about an hour, but that night my parents who live several miles outside of town had their electricity go down and it was out for about a full day.

During the '95 ice storm, power was out for about 10 hours for me (at that time I wasn't living here, but was staying at the Coeur d'Alene Inn).

I'd always recommend having a backup power source no matter where you live, but if you live outside of town it's pretty much a necessity. It won't be used often, but when the need arises, you'll be glad you have it.

[cujo1950]

Thanks to all. Your answers are very helpful. I will look into cost of different size options, we have a small home and would like to get an option like Sage if possible.
Sounds like a good option.
Sage, are the large Generac models very noisy?
Thanks, Steve

[Sage of Sagle]

Originally Posted by cujo1950

Thanks to all. Your answers are very helpful. I will look into cost of different size options, we have a small home and would like to get an option like Sage if possible.
Sounds like a good option.
Sage, are the large Generac models very noisy?
Thanks, Steve

Depends on what you call noisy. Our is located 230' from our main house, behind our guest house. In the guest house you can hear it, but it's not obtrusive. It's a bit louder in the downstairs workshop/garage area (on the other side of an insulated concrete wall), and quieter upstairs (on the other side of Hardie-plank siding with blown-in insulation)

Up at the main house, we can't hear it AT ALL. When we have a power outage and the generator kicks on, and I think the power grid has come back up, I have no way of telling without going out on our deck to listen for the generator sound because inside the house with the windows closed I cannot hear it. We're about 1300' from our closest neighbor through really dense forest (so dense you can't even get through it on horseback, and in some places on foot is a challenge if you stray from our road)...it really deadens noise anyhow. And in winter, sound is doubly deadened anyhow.

The biggest noise-carrying problem we have is in the summer, on cool summer nights when neighbors have windows open and someone's dog gets all crazy and gets all the dogs in the area going. A lot of 5-20 acre parcels jigsaw-pieced together here. I can sleep through anything, and my dogs aren't yappy...but we have some neighbor dogs that just won't shut up and other neighbors who hate them for it. Anyhow, your generator won't upset your neighbors since it's for emergency power and nobody will begrudge you that noise.

Spend the extra $$ for the automatic transfer switch. Seriously. I mean, seriously. NO fun getting out of bed at 2AM to go out in a -15 deg blizzard to turn on the generator. Having the power go out, and just mentally counting 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....gggrrrrrnnngggg......and you have power is SO nice. Worth every penny.