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Out of the dark
Jul. 5th, 2008 08:19 amOn Wednesday we went to Greenfield Village for the DSO concert and fireworks. They cancelled it and shoo'd us out as some nasty looking clouds started skating in. All of us in the crowd were at least pleased to watch the very cool lightning that was happening. So since we were in the area, we visited J's mom, and her sister showed up too.
When we got back, the power was out. We guess it died around 9PM Wednesday. It came back on at 3:20AM Saturday morning.
The generator is absolutely on its last legs. It's burning about a quart of oil every 4 hours of runtime. It only runs 2 hours or so before the low oil cutoff switch activates. I have to decide between three courses of action; tear down the engine and see if it's rebuildable, buy a new engine if I can find one that'll fit, or just buy a new generator.
The first is tempting since it'll be a lot cheaper. The last two are tempting because honestly this generator is kind of a piece of junk; it's incredibly noisy and has several other problems. It DOES put out a lot of power - all the problems are in the engine.
If we decide on the "new generator" option then we have a conundrum; new portable generator, or a built-in? I don't really want to spring for another $4000 thing right now.
Not having a generator is not really an option. Just on this outage alone we'd have lost the cost of a generator in spoiled food, I'm guessing. Even with the generator running a lot of the time, the ice cream in the freezer was getting pretty soft.
When we got back, the power was out. We guess it died around 9PM Wednesday. It came back on at 3:20AM Saturday morning.
The generator is absolutely on its last legs. It's burning about a quart of oil every 4 hours of runtime. It only runs 2 hours or so before the low oil cutoff switch activates. I have to decide between three courses of action; tear down the engine and see if it's rebuildable, buy a new engine if I can find one that'll fit, or just buy a new generator.
The first is tempting since it'll be a lot cheaper. The last two are tempting because honestly this generator is kind of a piece of junk; it's incredibly noisy and has several other problems. It DOES put out a lot of power - all the problems are in the engine.
If we decide on the "new generator" option then we have a conundrum; new portable generator, or a built-in? I don't really want to spring for another $4000 thing right now.
Not having a generator is not really an option. Just on this outage alone we'd have lost the cost of a generator in spoiled food, I'm guessing. Even with the generator running a lot of the time, the ice cream in the freezer was getting pretty soft.
