I could sum this up in about 5 seconds, but what fun is that. If you'd like a short/long winded rambling read, please continue
Although this has been brought up many times over the years, some people (myself included), try to justify the cost of purchasing a generator.
At the beginning ( a year ago), my tank was up and running, 1-2 months if that. We had a storm roll in and lights began to flicker. Well, at that point I had no generator and no power back up to even think about, if the power were to go out. As those lights flickered, I could think of nothing but losing livestock and having the tank crash. Hell with the food in the fridge and freezer, but the tank was my only concern. While the lights flickered I was online window shopping at generators. Certainly not liking the sticker price on them, I realized it was a need. Talked out loud about it with the wife, and she confirmed my need (although this isnt her hobby or care). They are live animals that needed taken care of. So the lights stopped flickering and nothing ever came of it. But later that night, I thought of putting it off, but figured, uh, dumb idea. Just get it. So a few hundred dollars later, it was purchased and shipped to me within a week or so.
I have this new, shiny generator sitting in my garage on reserve. Waiting to be called upon. Figures, no power outage, but I have a generator
About 6 months later, my first short term power outage came my way. It was only 2-3 hours, but I got to use the generator. Had all my "must have" equipment plugged in and it was rolling flawlessly. Fun to be able to use it and have it earn it's keep around here. It was very short term, but hey, it did what I needed.
Let's fast forward to Wednesday, March 1st, at 3:30am. This is where things got real interesting. At 3:30, my thunderstorm/tornado warning siren went off. Both, on my phone, as well as the siren right by my house. That SOB was blaring loud. It was a different loud than I have heard in the past. Other times it was thunderstorm warnings. Got out of bed in a hurry, rounded up the dogs, and we headed down to the crawl space. I had the crawl space door cracked so the dogs wouldn't go back out. As I was looking in the doors direction, I started seeing leaves, branches, and whatever else flying past it in a hurry. I heard nothing but wind. Again, didn't think much of it. Figured it was heavy winds and a thunderstorm. Boy was I wrong, it was a small tornado (if there is such a thing). At about 3:45, when I was down there, the power went dead. At 4:00 I got out of the crawl space with the dogs and headed to the garage to pull out the generator. Still not knowing what had happened, got the generator up and running and the tank plugged in. All was well. About 5 hours later, when there was daylight, I decided to take a walk to the end of my road where there was a line of cars just sitting. Many cars were turning around and trying to go another route, to be stopped and re routed to where they came from. They weren't getting out. As I got to the end of the road I saw the path where a tornado plowed through. It went for about a half a mile taking everything in it's way with it. Including about 6-8 power poles. The power pole that fed my house was snapped in half. transformer and power lines lying in the road. These cars weren't going anywhere fast. Utilities couldn't come in and clear lines or trees until Duke cut the power. Not sure what they were waiting for. So at that point, I realized, I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and power was not going to be restored any time soon as well.
Back to the house I went. With temps dropping to the low 30's/high 20's, with an occasional spitting of snow, this house cooled off quickly. Within 3 days time, it went from low 70's, do high 40's. As you can imagine, this made the fish tank struggle to keep it's heat when the outside temps were dropping. Early Friday morning, I woke up stupid early, hard to sleep in cold temps, and came out to check on the tank. Temps in the tank were now mid-high 70's. I threw in another heater as a back up to help. That helped and the temps started to rise, slowly.
So around 6:00, power was restored. Generator still running for 3 days straight with ZERO flaws. I am now with heat, and full power and we are all back to normal.
In a nut shell, For anyone that is contemplating a generator or a power back up of some sort, stop contemplating. DO IT. You won't regret it! Without my generator I would have lost everything in a hurry. Think of the time/money you put in to your tank up to this point, this 300 or so dollar generator are pennies in a bucket when compared to the whole cost point. Save yourself the stress, money, and time of rebuilding, and purchase a generator. My generator was bought for this tank alone. I did not have the budget for a big one to run multiple items, but the least I wanted to take care of, was the fish tank. And I did. They are happy, and I am very glad I bit the bullet when I did. I am out some food in the fridge/freezer, that's a lot less money to replace those items than it would be to replace the inmates (livestock).
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