02 Base for my son

[Joseph Garcia]

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talking about a REALLY bad luck set of days. The good news is that you've probably used up all of your bad luck for the next 10 years, so you should have some smooth sailing for a while.

I had set up the infrastructure for a standby generator at my mother-in-law's house. Not a code compliant transfer switch setup, but a manual shut off the main breaker first, and then turn on the generator breaker transfer process, complete with detailed set of written instructions, attached to the main breaker panel. Yes, I know, dumb, as it was not my house, and not 100% under my personal control.

Well, on one occasion, my brother-in-law is there when the grid power goes out, and he follows the manual process that I wrote down to shut off the main breaker to the grid and powers up and connects the generator. However..... When he sees the street lights go on outside, implying that the grid power is back on, he flips on the main breaker, without following my detailed instructions on how the revert back to grid power. He fries the generator, the stove's main panel circuit board, the microwave, the furnace controls, flat screen TV's, and the garage door opener. I spent the next several days, putting everything back together, repairing and/or replacing all of the controls and appliances. Never again!

 

[Tonyrodz]

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talking about a REALLY bad luck set of days. The good news is that you've probably used up all of your bad luck for the next 10 years, so you should have some smooth sailing for a while.

I had set up the infrastructure for a standby generator at my mother-in-law's house. Not a code compliant transfer switch setup, but a manual shut off the main breaker first, and then turn on the generator breaker transfer process, complete with detailed set of written instructions, attached to the main breaker panel. Yes, I know, dumb, as it was not my house, and not 100% under my personal control.

Well, on one occasion, my brother-in-law is there when the grid power goes out, and he follows the manual process that I wrote down to shut off the main breaker to the grid and powers up and connects the generator. However..... When he sees the street lights go on outside, implying that the grid power is back on, he flips on the main breaker, without following my detailed instructions on how the revert back to grid power. He fries the generator, the stove's main panel circuit board, the microwave, the furnace controls, flat screen TV's, and the garage door opener. I spent the next several days, putting everything back together, repairing and/or replacing all of the controls and appliances. Never again!

I hope they didn't hold you responsible for that!

 

[Snowbound]

Must have fried everything from the power going out. Transformers in the area blew up and had flames shooting from them. Something else big went out because they didn’t have parts, that’s why we have been down so long. This is now day 5 and I still running on generator.


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[Tonyrodz]

Must have fried everything from the power going out. Transformers in the area blew up and had flames shooting from them. Something else big went out because they didn’t have parts, that’s why we have been down so long. This is now day 5 and I still running on generator.


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Oh wow--thank God you bought the generator.

 

[iamdub]

Speechless.

At first, I was like "you stole that generator!"

After reading everything after, that little score barely amounts to shit in the big picture, other than you having a beast of a generator. BTW, if you're ever in a situation with no diesel, it'd probably run off of the oil from a transformer on a power pole. Attach a funnel and hose to a fiberglass or PVC pole (plumbing/conduit?), shoot a hole in the bottom of the transformer, and fill up a container. Saw it on a survival show.

 

[Doubeleive]

those power surges suck, the only thing I lost this summer was a control board to the freezer and a capacitor for the hvac pump I guess I should feel lucky I do have my big tv and stereo equipment going thru a power conditioner so maybe that has saved me.

 

[Snowbound]

What really killed my stuff is not having grounded outlets. I knew it would bite me one day. I have all the 3 wire BX cable that I planned on doing in the spring. I know when I go to sell this house it’s gonna come up when it gets inspected. My brother told me to hook neutral to ground at outlets to fool the inspectors tester but I in good conscience couldn’t do that. So I’m sure any spikes or surges that happened had to be absorbed by my equipment because nothing is ground protected. It sucks but I knew about it and did nothing.

On another great side note, my blower motor never showed up. After all the ******** I went thru to get it overnighted, they ship it regular. I’m beyond pissed now. It’s gonna be close to 100° today and we are gonna be miserable and at each other’s throats. I’m almost thinking about going to find a hotel or maybe go buy a could window unit air conditioners. This sucks ass and I keep getting kicked while I’m down.



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[Tonyrodz]

What really killed my stuff is not having grounded outlets. I knew it would bite me one day. I have all the 3 wire BX cable that I planned on doing in the spring. I know when I go to sell this house it’s gonna come up when it gets inspected. My brother told me to hook neutral to ground at outlets to fool the inspectors tester but I in good conscience couldn’t do that. So I’m sure any spikes or surges that happened had to be absorbed by my equipment because nothing is ground protected. It sucks but I knew about it and did nothing.

On another great side note, my blower motor never showed up. After all the ******** I went thru to get it overnighted, they ship it regular. I’m beyond pissed now. It’s gonna be close to 100° today and we are gonna be miserable and at each other’s throats. I’m almost thinking about going to find a hotel or maybe go buy a could window unit air conditioners. This sucks ass and I keep getting kicked while I’m down.



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NOW THAT SUX!! But honestly, not surprising anymore. Seems like companies today don't care about their customers, just the almighty dollar. But they seem to forget they're out of business without customers. Sorry Jim.

 

[Snowbound]

No blower motor to be had anywhere around. They all say they can order it and be here by Thursday. This sucks. It’s getting warm and the house is not comfortable at all!

Time to put my survival skills to the test. Sorry, didn’t take pics along the way because I was in a hurry and frankly, wasn’t sure if it would even work.

I have an old furnace from a mobile home that i was planning on hooking up in garage to get rid of my hanging furnace so I started dissecting that. Took the squirrel cage fan out of it but it wouldn’t fit inside my furnace because the motor stuck out the side too far. So I removed the motor from the fan cage and found a piece of rod that fit the cage where the motor shaft goes thru. Tack welded a piece of flat stock on both sides and drilled a hole to support the cage and had 2 bearings from who knows what that fit the support rod perfectly. I just used hose clamps on either side of the cage to keep it from walking one way or the other. Tacked the outside bearing race to the inside of the flat sock and the cage spins freely. Then I took an old motor for a compressor I had saved from work and made a plate to mount it. Piece of pipe welded to side of squirrel cage, a few tabs and a threaded rod and the motor was mounted to the side. A pulley from same old compressor got attached to cage rod and a power steering belt from my 350 in the CJ7 and it works. The motor bounced a little too much so I welded another bracket on with a nut and used a long bolt that I found in a box of crap that I could never throw away, because you never know!!



Couldn’t get my thermostat to power up and found the 120-24V transformer is bad. So I have to get a new one. But I wanted air so I stuck a piece of 5/16” fuel line above the contact on the ac compressor and used a zip tie to hold the contact in.



Ac is on and house is cooling off!! Now I just need to go get that transformer so the compressor will cycle from the thermostat. What a day! Like I always say, persistence over resistance wins every time!


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[adventurenali92]

Dang dude that’s a rough day for you for sure! We lose power here for a couple hours at a time and it’s like the end of the world.... I can’t imagine what it’s like not having power for 5 or 6 days!! Holy crap man! Sorry to hear that! You’re a workhorse for sure!! Hopefully you’ll get some rest soon!