About 8 years ago my mother’s neighborhood experienced a fairly serious snow storm. My mother did not live in a remote, rural area. Her house was in a Maryland suburb, about 25 miles out of Washington DC. It took Baltimore Gas and Electric 3 weeks to get power restored to her neighborhood. She had no heat, no water, no lights, no refrigeration. Having an alternative source of energy is essential! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
You probably meant the 2010 Snowgedden that dumped 20+ inches of snow in DC area. But wait there's more; the area lost power/fuel for a week + in late June, 2012 from Derecho (wind storm). Anything can happen anywhere just be ready.
I remember this happening about eight years ago in New Jersey too. We still refer to it as “the snowpocolypse” to this day. No power or heat for weeks, even in very populous areas near NYC.
Man, thanks for taking the time to make videos during all this. I hope and pray everyone is paying attention to all the lessons learned from all the folks affected by this storm.
Sir, what a great service you have done by making this video! REAL world experience with moving pictures is proof. Pass-through charging is a MUST for any power source. I do not buy power banks that do not do pass-through charging.
Really appreciated this good and bad update. I too was without power for several days but my Ecoflows worked like champs to keep my frig going and lights. My 160W solar panels were able to recharge them both and allow pass through energy transfer. Even with that it was still no walk in the park as I had to time when I charged one and used the other while keeping an eye on power usage. And I 100% agree that your array of solar panels paid for themselves in keeping your food frozen.
Real life is the greatest teacher. The most I have had to endure is 8 days without power and water for 5 days during the freeze. What I learned from that is that a 48V inverter is not efficient . I built a diy 48V system on a hand truck I had seen on you tube. Kind of disappointing to find out that it ran my residential fridge for 37 hours using 2.4 KW for the Fridge and the inverter used 2.7kw using 1kw on idle per day. Afterwards I only then charged the 48V battery with two small generators connected in parallel at 30 amps and used the battery only without the inverter to extend my 2kw Ecoflow which powered the fridge non stop for 65 hours. I learned that I need to change to a 12V system with an 1800W inverter and a 12V battery with 460ah, this will be more efficient. for such emergencies when the sun is in short supply. Plus the 3KW 48V inverter, the solar charger required a minimum of 120V which most people don't have such a large solar array but a 12V inverter with a 12V solar charger requires lower voltage to start charging. Though my situation was different than yours, yours is harder because if it came down to it my food would not have spoiled during the freeze but yours can. I also learned since I experience frequent outages that owning some 12V fridge/freezers is a must. I have a couple of 500W Jackeries that each unit will run my 45 qt fridges for 45 hours before needing to be charged and this is in 90º to 95ºF ambient temperatures in the Texas summers. I just transfer the food from the big fridge to the 12V and I'm good.
It depends on the quality of the inverter, not the voltage. A MultiPlus II 3000W-48V has an idle draw of about 11W. Of course, it's not cheap. Buy the cheapest ones, and you can easily pay 10x the energy cost there.
We learned some of the same lessons here in Florida. We put off doing some things to do other things. One of those things was changing our well pump to be able to use the solar to run it. That is now farther up on the list to get done. Thankfully, we have a generator to run the pump and fill up containers. I am glad it wasn't life and death lessons for us.
Thanks for sharing this! Keeping you all upheld in prayer! Isn't it great you had some stuff to work with! I'm always tinkering with this stuff. In 2011 here in CT we lost power for 3wks. My primary generator failed. We have well. Wife and kids moved out with relatives. I stayed and worked. I was blessed, one of my customers upgraded there generator, I bought there old one, which got me back online. I was using an inverter clean sine wave and an ext cord to my office to keep my business going! [I'm an electrician]. We worked 12 hr days 3 mos restoring pwr to homes where it got ripped off their houses. I couldn't buy fuel for a week. Took us 2 days till the roads cleared. These are all important lessons! God bless!
Thank you- Sounds like you have a good idea of how it's like not having power for such a long time. Thank you for working late to help them get theirs restored
Been praying for you guys up there. I like your setup. Recently we lost power for only 3 days from Milton. But did the same thing as you really put our systems to real world use. Used the Honda generator 2-3 hours a day to top off everything and solar through the day. Since then we got a 40A AC-DC charger so when the Honda is running we can charge a 100A battery which before that only could do solar. So now when the Honda is running to top off battery banks we can do that one as well.
I have 7 Ecoflows, one Jackery and a Westinghouse. The ecoflow has pass thru charging. Also they charge really fast. Makes a big difference if you plan on topping the batteries off with a gas generator.
@@1whitecottagelife770delta 2s usually are $800. If you want an additional battery it’ll be an additional $650 but total you would have around 3kwH of capacity. Delta 3s were just released. They are around $150 more but the have a 800 vs 500 watt max input capacity.
Really enjoy your videos. Watching and praying for all my internet friends in North Carolina in this trying time. Stay safe out there! Greetings from Nova Scotia.
Great update ! So happy the farm is doing well . Them power stations are great but there's features that can be very handy . Like that solar input charging wile you use power . Every watt of solar counts ! I run my radio stuff directly on battery .If I have solar or mains power then that goes into battery . The next hurricane is now a cat 5 going to Florida. Have many friends their. CB is getting threw from NY to FL . In times of real need CB still coming threw . Ham radio and GMRS/FRS/MURS radios helping as well. Cellphone's / internet go down and power grid. Radio still works ! The most reliable way to get info and send info is RADIO ! The best tool we have ! take care . Great video !
The emergency responders were using radio for communications because cell service was not working at all after the storm. That storm is looking like a monster, I hope everyone stays safe
I live near you and experienced the outage. A DC to DC charger at night off my truck was silent, and i am sure appreciated by my neighbors. With your background a easy quiet alternative. A cell phone booster for a hot spot got us slow internet but allowed us to communicate and work. Enjoy all the great videos u put out.
I am sure that your neighbors really did like that, no one wants to hear a loud generator at night. I wish we could use a booster, but there is just not enough coverage here.
We went from one tiny bar to 3 and 4 bars on our cell phone. We were very surprised. I lent it to my neighbor while we went to Clt. and he bought 2 off amazon they liked it so much. It kept us (wife) from feeling so cut off from everyone. I don't hv the other comms you do so I was glad we had it.@FarpointFarms
That all in one makes a great argument for component based systems. Our RV is totally off grid and charging while discharging is critical to having a functional system.
Yep, I was thinking of redundancy when I out together my systems. I have three DIY power storage systems. One is a all-in-one MPPT unit, the other two use separate MPPTs and inverters. The all-in-one is great for recharging, takes a lot of input from the wall and solar, at the same time if desired. The components systems are a bit harder to recharges as they do not have a AC input point. Must be solar/DC. I use a bench power source to charge from wall or from other power storage systems. Not as efficient but works. I also have 3 "solar" generators two EcoFlow systems and one Bluetti.
@@FarpointFarms , not really funny,my heart hurts for the people, pets and animals going through this.Maybe one of those little windmills connected to an inverter and batteries might work better, or connect an inverter to a cheap old prius just as long as gasoline is available. Bless you always.
Thanks for the info. I ran into an issue with my eco flow where it drops to zero if left plugged into solar overnight. Always test and have backups for your backups.
Great video and you bring up many fine points to consider. We live in SC and our preparations were also tested by Helene when we were without power for 11 days. The point in your summary was good, where you mentioned the need to recharge at a faster rate than many packaged solar generators allow. They are great for short outages and misc uses around the house, but for the larger, required needs such as refrigeration, we chose a modular, large battery and inverter system, where we could recharge at 80 or more amps to allow for shorter generator run times.
Well done! How things work is nice, but how they work during emergencies is best. The abililty to simultaneously charge and discharge is critical and so is ability to fast charge. Thanks!
Replaced my backup generator with a 2kw set of panels and 10kwh of batteries....ran 5k for the whole deal including inverter....kept my house alive when the power went out for days running critical loads....never have to change the oil and I get to use almost all the power it makes even when the Grid is up.....would never turn back, worth the effort.
It was good of you to give out those four generators and gas to neighbors and help those of your neighbors, without the natural springs in the area, fill up from your spring.
Eric, Thank you for making the video. I am close enough to be able to deliver some supplies and help some friends clean up . The damage there is incredible to observe. Not sure exactly what to do to make sure we are cleaning and restoring floors effectively. Mold might try to creep in . So much work to be done! Best wishes for you and the farm. Planning to return in a few days to help some more and deliver more supplies. The sad thing is most of the properties there are not insured....so folks need help from what I see. Lots of compassionate folks delivering food for pets and us workers and it is appreciated. God bless WNC and all the hurricane survivors trying to rebuild their lives.
Any floors that flooded should be (have already been) pulled up so the subflooring can dry out. Black mold has already set in in so many of the buildings and homes that were flooded. Fight mold with bleach OR borax OR a proper blend of antifungal EOs (they smell terrible, but they work for people who can’t tolerate bleach fumes). Thank you so much for stepping up and helping!
Back in 2019, I had just started experimenting with solar power. I had about 500 watts of panels charging a 12V lead acid battery and an inverter. When we had an ice storm later in the year, I was without power for 5 days, but with lots of sun. While I still had to supplement some with a generator, I easily cut down my fuel usage by half. During the day I was able to run everything to get on the internet and work from home. I have vastly expaned my solar setup since then and should be well prepared for the next extended power outage.
I’ve started using solar power at my place during the past year or so , it’s a much smaller scale at this point but I’m planning on doing some upgrades. This video was a great help , thank you 🙏🏻 very much and God Bless ✝️🇺🇸
Thank you- there are some in our county that it will be weeks more due to all the damage. There is one area where the road is gone and 200+ trees down. Total mess
Thank you for an honest real-time review, meaning the stuff has hit the fan... you're relying on this equipment RIGHT NOW. This was an invaluable review. I just had a "generator transfer switch" installed so i can run 20 circuits on my main panel by way of a dual- fuel generator. My eventual plan is to run them off batteries that will be trickle charged via solar in good weather & by generator otherwise
I just want people to learn from what did not work. I had a bigger setup planned but did not get around to it this summer. It is now on the very short list of projects
We have learned a lot this past few weeks. It is a different look what you see in person to what you see on TV- Driving around is hard to watch because people are piling up everything from their homes to the side of the road, it is all ruined and their entire lives are just sitting there. It's tough
Thanks Erik for all the good info. If your viewers can learn anything from your recent experience it is that they should prepare for some level of disaster preparedness. While we do not live our everyday lives off-grid we could all find ourselves w/o water, power, and the ability to maintain our daily lives during any disastrous weather event. Also, folks need to have the ability to protect themselves and their families during these events. Prayers for you and your family during these hard times.
Agreed. For years I've shown products and ways to try and be ready for the unexpected. I never came out as a prepper or Survivalist as they both seem to have been tainted by negative connotations, but this event has made me more determined to help folks get ready for moments like these.
Wow, great insights into potential quirks with backup power systems. Thank you for sharing and I hope that you can get back to fairly normal soon. Good work on keeping things going around the house. That took a lot of work to get to where you are today. It seems to have paid off.
Our power goes out for short periods fairly regularly. Every now and then it goes out for more than a couple hours. Every year or so, we lose it for more than a day. The worst was four and a half days. Nothing really terrible, but our water is a well, and that is a problem, especially as we have livestock. Just yesterday we lost power for about six hours. Today, this video pops up in my feed. I am definitely going to be checking out more of your content, because I've had it with our power company.
@@FarpointFarms The well experts here tell us we can get a solar pump for our well, but it will be expensive to replace the current pump. Our only option at the moment is to use a generator to run the pump long enough to fill the trough, which lasts us just over 2 days before we have to fill it again (depending on the weather). The good news for us is we live in the Southwest, so we have lots of sunlight for solar.
I have a Bluetti AC200L and a AC300 with 2 B300 batteries and use a champion 2500 inverter generator to recharge them, I had a window AC unit running, the fridge and freezer, lights, and several other things, it worked without issue while the power was down here in the foothills I only used 2 (full, not exchange) 20 lbs propane tanks to run the generator while we didn't have power for 5 almost 6 days It took about 4 hours to recharge the batteries and would last the other 20 hours. I know you have had it down longer, but I constantly use them for all kinds of things and they just keep going and they charge while being used. I know people get upset about the cost of them, but it seems like you get what you pay for. EcoFlow and Bluetti seem to be the most reliable and consistent with the best features. the AC300 and b300 batteries is going on 3 years of constantly back up power, always plugged in and a few power outages.
Haven't watched your videos for awhile, glad you made it through..I have a crank up antenna mast, so I can easily drop it before bad weather. And a Jackery power pack with foldable solar panels. Where I'm at in Texas we normally get plenty of sun and have very few trees. (That's east Texas, not west of I 35) it'll charge up in a few hours, and run the radio long enough and still have enough for C Pap up to 10 hours. We have propane stove so we have heat & cooking. We have solar on the house but limited batteries, so just the refrigerator. So far 6 days before we got power back. A little preparation goes a long way, now you know the weak spots
Thanks for the excellent review video after this devastating hurricane. You did a great job of getting prepared but the real thing will always show you where the weak points are and what equipment doesn't work as well as you'd like or sometimes not at all. Prayers for you and everyone in the western part of NC.
Thank you for your time to record and share the experience with us. Hope at the moment you already managed with the points highlighted. One little comment, if possible: at the manufacturer site in FAQ section for vtoman-flashspeed-1500-power-station is says "The FlashSpeed 1500 could power other devices while recharging itself." I hope that means some application update could fix your device. Or, it might be a point to change the device by the dealer/the manufacturer free of charge. On the other hand, taking into account the limited charging current of the devices bringing in you could try to charge them from the generator all in parallel by using appropriate power strip block. Looking forward to hearing more good news from you! P.S. Something happened to my first comment here, that's why I'm trying once again.
I have two eco-flow inverters that I use when the power goes out here in Tonopah, Arizona. After these hurricanes I’ve not seen or heard much about citizens band radio are people using CB radios and side band for communications I’m a big advocate for your channel because of CB radio and unlimited uses that it provides for us in times like this good job, Eric subscribing to you for four years now Godspeed
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Unless the towns had established CB or FRS groups I am pretty sure those frequencies were unused.. A couple of people with FRS radios that were wide banded (unlocked) were talking to the ham radio people doing much of the coordinating with the volunteers that were on several VHF and UHF frequencies getting aid and supplies into hard hit areas.. During emergencies although technically illegal being human and helping far outranks that.. So I would say if you plan on relying on CB or FRS to develop contacts in several directions that know to listen for others in the group if something happens because those are far under living their potential..
CB remains the most popular way to get on the air. People here were on the air, mostly in mobiles. The info shared was mainly info about roads that no longer existed, and where to find supplies. I appreciate you being a fan!
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@@FarpointFarms When I was in school back in the 1970's our whole family had CB radios and we were part of the local REACT club.. We did trick or treat night watch, neighborhood watch and stuff like that where if we saw something we would call our local base station and they could call police or fire or a tow truck etc...
Neat setup. Thanks for tour. You can never have too much available power. Please take care and stay safe. We have a 12Kw roof and 2 14 kWh batteries. I hope we never have to use them in a situation like yours.
I hope you don't have to see what your system can really handle- Having the extra capacity of the batteries really saved us with having 5 days of no sun
@@FarpointFarms For our load going 5 days without solar would definitely eat up the 28 kWh of batteries we have. I am hoping Tesla adds V2H to their cars to fix this. We have 2 Teslas, and if Tesla added V2H we would have an additional 150 or so kWh. Definitely more than enough for 2 weeks without solar.
Thanks for taking the time to review while you’re going through so much. Being able to charge while discharging seems like a must have! Take care, and I hope everything gets back to 💯 for you all soon.
Your video bled over from myself shopping around, Thank you for the on the ground insights, I'm pacific northwest and curious about it being overcast in my area most of the year being a problem...
Get a chest freezer when you replace the upright as they are more efficient. Keep an eye out for a military surplus diesel generator. Diesel has a longer shelf life than gas.
Thanks for the video. Looking forward to see the direction you plan to go for the upgrade. Having the multiple buildings certainly adds to the challenges.
One of the rhings you learn in these situations is how little power you actually NEED! I live off grid in the UK (not known for its excess sunshine) on a canal boat. We have introduced a ordinary 240 mains fridge (12v is 3x the price over here!). We have 2x410W panels on a cheap chinese PWM feeding 6x 133amp sealed lead acid batteries. We run lights, phones, internet router, laptops, etc and now the fridge. Will also be running my CB again shortly! Thanks for the video. Just subscribed.
Thanks for the sub- We learned quickly that we really did not need what we thought we did, we did the basics and learned to use a bit at a time- Meaning, that we would have lights on, then we would turn them off and use the laptop- It made it go much further
@FarpointFarms Been there as well. My previous boat had 230W panel and 3x 100amp batteries running a 12v fridge. I realised quite quickly that by scaling my life back I could work with it. Now, we have a few more gadgets we use occasionally. But, we live a simpler life (its funny because years ago I was the one who wanted to computerise and automate our home! Now? Not in a blue fit!) and are happier for it. Look forward to future videos.
I'm glad that you are making it with those small units, plus the gas generator. I bought my first solar generator 7 years ago, Expert Power brand, it did not have pass through charging either. Live and learn. It holds about 2800 watts, good to run things at night with when I can't charge. Since then I use Bluetti's, they all have pass through charging ability. Honestly don't know how they can get away with making them without that feature. You can hook up the larger battery sized ones to your home electrical system and do well.
We were good for less than a day with our 4000 watt array 8x1280 watt hour battery bank. What is amazing is how little these systems actually produce in real world off grid situations. It was almost impossible to consistently run a small 240v well pump. Add any clouds….you have vastly degraded output. Because of their wind catch, solar panels are hurricane magnets….usually the first thing to get ripped off your roof….leaving gaping holes in the wake. Lesson from the hurricane….ground mount only…roof mounting sucks.
Interesting about the panels being ripped off the roof, I did not think of that, but it makes sense. Roof with holes is not a good thing in a rain storm
I'm planning on building a solar shed in the future for this exact purpose. This is good feedback. My parents were keeping their fridge running after Helene with a Bluetti I was questioning whether it made more sense to get one of those or build a dedicated bank. I'll be building the dedicated bank then just run heavy gauge extension cords to the house if the power goes out. I also plan on designing it to be a hybrid system where i can run a small generator in the rain and it'll charge the batteries. One of the issues my parents ran into was not enough sunlight to keep everything running. So i think having that extra capacity on tap makes the most sense.
Yes, a system that can charge off of a generator is also a great idea! Adding extra batteries really saved me as we did go days without direct sunlight.
For your freezer, maybe consider building a panel with the separate components (charge controller, inverter, monitor and batteries AND spares) to quickly replace something and be back online. The power packs are nice for portability but they will fail with the rest of the perfectly good parts trapped inside.
Better than that is to use a gas refrigerator and freezer. Either NG or LPG. Not only does it take the load off your solar, but it will run for days from a portable cylinder in the rare possibility that the gas fails.
I am VERY happy with it. It ran flawlessly for the duration of this event (11 days) and kept my food from going bad. Next up is the 220V upgrade so we can run the well pump if needed.
We did after 9.5 days, our neighbors about 1 mile down the road took another week for them. They had so many trees down and part of the road was badly damaged
prayers for you and yours. Thanks for the video, showing where thing just didn't work. The solar generator that doesn't do pass thru charging would be a big let down.
I do like that the newer stuff has massively more capacity than the older ones now. I'm seriously looking at the huge Anker 3800's as they can easily and cheaply tie into the house power and still be removed and dragged somewhere just in case.
We dodged the bullet on Helene. We are about 60 miles west of where the storm went through GA and got virtually zero damage. Our power never even blinked. You're learning a couple of things through necessity. These "solar generators" are advancing rapidly, but there's a lot we need to understand about their limitations. Units that were purchased 2-3 years ago are woefully inadequate for power outages. I have 3. The first one i bought was the AC200MAX from Bluetti. It's great for running appliances and power tools, but the AC charge rate requires 4-5 hours, and that's way too much time if you need to recharge with a generator. The 2nd one was a Bluetti EB3a, a small station for running my router. It wrapped out after about 9 months. Bluetti replaced it, but it took a couple of weeks to get through that process. Things we all need to understand about these power stations. 2k watts sounds like a HUGE amount of power. It's not. A fridge or freezer will eat that up in one day. Fast charging is critical. Newer Bluetti or Ecoflow products can be charged at 1800+ watts, and that's critical when using a genny to recharge. Stations need to have UPS so you can use them in virtually all applications. Stations need to allow over-panel use. My AC200MAX charges via solar at 900 watts, but i can easily hook up 1200 watts of panels as long as I stay within the voltage limits. It will only accept 900 or so, but having 1200 available means I get more watts during cloudy conditions. Having a dual-fuel generator is the key to being comfortable during power outages that last several days. We can run portable ACs and all our 110 devices with a 5k generator. Alternative power options like solar and generator require some degree of power management. Unless you have a massive battery bank and large solar array, or a "whole house" backup generator that runs in natural gas, you'll need to control how much power you use. We have 2 refrigerators and 4 freezers full of food because we grow most of our food. We keep 200 pounds of propane and 25 gallons of gas on hand. We are on a farm, so we have the capacity to carry around 200 gallons of gas but have never kept that much. We run the gas through the mowers or just use it in our vehicles in order to keep it fresh. We have 3 generators. We have the 3 power stations, 4,000 watts of solar panels, and about a million feet of extension cords. We are as prepared as we can be. I guess...
Good to see you’re getting by out there, you’re way better equipped to deal with power loss than us city dwellers up in Plano, TX. After the February 2021 power crisis I set out to get some backup power at least short term. I ended up with a pair of Amazon Prime day special Anker 757 power stations, one on the freezer/fridge and one on the computer gear serving as giant uninterruptible power supplies. They use standard 100 AH LiFePo 12V batteries as seen in countless RVs and campers, and will withstand up to 3000 cycles before falling to 80% capacity, far better than the 500 or so that LiMnCo cells offer. The Ankers charge at about 1KW from AC, but will only charge at about 300W from solar, so you’d need four to mate with your big panel. They do allow simultaneous charge and discharge, that’s exactly how I’m using them as UPS for the computer room and the food storage.
Sorry to hear about all your problems Eric. I hope you can get things back up and running real soon for you and your wife's peace of mind. Having to live off grid is okay sometimes but then there's times it's not a whole lot of fun I know I've been there I was there last winter. Living completely off grid at a place called Inskip california. Living in some people I n e w s old hotel built in the mid-1800s because at the time I had nowhere else to go.. I'm doing better now though. I had a diesel generator up there at the old hotel but it quit working by midwinter and then I had no power. I did have propane though and was able to heat some water on the stove so I could at least get a shower. And I had a wood heater so I could stay warm in the hotel I was at 5,000 FT elevation and it was a pretty rough winter had a hard time getting out. Had to depend on friends that had four-wheel drive vehicles that could drive me down off the mountain into town to buy groceries and make my doctor's appointments. Turned out to be the worst winter of my life. I'm almost 69 years old and it was rough being up there all alone throughout the entire winter and all that cold and snow. And being that much off grid had no cable and no cell service. Although I did have a landline so I could contact people . Anyway that's enough about me. Hope everything is better for you and yours very soon.
We have 3 portable batteries. The most useful one during hurricane Beryl was our Ideaplay 2kwh battery. We'd run the fridge and freezer off it for 4-5 hours. Then we'd start the generator, charging the battery for 2 hours, and also running those appliances. The VTOMAN FLASH 1500 charges in an hour, but it tripped the GFCI circuit breaker on the generator, making it worthless for a long power outage.
Awesome video 📹 hope you get your power 🔋 back than offgrid up more ,you showed a good example why I stopped wasting money 💰 buying solar generators and why I started diy and building my own generators with more power 🔋 alot cheaper and pass thru charging that I can fix myself! Diy solar generators is the way to go from what your showing.
It’s obvious you benefited greatly from solar backup. I have been planning to use my propane generator to backup my solar system since the Texas deep freeze in 2021 but found the solar much more convenient and cheaper. I gave the generator to my son when we put in a EG4 6000XP inverter,a14.3 LFP battery and 20 panels on his off-grid home it Sequatchie Valley,Tennessee. He brought it back because he found he didn’t need it. It’s back in Texas now but I wish it could help someone in the hurricane recovery. If I was going to go that far I would instead take a EG4 3KW inverter, a EG4 5KWH LFP battery and 6 400 W solar panels from Signature Solar.That’s about $3000 and I’ve used this system to run refrigerator and small window unit several times. It never needs gasoline,it’s quiet,and begins paying for itself from day one. The gas generators are a short term very expensive way to make dirty electricity. I hope the remote areas can get solar power as permanent essential energy whether the grid comes back or not.
We have a dual fuel inverter generator- we ran it for 20+ hours and only used about 2 gallons. We did not want to use the LP side because we thought we might need tit for the grill. Solar is the way to go but the back up generator was a life saver this time
Those with space can build their solar on a steel trailer (no building permit is a bonus) for easy construction, maintenance and modification. Shipping containers (one-trip grade preferred not WWT junk) make great small shops because they're typhoon-rated and are ideal for battery storage away from the house. (The more dispersed your structures the better they withstand fire etc.) Container roofs are easy to mod (weld or bolt to the corner fittings and weld attachment points to the roof edge steel, not the roof sheet metal. I have five containers so far and love it! No dirt daubers, no dust on my machine tools and instant machinery-capable flat rugged floors make my life easy.
Thanks, glad your back up to back up were there. Stay safe - I know they are working none stop for folks with the power. They are actually getting the young once hiking a country mile just to get to downed utility poles
Good stuff. Anker makes a model (solix c-1000) that will charge while discharging. The only downside is that it ups the AC charging amount by the draw amount. So say you are charging at 200w (200-1000+ option) and add a 200w load, now it starts pulling 400w. I tripped my solar system 1000w inverter a few times until I figured it out. It can charge directly off of a DC source 11-32v 10A or 32v-60v 12.5A
Nice video, nice setup, I would consider Starlink, works great and with their new plan, you can get decent service and coverage for much lower nowadays. Best of luck, hope you get power back soon.
hi Eric, sorry to hear your power is still out. I was thinking about what you said about fast recharge. Power stations that have internal chargers, that is, no power brick, can be charged in an hour or two. That applies pretty much across-the-board. Anything with a power brick is usually limited to 100-250 watts. It’s the first thing I check when looking at new power stations.
what I hear you saying is the less well known power packs, the cheaper power packs are cheaper for a reason--they aren't as reliable when recharging--it's great information to know--again, as my elders were always pointing out "I get what I pay for"--the least expensive isn't always the best way to go
Great Video! I've been pushing using power stations precisely for that reason... you only need to run the generator maybe 2 hours a day (depending on the size of the power station) to charge up the station and save boat loads of gasoline. Throw in a few solar panels, and gasoline use drops even further! In emergencies, it is all about having flexibility, and options, and conservation, and you get all of that in spades with a few power stations and solar panels. Not bad considering the ad-hoc nature of all the systems you put together. I'm not a fan of VToMan's, personally... all my power stations can charge and discharge simultaneously and some of them are hitting 5 years old now with basically zero loss of capacity. -Matt
@@FarpointFarms Yah, that's one of the downsides of a power station (at least in situations where a person only has one). Everything is integrated into one unit and if it breaks you are down for the count. The better solution, technically, is to put together a power system with discrete components. Panels, charge controller(s), LiFePO4 batteries, an inverter, fusing and breakers, etc. But I don't usually recommend that unless the person knows their way around electrical systems. The power station still winds up being the best solution for most people.
My power was only out for 3 days (I'm east of Hickory), but during that time I powered my fridge the whole time with the Ecoflow solar generators I have. I liked that they charge up really fast and can be used while charging. I even lent several of extra solar generators to my neighbor to keep their food cold and frozen. I did get my daughter's gas generator after they got their power back, so that helped charge the generators up faster. I might try getting a windmill of some sort as a backup when there's no sun.
You might take a look at one of the Pecron units, i picked up a 3600lfp a couple months ago to help get around these issues. It does pass through power, and can take 2500W of input power. I considered getting multiple small units, but opted for one big guy.
I agree on having power stations that will accept both AC and Solar charging at the same time while running the inverters is very key! My power company told us that expect several outage events this winter when high winds occur in Denver as it does several times every year. It is bad enough to cut power for time while winds are high, but then add many extra days to completely inspect the AC wires for damage is nuts. I live in an area with below the ground AC wiring are and was without power for 5 days after an 10 hour 60+ mph wind storm. I have to run O2 equipment to live and lost my $1500 of meat in freezer this spring. Xcel said it my problem to provide power to live when they don't.. Glad you get batteries because I just check and they are still at $750 per 100 amps battery.
@@FarpointFarms no one is keeping you from sharing 😆 if i was to look at anyone it is the producers.. they could give away a little part of their profit by handing out a couple of emergency kits in situations like this.. i have a feeling those would give more publicity then a couple of youtubers if starlink can help people, i dont see why companys like ecoflow or signature solar cant.. its kind of greedy only giving youtubers the products, and not the ones that needs them
Just need 4 LIFEPO batteries, a charge controller, 3,000 watt inverter, and solar panels, that way, it handles the large load starts, it charges while your using power, and no flipping power on and off, its 100% self running, you don't need to be home and it continually works, at a much cheaper price. 🤔🧐😎👍
Great lessons learned video. I have a similar setup to you. The flow through issue (charge while discharging) is a big deal. I have an investment in Oupes so I'll have to review their capability. Longest we have went so far is about 18 hours so I haven't had to top off with the generator yet. If you can get that power box working. I'd be interested to learn what you found. Keep charging. Later
This perfectly illustrates the difference between buying an item for casual/convenient use, vs buying an item based on emergencies. Always buy the latter and read the fine print.
I have everything I would have needed to build a bigger more permanent solar setup, I just ran out of time to get it done. It is now high on the to do list.
Dude . . . get yourself an InergyTek (Inergy) Flex 1500 system. It's modular and that means you can add all the batteries you want, as budget permits. It works great. I've had mine for years now and it has saved our refrigerator and freezer many times. Good luck to you.
As a DIY battery Builder I find that having a large DIY battery that's capable of charging your smaller batteries comes in very handy. The only reason I say a large DIY batteries because they're just cheaper. You can do a 300 amp 4260 watt hour battery for about $600. Yes you would need to add an inverter and a charge controller that does not have to be expensive. Also you can continue to increase your battery capacity by 600.00 for 300 A whenever you have the spare cash
You make a great point, having our extra batteries made a huge difference for us. It was very cloudy for days after the storm and the only reason we were still able to run out fridge was the extra capacity. Downfall is that it does take a long time to get them all topped of
@FarpointFarms yeah you start adding capacity before you know it you're chasing ways of charging it faster. You might want to check out Sun Tan Solar they sell new and used solar panels got some pretty good prices $0.30 - $0.50 per watt shipping can be expensive if you're only ordering one or two panels because it still has to be shipped as Freight what's the weather it's one panel or 10 panel the shipping is still the same
I live rural NY state. I went through the ice storm of 1991, lost power for 2 weeks, could not travel. At the time, I was a young adult, still lived with my parents. The storm was in march, oddly the weather after the storm was beautiful but got cold at night. We had no backups at all. Lost all the food in fridge and freezer, which wasn't much as my folks were not into prepping. We did have a woodburning stove and mom made a loaf of bread and backed it on top with a makeshift oven. We also had iol lamps as both parents grew up on farms. And a lot of canned goods. I was an EMT, riding for the local ambulance and volunteered at the local high school, we made into a shelter, warming station. After that, I learned just how fragile the grid is. The area I live in now can lose power with just heavy rain and a little wind. Usually not long but it happens. Now that I am much older, I do not want to play around with heater, battery banks, ect. So, I had a natural gas powered standby generator installed. It has been a godsend. Out in the country, many have 250 pound propane tank for heating. My last house was propane furnace. When I looked into generators, there is an option of getting a propane powered whole house generator. Yes, it's pricey but you can have a dedicated tank for the generator and your fuel is there. I looked into solar as well. It was just too complicated and would be more expensive than the standby generator that I did have installed. I do have one of those power packs with the solar panels, but I just recharge it off a wall socket. It's big and cumbersome and I got it for when I am playing outside. Basically to run a fan or recharge a phone. Anyways, back in 1991, we made it thought that with a woodburning stove, a camping stove, (house had electric stove then) canned foods and some baking. Luickly, I kept powered milk on hand for baking. We never lost water, but had no hot water. So, we had to heat water to take a sponge bath. During that ice storm, I also found many gas stations lost power and could not even run the pumps. Many local stores were just closed, never opened. All power was down. Remarkably, we still had telephone. I recall getting my first cell phone as a backup. After hearing about how cell towers went down, I have doubts with comms now. I'm in a area where radio and cell tower reception is not good and use wifi calling. I basically can lose the phone if cable goes down. I got a set of walkie talkies and a CB. Was looking into HAM. Anyways, that you for the update on how things went. That is valuable info. I realize this video is a few weeks old, so I assume things are better. Glade you and your family is doing okay. Bless you.
About 8 years ago my mother’s neighborhood experienced a fairly serious snow storm. My mother did not live in a remote, rural area. Her house was in a Maryland suburb, about 25 miles out of Washington DC. It took Baltimore Gas and Electric 3 weeks to get power restored to her neighborhood. She had no heat, no water, no lights, no refrigeration. Having an alternative source of energy is essential! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
3 weeks in crazy for a snow storm, maybe an ice storm. Winter is coming and we always worry about that
You probably meant the 2010 Snowgedden that dumped 20+ inches of snow in DC area. But wait there's more; the area lost power/fuel for a week + in late June, 2012 from Derecho (wind storm). Anything can happen anywhere just be ready.
I remember this happening about eight years ago in New Jersey too. We still refer to it as “the snowpocolypse” to this day. No power or heat for weeks, even in very populous areas near NYC.
@ TBH I will have to check with my sister. I was living in a different state at the time and did not hear about it until a year or two later.
Man, thanks for taking the time to make videos during all this. I hope and pray everyone is paying attention to all the lessons learned from all the folks affected by this storm.
Absolutely. There's a lot to Learn and now is the Time
We learned so much- we have some great stuff but did not have a solar shower- Really could have used one of them
A battery gen pack that won’t charge while discharging… is a real bummer!
Near your panels, I haven't seen a satellite dish like that for a long time. It's a big one.
1:50 A cord with two male ends is called a "suicide cord" or "widowmaker cord," for anyone wondering.
You just can't say that word on YT-
Erik. The pc word is “self cancel “.
Thank you! I scrolled to find just this answer. YT censorship is ridiculous.
@@FarpointFarmsturn the main breaker off if you're back feeding
Should call it the Adam and Steve cord
Sir, what a great service you have done by making this video! REAL world experience with moving pictures is proof. Pass-through charging is a MUST for any power source. I do not buy power banks that do not do pass-through charging.
I am glad I could help, I hope people can learn from what we did wrong so they will be better prepared.
@@FarpointFarmsthank you!
Nothing like a "live" test to sort out what works and what doesn't.
I wish that no one needs to do a live test.... 0 stars would not recommend
Aint that the truth
Glad you're ok. It stinks but you're helping a lot of us by sharing your good bad and ugly. I appreciate it.
I just want people to know what to look for- my loss their gain
Really appreciated this good and bad update. I too was without power for several days but my Ecoflows worked like champs to keep my frig going and lights. My 160W solar panels were able to recharge them both and allow pass through energy transfer. Even with that it was still no walk in the park as I had to time when I charged one and used the other while keeping an eye on power usage. And I 100% agree that your array of solar panels paid for themselves in keeping your food frozen.
Glad to hear you weathered the storm as well! Take care.
Real life is the greatest teacher. The most I have had to endure is 8 days without power and water for 5 days during the freeze. What I learned from that is that a 48V inverter is not efficient . I built a diy 48V system on a hand truck I had seen on you tube. Kind of disappointing to find out that it ran my residential fridge for 37 hours using 2.4 KW for the Fridge and the inverter used 2.7kw using 1kw on idle per day. Afterwards I only then charged the 48V battery with two small generators connected in parallel at 30 amps and used the battery only without the inverter to extend my 2kw Ecoflow which powered the fridge non stop for 65 hours. I learned that I need to change to a 12V system with an 1800W inverter and a 12V battery with 460ah, this will be more efficient. for such emergencies when the sun is in short supply. Plus the 3KW 48V inverter, the solar charger required a minimum of 120V which most people don't have such a large solar array but a 12V inverter with a 12V solar charger requires lower voltage to start charging.
Though my situation was different than yours, yours is harder because if it came down to it my food would not have spoiled during the freeze but yours can. I also learned since I experience frequent outages that owning some 12V fridge/freezers is a must. I have a couple of 500W Jackeries that each unit will run my 45 qt fridges for 45 hours before needing to be charged and this is in 90º to 95ºF ambient temperatures in the Texas summers. I just transfer the food from the big fridge to the 12V and I'm good.
Those are good to know, Power outages during cold is worse since people heat with electric. There are lessons to be learned
It depends on the quality of the inverter, not the voltage. A MultiPlus II 3000W-48V has an idle draw of about 11W. Of course, it's not cheap. Buy the cheapest ones, and you can easily pay 10x the energy cost there.
48V inverter is MORE efficient. You may have an inefficient model.
We learned some of the same lessons here in Florida. We put off doing some things to do other things. One of those things was changing our well pump to be able to use the solar to run it. That is now farther up on the list to get done. Thankfully, we have a generator to run the pump and fill up containers. I am glad it wasn't life and death lessons for us.
I am glad as well, there is a lot to learn as every situation could be different
Thanks for sharing this! Keeping you all upheld in prayer! Isn't it great you had some stuff to work with! I'm always tinkering with this stuff. In 2011 here in CT we lost power for 3wks. My primary generator failed. We have well. Wife and kids moved out with relatives. I stayed and worked. I was blessed, one of my customers upgraded there generator, I bought there old one, which got me back online. I was using an inverter clean sine wave and an ext cord to my office to keep my business going! [I'm an electrician]. We worked 12 hr days 3 mos restoring pwr to homes where it got ripped off their houses. I couldn't buy fuel for a week. Took us 2 days till the roads cleared. These are all important lessons! God bless!
Thank you- Sounds like you have a good idea of how it's like not having power for such a long time. Thank you for working late to help them get theirs restored
Been praying for you guys up there. I like your setup. Recently we lost power for only 3 days from Milton. But did the same thing as you really put our systems to real world use. Used the Honda generator 2-3 hours a day to top off everything and solar through the day. Since then we got a 40A AC-DC charger so when the Honda is running we can charge a 100A battery which before that only could do solar. So now when the Honda is running to top off battery banks we can do that one as well.
You were smart to keep them topped off with the Honda. You were also smart to get that charger, that way you can really utilize what you have.
I have 7 Ecoflows, one Jackery and a Westinghouse. The ecoflow has pass thru charging. Also they charge really fast. Makes a big difference if you plan on topping the batteries off with a gas generator.
Good to know. Thanks for sharing!
How much did you spend on that
@@1whitecottagelife770delta 2s usually are $800. If you want an additional battery it’ll be an additional $650 but total you would have around 3kwH of capacity. Delta 3s were just released. They are around $150 more but the have a 800 vs 500 watt max input capacity.
It was a surprise that one of these units didn't offer that feature. That and the slow charging of the OUPES units was a big deal.
holy crap did u rob a delivery truck? lmao.. so many ecoflows lol.. wish i had one of the the bigboys.
Really enjoy your videos. Watching and praying for all my internet friends in North Carolina in this trying time. Stay safe out there! Greetings from Nova Scotia.
Thank you sir!
Glad you made this video, nice to see real operations under less than ideal situations. Hope you and your family continue to stay safe.
Thank you for the kind words. I just want people to learn from my mistakes
Great update ! So happy the farm is doing well . Them power stations are great but there's features that can be very handy . Like that solar input charging wile you use power . Every watt of solar counts ! I run my radio stuff directly on battery .If I have solar or mains power then that goes into battery . The next hurricane is now a cat 5 going to Florida. Have many friends their. CB is getting threw from NY to FL . In times of real need CB still coming threw . Ham radio and GMRS/FRS/MURS radios helping as well. Cellphone's / internet go down and power grid. Radio still works ! The most reliable way to get info and send info is RADIO ! The best tool we have ! take care . Great video !
The emergency responders were using radio for communications because cell service was not working at all after the storm. That storm is looking like a monster, I hope everyone stays safe
I live near you and experienced the outage. A DC to DC charger at night off my truck was silent, and i am sure appreciated by my neighbors. With your background a easy quiet alternative. A cell phone booster for a hot spot got us slow internet but allowed us to communicate and work. Enjoy all the great videos u put out.
I am sure that your neighbors really did like that, no one wants to hear a loud generator at night. I wish we could use a booster, but there is just not enough coverage here.
We went from one tiny bar to 3 and 4 bars on our cell phone. We were very surprised. I lent it to my neighbor while we went to Clt. and he bought 2 off amazon they liked it so much. It kept us (wife) from feeling so cut off from everyone. I don't hv the other comms you do so I was glad we had it.@FarpointFarms
That all in one makes a great argument for component based systems. Our RV is totally off grid and charging while discharging is critical to having a functional system.
I never knew how important it was until I really needed it.
Yep, I was thinking of redundancy when I out together my systems. I have three DIY power storage systems. One is a all-in-one MPPT unit, the other two use separate MPPTs and inverters. The all-in-one is great for recharging, takes a lot of input from the wall and solar, at the same time if desired. The components systems are a bit harder to recharges as they do not have a AC input point. Must be solar/DC. I use a bench power source to charge from wall or from other power storage systems. Not as efficient but works. I also have 3 "solar" generators two EcoFlow systems and one Bluetti.
I feel that Ecoflow should be sponsoring your channel. It would be good for YOU and your channel would be the PERFECT opportunity for Ecoflow.
Send them my way- I could use a good sponsor
Much better to have components instead of an all in one system that you can’t get parts for.
I’m glad you covered how your solar setup has worked out. I was curious about that. Praying for y’all and everyone affected by Helene.
Prayers will be needed for those who are going to get hit by Milton
You are so helpful for us folks planning our own solar BESS systems. Appreciate your deep understanding and diagnostic skills.
Glad it was helpful!
Ha- that is funny but not funny at the same time
@@FarpointFarms , not really funny,my heart hurts for the people, pets and animals going through this.Maybe one of those little windmills connected to an inverter and batteries might work better, or connect an inverter to a cheap old prius just as long as gasoline is available. Bless you always.
Thanks for the info. I ran into an issue with my eco flow where it drops to zero if left plugged into solar overnight. Always test and have backups for your backups.
Agreed! These things will fail you if you don't check them and make sure they are still working right. I got burnt on the one solar power station.
Nothing like a real emergency to truly test various standby power devices and discover the good and bad of each. Thanks for sharing.
I just wish that it did not take an emergency for people to pay attention
Eric, to you and your family, we pray everyday for strength for ya,ll. You are one cool dude.
Thank you so much
Great video and you bring up many fine points to consider. We live in SC and our preparations were also tested by Helene when we were without power for 11 days. The point in your summary was good, where you mentioned the need to recharge at a faster rate than many packaged solar generators allow. They are great for short outages and misc uses around the house, but for the larger, required needs such as refrigeration, we chose a modular, large battery and inverter system, where we could recharge at 80 or more amps to allow for shorter generator run times.
Thanks for the extra info- I have already looked to make changes for the system.
Well done! How things work is nice, but how they work during emergencies is best. The abililty to simultaneously charge and discharge is critical and so is ability to fast charge. Thanks!
The things you don't know until you find out. For a short time with no power, they were fine. Long term, not so much
Replaced my backup generator with a 2kw set of panels and 10kwh of batteries....ran 5k for the whole deal including inverter....kept my house alive when the power went out for days running critical loads....never have to change the oil and I get to use almost all the power it makes even when the Grid is up.....would never turn back, worth the effort.
I agree with you 100%
It was good of you to give out those four generators and gas to neighbors and help those of your neighbors, without the natural springs in the area, fill up from your spring.
You have to help others, that is the basic law of humanity. When people forget that, we are all doomed. Thank you for the support of the channel.
Eric, Thank you for making the video. I am close enough to be able to deliver some supplies and help some friends clean up . The damage there is incredible to observe. Not sure exactly what to do to make sure we are cleaning and restoring floors effectively. Mold might try to creep in . So much work to be done! Best wishes for you and the farm. Planning to return in a few days to help some more and deliver more supplies. The sad thing is most of the properties there are not insured....so folks need help from what I see. Lots of compassionate folks delivering food for pets and us workers and it is appreciated. God bless WNC and all the hurricane survivors trying to rebuild their lives.
Thanks for stepping up to help out in the mountains! Lot's of people lost everything. It's tragic.
Any floors that flooded should be (have already been) pulled up so the subflooring can dry out. Black mold has already set in in so many of the buildings and homes that were flooded. Fight mold with bleach OR borax OR a proper blend of antifungal EOs (they smell terrible, but they work for people who can’t tolerate bleach fumes).
Thank you so much for stepping up and helping!
Back in 2019, I had just started experimenting with solar power. I had about 500 watts of panels charging a 12V lead acid battery and an inverter. When we had an ice storm later in the year, I was without power for 5 days, but with lots of sun. While I still had to supplement some with a generator, I easily cut down my fuel usage by half. During the day I was able to run everything to get on the internet and work from home. I have vastly expaned my solar setup since then and should be well prepared for the next extended power outage.
I am glad that you had something during that storm, I am also glad that you have increased your power so you will be ready if there is a next time
I’ve started using solar power at my place during the past year or so , it’s a much smaller scale at this point but I’m planning on doing some upgrades. This video was a great help , thank you 🙏🏻 very much and God Bless ✝️🇺🇸
That is awesome! Better to have a small system, what we have learned is that even a small setup would helped most people here
Really glad to see you and the family are managing. Hopefully things are up from here. Much love from Ontario
Thank you- there are some in our county that it will be weeks more due to all the damage. There is one area where the road is gone and 200+ trees down. Total mess
Thank you for an honest real-time review, meaning the stuff has hit the fan... you're relying on this equipment RIGHT NOW. This was an invaluable review.
I just had a "generator transfer switch" installed so i can run 20 circuits on my main panel by way of a dual- fuel generator. My eventual plan is to run them off batteries that will be trickle charged via solar in good weather & by generator otherwise
I just want people to learn from what did not work. I had a bigger setup planned but did not get around to it this summer. It is now on the very short list of projects
Incredible. Feels like reporting from the front lines of a conflict. The rubber meets the road and you learn the truth of your systems and products
We have learned a lot this past few weeks. It is a different look what you see in person to what you see on TV- Driving around is hard to watch because people are piling up everything from their homes to the side of the road, it is all ruined and their entire lives are just sitting there. It's tough
Thanks Erik for all the good info. If your viewers can learn anything from your recent experience it is that they should prepare for some level of disaster preparedness. While we do not live our everyday lives off-grid we could all find ourselves w/o water, power, and the ability to maintain our daily lives during any disastrous weather event. Also, folks need to have the ability to protect themselves and their families during these events. Prayers for you and your family during these hard times.
Agreed. For years I've shown products and ways to try and be ready for the unexpected. I never came out as a prepper or Survivalist as they both seem to have been tainted by negative connotations, but this event has made me more determined to help folks get ready for moments like these.
Great real-world experience and knowledge gained. Thanks for sharing!
You are welcome
pass thru charging is what you want on your next one. ALWAYS LEARNING
You don't know what you don't know.
Wow, great insights into potential quirks with backup power systems. Thank you for sharing and I hope that you can get back to fairly normal soon. Good work on keeping things going around the house. That took a lot of work to get to where you are today. It seems to have paid off.
We feel blessed that we did well. I think going back to "normal" will be a long time coming for so many
Our power goes out for short periods fairly regularly. Every now and then it goes out for more than a couple hours. Every year or so, we lose it for more than a day. The worst was four and a half days. Nothing really terrible, but our water is a well, and that is a problem, especially as we have livestock. Just yesterday we lost power for about six hours. Today, this video pops up in my feed. I am definitely going to be checking out more of your content, because I've had it with our power company.
It would be really hard with livestock to get them the water they need. We have a well pump and not having an easy way of getting water is tricky
@@FarpointFarms The well experts here tell us we can get a solar pump for our well, but it will be expensive to replace the current pump. Our only option at the moment is to use a generator to run the pump long enough to fill the trough, which lasts us just over 2 days before we have to fill it again (depending on the weather). The good news for us is we live in the Southwest, so we have lots of sunlight for solar.
I have a Bluetti AC200L and a AC300 with 2 B300 batteries and use a champion 2500 inverter generator to recharge them, I had a window AC unit running, the fridge and freezer, lights, and several other things, it worked without issue while the power was down here in the foothills I only used 2 (full, not exchange) 20 lbs propane tanks to run the generator while we didn't have power for 5 almost 6 days It took about 4 hours to recharge the batteries and would last the other 20 hours. I know you have had it down longer, but I constantly use them for all kinds of things and they just keep going and they charge while being used. I know people get upset about the cost of them, but it seems like you get what you pay for. EcoFlow and Bluetti seem to be the most reliable and consistent with the best features. the AC300 and b300 batteries is going on 3 years of constantly back up power, always plugged in and a few power outages.
Good to know! Thanks!!
Haven't watched your videos for awhile, glad you made it through..I have a crank up antenna mast, so I can easily drop it before bad weather. And a Jackery power pack with foldable solar panels. Where I'm at in Texas we normally get plenty of sun and have very few trees. (That's east Texas, not west of I 35) it'll charge up in a few hours, and run the radio long enough and still have enough for C Pap up to 10 hours. We have propane stove so we have heat & cooking. We have solar on the house but limited batteries, so just the refrigerator. So far 6 days before we got power back. A little preparation goes a long way, now you know the weak spots
Yup! I see where the holes are for next time, but overall I was pleased with the setup.
Thanks Erik…be safe. This gives us a lot to plan for in our farm we are building. Cheers!
Good Luck.
Good luck on your farm, just take 1 thing at time
Thanks for the honest information about solar systems. I have a portable charger from 4Patriots for my cellphone here in northern Texas I love it
You're welcome, I am hoping that someone can learn from what we did wrong
Thanks for a very practical explanation of how many watts generated and actual usage per appliance.
No problem! I have many videos on the subject if you'd like to learn more.
Good to know. Thanks for passing it along.
I felt it was good to pass on this info while it's still warm in my head.
Thanks for the excellent review video after this devastating hurricane. You did a great job of getting prepared but the real thing will always show you where the weak points are and what equipment doesn't work as well as you'd like or sometimes not at all. Prayers for you and everyone in the western part of NC.
Thank you for the prayers, they are helping. I just hope that someone will learn from what we did wrong.
Thank you for your time to record and share the experience with us. Hope at the moment you already managed with the points highlighted. One little comment, if possible: at the manufacturer site in FAQ section for vtoman-flashspeed-1500-power-station is says "The FlashSpeed 1500 could power other devices while recharging itself." I hope that means some application update could fix your device. Or, it might be a point to change the device by the dealer/the manufacturer free of charge.
On the other hand, taking into account the limited charging current of the devices bringing in you could try to charge them from the generator all in parallel by using appropriate power strip block.
Looking forward to hearing more good news from you!
P.S. Something happened to my first comment here, that's why I'm trying once again.
I thought it was supposed to, but we could never get it to work while charging. It was frustrating for sure.
I have two eco-flow inverters that I use when the power goes out here in Tonopah, Arizona. After these hurricanes I’ve not seen or heard much about citizens band radio are people using CB radios and side band for communications I’m a big advocate for your channel because of CB radio and unlimited uses that it provides for us in times like this good job, Eric subscribing to you for four years now Godspeed
Unless the towns had established CB or FRS groups I am pretty sure those frequencies were unused.. A couple of people with FRS radios that were wide banded (unlocked) were talking to the ham radio people doing much of the coordinating with the volunteers that were on several VHF and UHF frequencies getting aid and supplies into hard hit areas.. During emergencies although technically illegal being human and helping far outranks that.. So I would say if you plan on relying on CB or FRS to develop contacts in several directions that know to listen for others in the group if something happens because those are far under living their potential..
CB remains the most popular way to get on the air. People here were on the air, mostly in mobiles. The info shared was mainly info about roads that no longer existed, and where to find supplies.
I appreciate you being a fan!
@@FarpointFarms When I was in school back in the 1970's our whole family had CB radios and we were part of the local REACT club.. We did trick or treat night watch, neighborhood watch and stuff like that where if we saw something we would call our local base station and they could call police or fire or a tow truck etc...
Neat setup. Thanks for tour. You can never have too much available power. Please take care and stay safe.
We have a 12Kw roof and 2 14 kWh batteries. I hope we never have to use them in a situation like yours.
I hope you don't have to see what your system can really handle- Having the extra capacity of the batteries really saved us with having 5 days of no sun
@@FarpointFarms For our load going 5 days without solar would definitely eat up the 28 kWh of batteries we have. I am hoping Tesla adds V2H to their cars to fix this. We have 2 Teslas, and if Tesla added V2H we would have an additional 150 or so kWh. Definitely more than enough for 2 weeks without solar.
Thanks for taking the time to review while you’re going through so much. Being able to charge while discharging seems like a must have!
Take care, and I hope everything gets back to 💯 for you all soon.
Thank you- we will get back to normal at some point- hopefully soon
I would open to make it charge ALLWAS
Your video bled over from myself shopping around, Thank you for the on the ground insights, I'm pacific northwest and curious about it being overcast in my area most of the year being a problem...
Glad I could help you with that, I lived in Oregon for a while so I am all to familiar with the weather.
Get a chest freezer when you replace the upright as they are more efficient. Keep an eye out for a military surplus diesel generator. Diesel has a longer shelf life than gas.
I've been thinking about making a diesel generator using a small diesel engine I picked up a while back.
I have the same power queen 100ah lfp batteries in my camper. Happy so far.
Great battery!
It is great to hear from ya,glad you folks are ok
Thanks
Hang Tough. Great review of you system and especially where you found your short comings. Make you think even harder about your systems you will need.
Well said! We have learned a bunch on what worked and did not
Thanks for the video. Looking forward to see the direction you plan to go for the upgrade. Having the multiple buildings certainly adds to the challenges.
You and me both!
One of the rhings you learn in these situations is how little power you actually NEED!
I live off grid in the UK (not known for its excess sunshine) on a canal boat.
We have introduced a ordinary 240 mains fridge (12v is 3x the price over here!). We have 2x410W panels on a cheap chinese PWM feeding 6x 133amp sealed lead acid batteries. We run lights, phones, internet router, laptops, etc and now the fridge.
Will also be running my CB again shortly!
Thanks for the video. Just subscribed.
Thanks for the sub- We learned quickly that we really did not need what we thought we did, we did the basics and learned to use a bit at a time- Meaning, that we would have lights on, then we would turn them off and use the laptop- It made it go much further
@FarpointFarms Been there as well. My previous boat had 230W panel and 3x 100amp batteries running a 12v fridge. I realised quite quickly that by scaling my life back I could work with it. Now, we have a few more gadgets we use occasionally. But, we live a simpler life (its funny because years ago I was the one who wanted to computerise and automate our home! Now? Not in a blue fit!) and are happier for it.
Look forward to future videos.
I'm glad that you are making it with those small units, plus the gas generator. I bought my first solar generator 7 years ago, Expert Power brand, it did not have pass through charging either. Live and learn. It holds about 2800 watts, good to run things at night with when I can't charge. Since then I use Bluetti's, they all have pass through charging ability. Honestly don't know how they can get away with making them without that feature. You can hook up the larger battery sized ones to your home electrical system and do well.
I just ordered a Bluettie today!
Learning a lot watching you guys figure all of this out in real time. Best of luck
Thank you, I just want people to learn from my mistakes
My AllPowers worked awesome for three months. Now, it won't hold a charge... I'm glad you were able to get a year out of yours.
Sorry you had issues as well, so dissapointing
We were good for less than a day with our 4000 watt array 8x1280 watt hour battery bank. What is amazing is how little these systems actually produce in real world off grid situations. It was almost impossible to consistently run a small 240v well pump. Add any clouds….you have vastly degraded output. Because of their wind catch, solar panels are hurricane magnets….usually the first thing to get ripped off your roof….leaving gaping holes in the wake. Lesson from the hurricane….ground mount only…roof mounting sucks.
Interesting about the panels being ripped off the roof, I did not think of that, but it makes sense. Roof with holes is not a good thing in a rain storm
I'm planning on building a solar shed in the future for this exact purpose. This is good feedback. My parents were keeping their fridge running after Helene with a Bluetti I was questioning whether it made more sense to get one of those or build a dedicated bank. I'll be building the dedicated bank then just run heavy gauge extension cords to the house if the power goes out. I also plan on designing it to be a hybrid system where i can run a small generator in the rain and it'll charge the batteries. One of the issues my parents ran into was not enough sunlight to keep everything running. So i think having that extra capacity on tap makes the most sense.
Yes, a system that can charge off of a generator is also a great idea! Adding extra batteries really saved me as we did go days without direct sunlight.
For your freezer, maybe consider building a panel with the separate components (charge controller, inverter, monitor and batteries AND spares) to quickly replace something and be back online. The power packs are nice for portability but they will fail with the rest of the perfectly good parts trapped inside.
It is something to consider in the future.
Better than that is to use a gas refrigerator and freezer. Either NG or LPG.
Not only does it take the load off your solar, but it will run for days from a portable cylinder in the rare possibility that the gas fails.
Thanks Eric if you're doing a great job thanks for the update brother!!!
You bet
I like the setup I’m in the process of upgrading my solar system at my off grid cabin at the moment too
Hurry ! Haarp is making the rounds this year .
I am VERY happy with it. It ran flawlessly for the duration of this event (11 days) and kept my food from going bad. Next up is the 220V upgrade so we can run the well pump if needed.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I pray you get power back soon.
We did after 9.5 days, our neighbors about 1 mile down the road took another week for them. They had so many trees down and part of the road was badly damaged
It’s sad that the AllPowers 3500 failed when you most needed it. Good that you have all of the other options to keep you powered up.
Crazy bad timing!
These events are always incredible learning opportunities. Looks like you’re doing well.
We did better than most, we feel blessed for that
prayers for you and yours. Thanks for the video, showing where thing just didn't work. The solar generator that doesn't do pass thru charging would be a big let down.
You're welcome- I hope that people can learn from what we did not do right
I do like that the newer stuff has massively more capacity than the older ones now. I'm seriously looking at the huge Anker 3800's as they can easily and cheaply tie into the house power and still be removed and dragged somewhere just in case.
The capacity is what really helped us, there was 5 days of very cloudy days that we were not able to really get any charge.
Thanks for the update Eric! Stay safe
Thanks, will do!
We dodged the bullet on Helene. We are about 60 miles west of where the storm went through GA and got virtually zero damage. Our power never even blinked.
You're learning a couple of things through necessity. These "solar generators" are advancing rapidly, but there's a lot we need to understand about their limitations. Units that were purchased 2-3 years ago are woefully inadequate for power outages.
I have 3. The first one i bought was the AC200MAX from Bluetti. It's great for running appliances and power tools, but the AC charge rate requires 4-5 hours, and that's way too much time if you need to recharge with a generator.
The 2nd one was a Bluetti EB3a, a small station for running my router. It wrapped out after about 9 months. Bluetti replaced it, but it took a couple of weeks to get through that process.
Things we all need to understand about these power stations.
2k watts sounds like a HUGE amount of power. It's not. A fridge or freezer will eat that up in one day.
Fast charging is critical. Newer Bluetti or Ecoflow products can be charged at 1800+ watts, and that's critical when using a genny to recharge.
Stations need to have UPS so you can use them in virtually all applications.
Stations need to allow over-panel use. My AC200MAX charges via solar at 900 watts, but i can easily hook up 1200 watts of panels as long as I stay within the voltage limits. It will only accept 900 or so, but having 1200 available means I get more watts during cloudy conditions.
Having a dual-fuel generator is the key to being comfortable during power outages that last several days. We can run portable ACs and all our 110 devices with a 5k generator.
Alternative power options like solar and generator require some degree of power management. Unless you have a massive battery bank and large solar array, or a "whole house" backup generator that runs in natural gas, you'll need to control how much power you use. We have 2 refrigerators and 4 freezers full of food because we grow most of our food. We keep 200 pounds of propane and 25 gallons of gas on hand. We are on a farm, so we have the capacity to carry around 200 gallons of gas but have never kept that much. We run the gas through the mowers or just use it in our vehicles in order to keep it fresh.
We have 3 generators.
We have the 3 power stations, 4,000 watts of solar panels, and about a million feet of extension cords.
We are as prepared as we can be. I guess...
Great points and great info. Thanks for sharing!
Good to see you’re getting by out there, you’re way better equipped to deal with power loss than us city dwellers up in Plano, TX. After the February 2021 power crisis I set out to get some backup power at least short term. I ended up with a pair of Amazon Prime day special Anker 757 power stations, one on the freezer/fridge and one on the computer gear serving as giant uninterruptible power supplies. They use standard 100 AH LiFePo 12V batteries as seen in countless RVs and campers, and will withstand up to 3000 cycles before falling to 80% capacity, far better than the 500 or so that LiMnCo cells offer.
The Ankers charge at about 1KW from AC, but will only charge at about 300W from solar, so you’d need four to mate with your big panel. They do allow simultaneous charge and discharge, that’s exactly how I’m using them as UPS for the computer room and the food storage.
Thanks for letting me know about them, I have more research to do before I add new ones.
Sorry to hear about all your problems Eric. I hope you can get things back up and running real soon for you and your wife's peace of mind. Having to live off grid is okay sometimes but then there's times it's not a whole lot of fun I know I've been there I was there last winter. Living completely off grid at a place called Inskip california. Living in some people I n e w s old hotel built in the mid-1800s because at the time I had nowhere else to go.. I'm doing better now though. I had a diesel generator up there at the old hotel but it quit working by midwinter and then I had no power. I did have propane though and was able to heat some water on the stove so I could at least get a shower. And I had a wood heater so I could stay warm in the hotel I was at 5,000 FT elevation and it was a pretty rough winter had a hard time getting out. Had to depend on friends that had four-wheel drive vehicles that could drive me down off the mountain into town to buy groceries and make my doctor's appointments. Turned out to be the worst winter of my life. I'm almost 69 years old and it was rough being up there all alone throughout the entire winter and all that cold and snow. And being that much off grid had no cable and no cell service. Although I did have a landline so I could contact people . Anyway that's enough about me. Hope everything is better for you and yours very soon.
Wow, sounds like you had quite the time! We are finally back on power and it was nice to take an actual shower!
@@FarpointFarms congratulations Eric that's awesome I'm happy for you guys man. Yes being able to take a real shower is the bomb. Lol.
We have 3 portable batteries. The most useful one during hurricane Beryl was our Ideaplay 2kwh battery. We'd run the fridge and freezer off it for 4-5 hours. Then we'd start the generator, charging the battery for 2 hours, and also running those appliances. The VTOMAN FLASH 1500 charges in an hour, but it tripped the GFCI circuit breaker on the generator, making it worthless for a long power outage.
that is good to know that they Vtoman tripped the breaker.
Praying for you and enjoying the very informative videos. Not great at geography, I am just praying Milton doesn't add more issues!
I am afraid that it will compound the issues more. That breaks my heart
Your assessment of portable power packs would be extremely helpful.
Thank you- things that I never considered to be that important, were very important.
Glad your ok Erik..Lots of prayers going to your state.
Thank you for the prayers
Yes, please make another video when you are able about what features to look for or avoid. Thanks so much!
That is a great idea for a future video.
Many thanks for the informative video. It will help a lot of folks make better decisions.
I hope that people can learn from my mistakes. In a really emergency, it could make a difference
Awesome video 📹 hope you get your power 🔋 back than offgrid up more ,you showed a good example why I stopped wasting money 💰 buying solar generators and why I started diy and building my own generators with more power 🔋 alot cheaper and pass thru charging that I can fix myself! Diy solar generators is the way to go from what your showing.
Agreed! This system is now due for an "upgrade"!
It’s obvious you benefited greatly from solar backup. I have been planning to use my propane generator to backup my solar system since the Texas deep freeze in 2021 but found the solar much more convenient and cheaper. I gave the generator to my son when we put in a EG4 6000XP inverter,a14.3 LFP battery and 20 panels on his off-grid home it Sequatchie Valley,Tennessee. He brought it back because he found he didn’t need it. It’s back in Texas now but I wish it could help someone in the hurricane recovery.
If I was going to go that far I would instead take a EG4 3KW inverter, a EG4 5KWH LFP battery and 6 400 W solar panels from Signature Solar.That’s about $3000 and I’ve used this system to run refrigerator and small window unit several times. It never needs gasoline,it’s quiet,and begins paying for itself from day one.
The gas generators are a short term very expensive way to make dirty electricity. I hope the remote areas can get solar power as permanent essential energy whether the grid comes back or not.
We have a dual fuel inverter generator- we ran it for 20+ hours and only used about 2 gallons. We did not want to use the LP side because we thought we might need tit for the grill. Solar is the way to go but the back up generator was a life saver this time
@@FarpointFarms That’s a very efficient generator. The inverter generators are a big step forward.
Those with space can build their solar on a steel trailer (no building permit is a bonus) for easy construction, maintenance and modification. Shipping containers (one-trip grade preferred not WWT junk) make great small shops because they're typhoon-rated and are ideal for battery storage away from the house. (The more dispersed your structures the better they withstand fire etc.) Container roofs are easy to mod (weld or bolt to the corner fittings and weld attachment points to the roof edge steel, not the roof sheet metal. I have five containers so far and love it! No dirt daubers, no dust on my machine tools and instant machinery-capable flat rugged floors make my life easy.
That is a great idea- I might have to look into that
Thanks, glad your back up to back up were there. Stay safe - I know they are working none stop for folks with the power. They are actually getting the young once hiking a country mile just to get to downed utility poles
There are some parts of the area that will be without power for weeks more due to all the damage
@@FarpointFarms We are doing our best!!! wish it could be sooner
Any help is appreciated- It makes you appreciate what you have- we don't realize that until we no longer have it
Good stuff.
Anker makes a model (solix c-1000) that will charge while discharging. The only downside is that it ups the AC charging amount by the draw amount. So say you are charging at 200w (200-1000+ option) and add a 200w load, now it starts pulling 400w. I tripped my solar system 1000w inverter a few times until I figured it out. It can charge directly off of a DC source 11-32v 10A or 32v-60v 12.5A
Thanks for sharing that, I have learned a lot of what I should be looking in to.
Nice video, nice setup, I would consider Starlink, works great and with their new plan, you can get decent service and coverage for much lower nowadays. Best of luck, hope you get power back soon.
We did finally get power back, but even today 15 days later some of our neighbors a mile down the road still don't have power
hi Eric, sorry to hear your power is still out. I was thinking about what you said about fast recharge. Power stations that have internal chargers, that is, no power brick, can be charged in an hour or two. That applies pretty much across-the-board. Anything with a power brick is usually limited to 100-250 watts. It’s the first thing I check when looking at new power stations.
It's on my radar now! The 200 watt charge time is just far too much.
what I hear you saying is the less well known power packs, the cheaper power packs are cheaper for a reason--they aren't as reliable when recharging--it's great information to know--again, as my elders were always pointing out "I get what I pay for"--the least expensive isn't always the best way to go
Even the expensive ones can still crap out. The Allpowers was not cheap and failed when I needed it
Great Video! I've been pushing using power stations precisely for that reason... you only need to run the generator maybe 2 hours a day (depending on the size of the power station) to charge up the station and save boat loads of gasoline. Throw in a few solar panels, and gasoline use drops even further! In emergencies, it is all about having flexibility, and options, and conservation, and you get all of that in spades with a few power stations and solar panels.
Not bad considering the ad-hoc nature of all the systems you put together. I'm not a fan of VToMan's, personally... all my power stations can charge and discharge simultaneously and some of them are hitting 5 years old now with basically zero loss of capacity.
-Matt
5 years is good to know- The one I was most disappointed with was the Allpowers- it was fine and when I needed it most, it failed.
@@FarpointFarms Yah, that's one of the downsides of a power station (at least in situations where a person only has one). Everything is integrated into one unit and if it breaks you are down for the count.
The better solution, technically, is to put together a power system with discrete components. Panels, charge controller(s), LiFePO4 batteries, an inverter, fusing and breakers, etc. But I don't usually recommend that unless the person knows their way around electrical systems. The power station still winds up being the best solution for most people.
My power was only out for 3 days (I'm east of Hickory), but during that time I powered my fridge the whole time with the Ecoflow solar generators I have. I liked that they charge up really fast and can be used while charging. I even lent several of extra solar generators to my neighbor to keep their food cold and frozen. I did get my daughter's gas generator after they got their power back, so that helped charge the generators up faster. I might try getting a windmill of some sort as a backup when there's no sun.
We looked at doing wind, but we live in a fishbowl and don't really get a ton of wind. Having a backup is a great thing
You might take a look at one of the Pecron units, i picked up a 3600lfp a couple months ago to help get around these issues. It does pass through power, and can take 2500W of input power. I considered getting multiple small units, but opted for one big guy.
I'll look into it!
I agree on having power stations that will accept both AC and Solar charging at the same time while running the inverters is very key! My power company told us that expect several outage events this winter when high winds occur in Denver as it does several times every year. It is bad enough to cut power for time while winds are high, but then add many extra days to completely inspect the AC wires for damage is nuts. I live in an area with below the ground AC wiring are and was without power for 5 days after an 10 hour 60+ mph wind storm. I have to run O2 equipment to live and lost my $1500 of meat in freezer this spring. Xcel said it my problem to provide power to live when they don't.. Glad you get batteries because I just check and they are still at $750 per 100 amps battery.
It sounds like you have some real experience with this! I would cry if I had lost that much from my freezer.
It's nice you have what you do have!
We were glad but feel a little guilty that we had when others don't
@@FarpointFarms no one is keeping you from sharing 😆
if i was to look at anyone it is the producers..
they could give away a little part of their profit by handing out a couple of emergency kits in situations like this..
i have a feeling those would give more publicity then a couple of youtubers
if starlink can help people, i dont see why companys like ecoflow or signature solar cant..
its kind of greedy only giving youtubers the products, and not the ones that needs them
Just need 4 LIFEPO batteries, a charge controller, 3,000 watt inverter, and solar panels, that way, it handles the large load starts, it charges while your using power, and no flipping power on and off, its 100% self running, you don't need to be home and it continually works, at a much cheaper price. 🤔🧐😎👍
Another good option to look into
Great lessons learned video. I have a similar setup to you. The flow through issue (charge while discharging) is a big deal. I have an investment in Oupes so I'll have to review their capability. Longest we have went so far is about 18 hours so I haven't had to top off with the generator yet. If you can get that power box working. I'd be interested to learn what you found. Keep charging. Later
Oupes did well for us other than the slow recharge feature- We are look at a quick charge version going forward
This perfectly illustrates the difference between buying an item for casual/convenient use, vs buying an item based on emergencies. Always buy the latter and read the fine print.
I have everything I would have needed to build a bigger more permanent solar setup, I just ran out of time to get it done. It is now high on the to do list.
@@FarpointFarms I bet. It was a good episode.
Dude . . . get yourself an InergyTek (Inergy) Flex 1500 system. It's modular and that means you can add all the batteries you want, as budget permits. It works great. I've had mine for years now and it has saved our refrigerator and freezer many times. Good luck to you.
That is an option to look into
Can't go wrong with the Ecoflow stuff. Have had great success with multiple models.
I have heard lots of feedback on it and it is on the list to look at.
As a DIY battery Builder I find that having a large DIY battery that's capable of charging your smaller batteries comes in very handy. The only reason I say a large DIY batteries because they're just cheaper. You can do a 300 amp 4260 watt hour battery for about $600. Yes you would need to add an inverter and a charge controller that does not have to be expensive. Also you can continue to increase your battery capacity by 600.00 for 300 A whenever you have the spare cash
You make a great point, having our extra batteries made a huge difference for us. It was very cloudy for days after the storm and the only reason we were still able to run out fridge was the extra capacity. Downfall is that it does take a long time to get them all topped of
@FarpointFarms yeah you start adding capacity before you know it you're chasing ways of charging it faster. You might want to check out Sun Tan Solar they sell new and used solar panels got some pretty good prices $0.30 - $0.50 per watt shipping can be expensive if you're only ordering one or two panels because it still has to be shipped as Freight what's the weather it's one panel or 10 panel the shipping is still the same
I will have to check that out- it is good to know
I live rural NY state. I went through the ice storm of 1991, lost power for 2 weeks, could not travel. At the time, I was a young adult, still lived with my parents. The storm was in march, oddly the weather after the storm was beautiful but got cold at night. We had no backups at all. Lost all the food in fridge and freezer, which wasn't much as my folks were not into prepping. We did have a woodburning stove and mom made a loaf of bread and backed it on top with a makeshift oven. We also had iol lamps as both parents grew up on farms. And a lot of canned goods. I was an EMT, riding for the local ambulance and volunteered at the local high school, we made into a shelter, warming station.
After that, I learned just how fragile the grid is. The area I live in now can lose power with just heavy rain and a little wind. Usually not long but it happens. Now that I am much older, I do not want to play around with heater, battery banks, ect. So, I had a natural gas powered standby generator installed. It has been a godsend. Out in the country, many have 250 pound propane tank for heating. My last house was propane furnace. When I looked into generators, there is an option of getting a propane powered whole house generator. Yes, it's pricey but you can have a dedicated tank for the generator and your fuel is there.
I looked into solar as well. It was just too complicated and would be more expensive than the standby generator that I did have installed. I do have one of those power packs with the solar panels, but I just recharge it off a wall socket. It's big and cumbersome and I got it for when I am playing outside. Basically to run a fan or recharge a phone.
Anyways, back in 1991, we made it thought that with a woodburning stove, a camping stove, (house had electric stove then) canned foods and some baking. Luickly, I kept powered milk on hand for baking. We never lost water, but had no hot water. So, we had to heat water to take a sponge bath.
During that ice storm, I also found many gas stations lost power and could not even run the pumps. Many local stores were just closed, never opened. All power was down. Remarkably, we still had telephone. I recall getting my first cell phone as a backup. After hearing about how cell towers went down, I have doubts with comms now. I'm in a area where radio and cell tower reception is not good and use wifi calling. I basically can lose the phone if cable goes down. I got a set of walkie talkies and a CB. Was looking into HAM.
Anyways, that you for the update on how things went. That is valuable info. I realize this video is a few weeks old, so I assume things are better. Glade you and your family is doing okay. Bless you.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, I remember losing power when I live up north, we would put our food out in the snow to keep it from going bad.
Glad that you got some power backup with the solar. Best insurance you can buy.
You know he got that dish in the shot for you, right?
@@barneymm2204 :)
Gotta have that big dish......