Emergency Evacuation

[dkatz4]

OK, not really an emergency, sorry for the click-bait.
But still noteworthy. We had a power outage today caused by a pair of fallen telephone poles. We were given no info about how long it might take to restore power and i had to be out of the house all day. So to be on the safe side i brought Irwin and his entire enclosure over to my dad's house. Although i plan to build him a more permanent display-worthy enclosure, today it was quite handy to have him living in a plastic bin.



The wood on top is just a plank i used to secure the RHP, i kept it long to spread the weight out.




I also finally got the chance to weigh him since he was in his little travel tote and my dad has a pretty accurate mail scale. Its seems like some folks feel the weight is very important, idk, maybe it is for breeding purposes, but it just doesn't seem important for my purposes. That being said, i had always been very curious. So the tale of the tape is: 20.5oz (581g) and about 3ft 9in. long. He's a little guy, but his body shape is pretty perfect imo.

[KMG]

This past year I added a stand by generator to my home that can run my entire home plus some when the power goes out. Its all automatic and only takes abut 30 seconds to kick on. I feel like it was a great investment.

[dkatz4]

I've thought about a generator, though our area doesn't lose power terribly often, this was something of a freak accident. But it would still feel good to have one just in case – the real issue is that we own a townhouse and so I would have to check the community bylaws to see whether or not we are even allowed to have a generator on the property.
The annoying thing in this case is that it turned out that the power wasn't out for all that long – maybe five or six hours. I have various chemical heat pads and hot water bottles for just such an event, and could have easily maintained the tank for the duration of the outage myself. it was just that I wasn't going to be home and I couldn't ask my wife to take care of the snake and the baby at the same time.

[bcr229]

I've thought about a generator, though our area doesn't lose power terribly often, this was something of a freak accident. But it would still feel good to have one just in case – the real issue is that we own a townhouse and so I would have to check the community bylaws to see whether or not we are even allowed to have a generator on the property.
The annoying thing in this case is that it turned out that the power wasn't out for all that long – maybe five or six hours. I have various chemical heat pads and hot water bottles for just such an event, and could have easily maintained the tank for the duration of the outage myself. it was just that I wasn't going to be home and I couldn't ask my wife to take care of the snake and the baby at the same time.

You probably couldn't do a permanent install but there are smaller, quiet models - Honda makes one that's 2000W - where you could run a small space heater. If you just have a few snakes they could be moved into a closet or bathroom where even a 600W heater could keep them comfortable.

If you use a bathroom the heat would do double-duty at helping prevent your pipes from freezing during the winter.

[KMG]

Ive been without power a few times in the past several years that ended up being days at a time. Most recently we were without power for two days and it reminded me how much I hate it so I made the calls and will never have that happen again.

Surprisingly we have had some random outages over the past year. We had one at night but the genny kicked on and we didn't know until we woke up and the oven clock was off. I checked the generator and sure enough it has kicked on and run the house for a few hours that night. I was really happy.

Now no matter if Im home or not my collection is taken care of. Also with my line of work I feel better knowing the wife is taken care of at home and not having to pull start a small generator and hook things up. I almost went with a movable one and installed a 220 plug to power the house but in the end I thought it was to much of a hassle.

I think I made the right choice.

The little Honda models BCR mentioned are really good.

[bcr229]

If you have a single-family home then a whole house generator with an automated transfer switch makes sense. In a townhome there may not be the space in the backyard for it, plus there are usually strict HOA covenants.

I'm in the process of installing a battery backup / solar array tied into the grid at my home. I've got the batteries, inverter/controller comes next, solar panels will be last. Fortunately I have friends in that biz who are (literally) hooking me up so I'm looking at an ROI of around three years rather than the typical 8-10.

[KMG]

If you have a single-family home then a whole house generator with an automated transfer switch makes sense. In a townhome there may not be the space in the backyard for it, plus there are usually strict HOA covenants.

I'm in the process of installing a battery backup / solar array tied into the grid at my home. I've got the batteries, inverter/controller comes next, solar panels will be last. Fortunately I have friends in that biz who are (literally) hooking me up so I'm looking at an ROI of around three years rather than the typical 8-10.

That's awesome!

Id love to add some solar power to my home.