Bought a 7kW Petrol Generator years back. Very useful in South Africa due to Eskom load shedding. Petrol Bills are high though. with coronavirus lockdown No Powershedding. Maybe Eskom can fix some of there much-unmaintained plant. All the designs on the 2 new Stations are wrong! Built by Hitachi the boilers need to be 1200mm higher as the steam is to hot for the turbines👎👎

We are lucky as our Ontario government has cut hydro costs for the next coming months so for a lower cost to us and we don't seem to have loss of power .
Rick

We have been lucky in SA with the lockdown - Eskom is not load shedding during that. Taken totally by surprise when better half's customer who runs a farm type B&B brought us a small generator and a UPS which will run my oxygen generator for at least 4 hours. Her husband had gone and bought new batteries for it prior to delivering it to us. Gobsmacked - don't know how to thank them . Don't need the machine all the time - used mainly at night to ensure a good nights sleep - occasionally on a bad day . Amazing how kind people can be.

Martin maybe he is using it as a wind powered generator for a boat ?

Good idea Jb.
I have seen a guy that has used an old bike wheel that has a built in dynamo in it, he fitted some thin aluminium blades to the spokes.
He never told me what he used it for.

Martin555.

Hi Martin, often thought of rigging up a car alternator on a weather vane to charge batteries. Always plenty of wind here near the sea.
JB

Hi Jb,
I have just started looking at Free Energy Generators on utube.
I will have to see what i have lying around to experiment with.
Just to have some emergency lighting.

Martin555.

I have a small 900w generator which I run from my garden shed for the odd power cut. Lets me have lights and TV etc but unfortunately won't run my fridge (just won't quite kick it off). Should really fork out for a 2000w to be safe. I Use gas for cooking which is handy for power cuts, and cheaper than power, (9kg lasts me for 3-4 months for $33.) Inverters are another handy thing to have for an emergency. Most people forget they have a big 12v generator sitting in their driveway if you are desperate for light or radio.

Your car will idle for days (depending on fuel and cat converter) and you can rig a system round your house to run 12v 5w car lamps (or better still LED lamps) which will light your whole house. you can run you car continuously as needed or just for re-charging, You can also charge your phone, cameras, watches etc. I did a test on a 12v 5w boat riding light on a dud 12v car battery run 24/7 and it was still going strong after 4 days, at which point I gave up. The lamp was enough to light the whole lounge up enough to move around safely. If you have a Tesla you're fine for years😁
JB

Hi Stephen,
Ref :- "Worked out my electric car can power the fridge, freezer and mobile phones for three months"
Now that is one hell of a big portable battery pack LOL!!!!

Martin555.

Hi Martin,

Sorry to hear that!
Hope it was a one time thing!

Cheers, Ed

What about the microwave oven Stephen?
Or are you going to suck the frozen food like big lollies?😋😁
Hope you've got an efficient inverter🤞
Or does your car run on 240V AC😁
Cheers, Doug 😎

Not sure it’ll be people at home, often it’s factories and offices and industries that put the strain on the network. More likely there’s less staff monitoring network loads and doing regular maintenance checks at the moment.

That said, I’m all ready for outages! Worked out my electric car can power the fridge, freezer and mobile phones for three months 👍😁

Stephen