Repair-It

Generator running as of 2:20pm.

I hooked up the PowerBack and turned it on. Hopefully it works so I don't run the gen more than I need to.

I had to bang on the fuel bowl/carb a little to get it to start, then it started on one pull again. Still needs to be taken apart and cleaned out. But it is running fine. At light load the governor surges the engine a tiny bit but I think that is just how these old Briggs run. Under some load it is quite steady.

Been a little over 1-1/2 hours. Still running fine. I should go check on the gas soon. When I fill up I will check the oil.

Used the plywood with clamps just to keep the light snow off the panel. This snow is very heavy, also.

Shut it down at the 2 hour mark. Still had some gas left. Couldn't see exactly but maybe 1/3rd tank. Also checked the oil. It definitely moved down the dipstick. I may add a bit at the next fuel up.

National Grid power restoration changed from 11pm tonight to 2pm tomorrow. Hmm. May have to fire it up once to run the heat over night.

Gassed up. Topped off the oil to the top of the crosshatch.

Only used a 1/2 tank in a little over 2 hours. Not bad considering it's a small tank.

House got down to about 54 by 7am or so. It was 18 out according to my phone. I avoided having to run the generator at night to run the heat once, which was great. Also the fridge was still in temp range this morning, so that's another helpful data point.

Started it up around 7:20am. I added more oil and gas.

I expected the heat to kick on when I flipped the generator breaker but a lot more than that drew power. In fact, the following turned on simultaneously, after the generator ran for maybe 60-90 seconds:
- Furnace (burner, the fan is delayed)
- Hot water heater burner
- Well pump (at least I think so, we flushed the toilet several times and washed hands a few times during the night)
- Refrigerator
- A few lights

So far this thing is doing exactly as I had hoped.

On fuel usage, this morning I dumped the rest of the gas I had in my 2-1/2 gallon gas can in. I started with this yesterday and it wasn't even totally full. So let's call it 2 gallons for operating from like 2:20pm to around 9pm, and then another probably 3 hours today if I use the whole tank. Take off 30 minutes total between fuel ups to be conservative. That's about 9 hours of run time, very rough estimate on 2 gallons (also a rough estimate), plus what it had in the tank when I started. Call it 0.3 gallons per hour, or round up to 1/3rd. That's actually on the bottom end of my estimate (I figured 0.5 gal/hr on the high end, and maybe if it spends more time loaded that would be the case).

I will put this in the right place when I fix it but this happened: This antenna survived that Blizzard Nemo and here it's bent over. I need to inspect more closely if the chimney bands actually failed. They may have.

Gassed up 9:25am. Didn't add oil.