[jasonglh]

During the Kentucky ice storm we went without power for 13 days. I just got my cable restored last week but have been quite busy.

I had a decent stockpile or so I thought but really did not have to dig very deep. I had a 5k watt Coleman powermate generator that is about 10 years old with very few hours on the motor. On the 2nd day the dry rotted gasket on the fuel cap got sucked into the carb and when I went to remove the fuel bowl sheared off the brass bolt/jet combo. It was a Tecumseh motor so I had no spare parts for. The next day we finished cutting trees down our road with the neighbors to get out and was able to secure a new part.

I have since bought a 2nd Generator with a Briggs and Stratton motor. I had 2 pressure washers frozen over at my garage and will be replacing 1 with a Briggs that has an identical motor. Looks like 4 bolts and I can swap the motors out if needed in a future emergency.

I had a large garbage bag filled with empty milk jugs so I did not have to open any of the 6 cases of water I have stored. I also did not have to use anything out of my 3 month emergency supply of food. We ate out of the freezer and used an electric griddle, propane turkey deep fryer and my coleman fuel campstove.

When all the pumping stations went down and we lost fresh water I melted snow and ice in the turkey deep fryer to allow us to flush the toilet.

We bought ourselves gas logs for Christmas this year and they were supposed to drop a 250 gal tank but apparently dropped a 120 gal instead. We came very close to running out before they could refill it so when its empty again I will get it swapped out for the 250 gal tank.

Over at the garage/guest house I had a propane reddy heater and another 120 gal propane tank. We used the 2nd generator to run the reddy heater over there to try to keep it from freezing. My brother lives there full time until he and his wife save to build a house. There is also a woodburner in the garage that did a fairly good job by itself of keeping things above freezing when the generator was off.

Every trip to Walmart I try to buy something to put in our emergency supplies. We were in good shape with batteries, propane, camp stove fuel and non perishable food. Having hundred of lbs of ground beef/deer and lots of hamburger helper was useful.

We had considerable damage and had a claim for $25k. They will be reroofing most all structures on the property, repairing lots of decking and the bar/party house had a water leak that ruined the furniture and carpet. The insurance company is also reimbursing me for purchasing the 2nd generator as well. If I hadn't busted my ass to keep the main house from freezing they would have been replacing my geo thermal unit and they knew it.

I am going to have a transfer switch installed to run our entire circuit panel and may look at buying a PTO generator. I have a 56 hp tractor that can run a 27500 watt pto generator. I am also going to replace every light blub with compacts.