Well that was close

Slick Fork · #1 02-19-2009, 05:09 AM

Sometimes murphy gets you, sometimes you duck a big one. That's how we felt last night. Came home from work yesterday and realized something was wrong when I could see my breath in house. After a little checking I realized the power was out. Raced down to the basement to check on the tank while my wife called the power company, stuck a finger in the water and wow was it ever cold. Stuck a thermometer in it, 12 thats right TWELVE degrees celcius (about 50-55 degrees for all you fahrenheiters). So obviously the power had been out for quite some time. If I had to guess I would put it around noon as I had a show scheduled for the pvr that never got recorded

My wife gets off the phone and enmax can have someone out to fix the power in about an hour and a half. I run out to get the generator I bought from crappy tire for just such an occasion and I can't even get the piece of garbage to light up, not even 6 hours on the thing and it's doing this so we light a fire in the wood burning stove (which is fortunately just 10 feet from the tank) and hope for the best.

Enmax comes, power goes back on and tonight you wouldn't ever know anything happened. All the fish are fine, not even any real browning with the coral. Sometimes you just get lucky I guess.

my2rotties · #2 02-19-2009, 05:30 AM

What a nightmare!!! Had a similar situation here in Bragg Creek. The power went out at 11am, and didn't come back on until almost 7pm. I was home having a meltdown all afternoon. A wonderful Canreef friend told me to come get his generator and I drove like a madwoman to get it in Calgary. I got home and all the lights were on and the water was warming up. My temp went down to 65F and the fish we not doing well at all. They also were running out of air and I could see them trying hard to breath.

We are getting a generator right away, as this is not a good thing. HOwever if you are not home it won't help much if they go too long. An electrician friend said you can buy a switch for $1500 that will turn your generator on when the power fails. Beyond that I don't know much more about it.

Glad everything is okay. That was very lucky.

Delphinus · #3 02-19-2009, 05:40 AM

Wow.

Hope everything does OK. I cannot imagine the panic I would feel if I could see my breath indoors. Did they/Enmax figure out what the problem was?

Slick Fork · #4 02-20-2009, 01:20 AM

It was the line that connects the properties power to the main lines. Once the guy got here it was a quick fix. The joys of country living I guess! Checked on everything tonight and all looks good.

One of the things I would love to look into is a whole house battery backup, or possibly starting a small solar/wind generating system to power critical household stuff like the well, furnace, fridge, return pump for the tank, etc. I think the next place we get ourselves into it would be really cool to build from scratch and get 100% off grid so I don't have to worry about a line failure 10 miles away killing all my stuff!

Trigger Man · #5 02-20-2009, 01:37 AM

I finally went out and got a 1800w backup for my rp and a 650 w backup for one of my heaters just to be safe a little while back. I always said next time next time, and then a bit ago the power was off for 4 hours and I realized that in my delaying and being cheap and wanting to rather spend the money on corals and fish I could have lost everything and that would have cost a lot more then the backups. Now I feel a lot more safe and know that the tank should be able to sustain itself for a while in the worst case situations.
I'm glad your tank is doing well with no ill effects, it's stories like yours that remind me that the backup units were a good investment.

Keri · #6 02-20-2009, 04:31 AM

I'm so glad your tank is ok!! That's a situation everyone here dreads!

I was eyeballing a generator that cdn tire had on sale this week for $150 but I want one that's for SURE going to start when I need it and I think that may cost a few more pennies.

my2rotties · #7 02-20-2009, 04:42 AM

Costco has a 5000w generator for about $600

emerald crab · #8 02-20-2009, 05:06 AM

Generators are great, as long there is somebody home to start it up, other-way they're useless.

wickedfrags · #9 02-20-2009, 11:44 AM

As my2rotties mentioned, you can get a transfer switch wired to a generator with an eletronic start. This transfers power to your generator in the event of a power interruction. This needs to be installed by an eletrician as if you wire it incorrectly, your generator will send electricity back out through the feeds to your home during a power outage, and well the people working on the lines will not like that and come looking for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by emerald crab

Generators are great, as long there is somebody home to start it up, other-way they're useless.

fishytime · #10 02-20-2009, 12:50 PM

Oh man. Im glad everything seems fine. Ive been soooooo lucky. No POs for me for years.