De-generator-ation
Jan. 15th, 2007 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterWell, in case you missed my voice post this morning, the generator went out at about 7:30 last night and wouldn't come back on. So we passed the evening in dimness; I read by candle and lamplight and ended up with a headache that lasted all night and until breakfast. I need to see if I can't pester my Dad into getting a Coleman lamp prepped for tonight. If, that is, we're without power tonight.
After several hours of fruitless puttering with the generator, Dad finally gave up and cooked an omelet on the gas grill outside. He fiddled with it some more after breakfast, to the point of disassembling the carburator, but no dice. Finally, he called in a neighbor who knows all about gas generators. This neighbor belongs to some religious sect that believes in minimizing outside dependence, so uses waste oil to run generators to power his household. He also does web design, though has been slowed down a bit since losing several fingers in a shop accident a couple years back. (The funny thing about life in the Ozarks is that sooner or later you realize that the hillbilly clichés only became clichés because they were true first.)
It turned out that the generator was half a quart low on oil; generator manufacturers put hypersensitive oil sensors in their generators because people tend to let them run low on oil and ruin them. He poured more oil in, and it started right up. And so here I am.
The plan now is to try to run the generator all night, to power the heat lamp in the wellhouse from which our water comes, and keep the pump and pipes from freezing in the 6 degree weather tonight and zero degree tomorrow night. Hopefully it'll work. Not that I'm biased in favor of having power or anything…
After several hours of fruitless puttering with the generator, Dad finally gave up and cooked an omelet on the gas grill outside. He fiddled with it some more after breakfast, to the point of disassembling the carburator, but no dice. Finally, he called in a neighbor who knows all about gas generators. This neighbor belongs to some religious sect that believes in minimizing outside dependence, so uses waste oil to run generators to power his household. He also does web design, though has been slowed down a bit since losing several fingers in a shop accident a couple years back. (The funny thing about life in the Ozarks is that sooner or later you realize that the hillbilly clichés only became clichés because they were true first.)
It turned out that the generator was half a quart low on oil; generator manufacturers put hypersensitive oil sensors in their generators because people tend to let them run low on oil and ruin them. He poured more oil in, and it started right up. And so here I am.
The plan now is to try to run the generator all night, to power the heat lamp in the wellhouse from which our water comes, and keep the pump and pipes from freezing in the 6 degree weather tonight and zero degree tomorrow night. Hopefully it'll work. Not that I'm biased in favor of having power or anything…