| One of my preparations for Year 2000 was to | | | | from my generator shack to the house. The cable |
| purchase a four stroke gasoline electrical generator. | | | | would be buried in the ground.The electrician came and |
| There was no guarantee that there would be no | | | | made the changes to the wiring. The way it worked |
| electric power interruptions at the start of the year | | | | was, I would switch over to the generator cable. Then I |
| 2000 and I wanted a reliable power supply, just to be | | | | would start the generator. When it was running up to |
| ready. The generator I chose was a reliable four | | | | speed making adequate household power, I would plug |
| stroke Honda engine. The generator had a large gas | | | | in the cable to the generator's output plug. That was it. |
| tank so it could run on one tank for about four hours | | | | The house had its own power supply.There was |
| depending on how heavy the electrical load I was | | | | maintenance to do on the generator, since it was |
| using.Buying the generator was only the first step to | | | | brand new. Every new engine needs its oil changed |
| ensuring a reliable power supply, however, as | | | | when breaking it in. After the first few hours of running, |
| generators need fuel. I needed to acquire an adequate | | | | the dirty oil, full of metal bits from the break-in time, |
| supply of gasoline and oil to run it for as long as | | | | needs to be drained. This was not difficult to do. Just |
| required. I went to a oil company bulk plant and | | | | unscrew a bolt and let the oil drain into a shallow |
| purchased three 45 gallon drums one by one over the | | | | container. Once the dirty oil was removed, and the |
| span of a few weeks. Every few days I filled up 4 - 5 | | | | drain bolt tightened in place, clean fresh oil was poured |
| gallon jerry cans full of gasoline, at various gas stations | | | | into the oil reservoir.Even though nothing serious |
| in the area. When storing gasoline for a period of time | | | | occurred in my area during Y2K, there have been a |
| it is a good idea to ad a gasoline stabilization chemical | | | | few power outages, throughout the years and it has |
| to keep the gas from breaking down. An oil company | | | | been handy to have a back up power supply. Once |
| or hardware store should be able to tell you, where to | | | | each month I start up the generator and run it, plugged |
| buy such a chemical.I had the generator, the fuel, and | | | | into an electric heater. I let it run for about 5 minutes. |
| the oil to run it. What was left to do was to have the | | | | The electric heater is providing the electrical load, |
| power supply wired to my home electrical system. I | | | | needed to safely run the generator. The generator |
| obtained an estimate from a local electrician. It was not | | | | could be electrically damaged if run with nothing using |
| going to be cheap. One of the parts, a switching box, | | | | the power it produces. Using this system has ensured |
| cost $500.00. It would switch between the hydro | | | | trouble free use of this power supply for over seven |
| electricity line and my generator cable. I dug a ditch | | | | years. |