Newest posts are first. Scroll down on the right to see a list of Archive posts and also subject posts.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

No power for a week?

Good morning.
I write this in the comfort of our motor home.
We've decided to use it one more time this year. But not by choice.
Sunday, we headed over to Muskegon to see my Mom.
Cut her hair, emptied the trash, and took her to lunch and then the club. (the VFW)
While we were there, the sports channel that was on was interrupted by a weather advisory. Strong storms were heading into Michigan and the entire state was under a thunderstorm watch and a tornado watch. Mom thought we should cut our stay and head back to Lansing before the bad weather arrived. On the way back to her apartment, we stopped at the store for some supplies for Mom, and got her home. Hit the highway back to Lansing, and arrived safely ahead of the storms. I called Mom to let her know we arrived safe, and sat down in our TV room to watch the storm as it blew though. At one point the wind got incredible and the noise was deafening. Then the power went out. I called to report the outage, and we spent the evening playing on our tablets. Went to bed, still without power, and awoke with still no power. It was a cool 63 in the house when we awoke. Fortunately, the water in the water heater was still nice and warm for our showers. I checked outside to see numerous branches down, but nothing very large. I went over to the pole that the power line was on to see piles of sheet metal and 2x4s scattered around. Found out, they were from a shed behind our neighbor. The wind tore it off and blew it over the roof of their building and hit the power pole. There was damage and that was why we lost power. I called to get the automated time for restoring our power, and it said it should be restored by Sat. 11pm. SATURDAY?????
IT'S GOING TO TAKE A WEEK?
That's what happens when your just one home without power, you get pushed way down the list of repair priorities. 
So, with that, I went out to the Mo-ho, and turned the fridge on to transfer food.
I spent a good part of Monday un-winterizing the mo-ho and getting it ready to live in again.
Putting out the slides, I noticed that they seemed to be straining. Checked, and the house batteries were really low. I tried to start the generator, but not enough juice to get it going. So I started the mo-ho. That gave me enough juice to start the generator. I let it run an hour or so to charge the house batteries. After I turned it off, I ran the furnace and saw that the blower fan was draining the batteries way to fast. Those 11 year old batteries must be going bad. So.....I had to take them out, and find a place to get new ones. Told Craig to to run the engine to stay warm until I returned. It was only 41 out. Got back, got them installed, and we were good to go.
I did managed to run a phone line from the house to the mo-ho. And brought out the wireless modem, so I can get internet, but only while running the generator since the modem has to be plugged in, and all the plugs only have power if the mo-ho is plugged in or the gen is running. Soooo, I won't be online much this week until we're back in the house.
Oh, and Craig is doing pretty good. Still moving slow, and still quite sore. but he's slowly progressing.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:16 AM

    Isn't nice to have options? Been there done that.
    Gene in Ohio

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's why we're going to keep our RV. Just in case of an unexpected emergency.
    As handy as you are, I'm surprised you haven't already put in a line to keep your motor home batteries charged.
    Hubby did that for our trailer.
    Our heater runs off propane; but we need electricity to run the A/C on our trailer.
    Really glad that was all that happened to you. Hope they get your power back on sooner.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can't believe that you got 11 yrs. out of your old batteries, good for you! Looks like you guys are making the best of it and 5 days does seem long to wait to restore you power.....but, what can you do?
    Hopefully our tracks will cross sometime in the future.

    MarkandCraigInCalifornia

    ReplyDelete