Power-failure

Photo by BobbaLew.

The stand-by generator.

Yesterday (Sunday, January 20th, 2013) was extremely windy, enough to blow down trees and knock out power-lines.
So I lost electric-power, first time since my wife died last April.
We (I) had (have) a stand-by generator, but it’s flaky in extremely cold weather.
It’s fueled by natural-gas, and apparently if it’s cold enough condensation freezes in the gas-line, blocking gas-flow.
The stand-by self-tests once a week. It starts and runs 10 minutes.
That is, it tries to start. If the fuel-line is plugged it can’t fire up. It cranks for a while then gives up.
A red light comes on indicating it over-cranked.
It was 41 degrees yesterday morning, warm enough to thaw a freeze.
When the electricity failed the stand-by didn’t come on.
So I went outside to see if the tiny red “over-crank” light was on.
It had been extremely cold earlier.
The red-light was on, so I switched the stand-by over to manual start. It cranked then fired.
Still no lights, so I went out again and switched it over to “set,” the position it’s in to sense power-failure.
20 seconds passed, per as it should, then the stand-by cranked and started.
Back inside I had lights.
The stand-by pushes other things. Both my furnace and water-heater need electricity, plus my freezers are on it. Plus my garage-door opener. My garage-door is so big and heavy it used to take two to open it manually, my wife and I. —Which is why I (we) had the garage-door on the stand-by.
Apparently the power-company was dorking around trying to get electricity to our street.
Electricity came back long enough for the stand-by to quit. Then the electricity dove again, leaving me without lights.
My stand-by didn’t restart. Perhaps enough electricity was getting through to trick the stand-by into not taking over.
I went back outside and did the manual-start drill again. And switched over to “set.”
Back to lights again; but I figured I better not take my dog to the park; that is, away from my house.
I walked my dog around the property, and the stand-by quit, as did my neighbor’s stand-by across the street.
Apparently the broken power-line was repaired.
Even when my wife was alive, a power-failure was frightening. The stand-by would kick on, and then we’d wait for the grid-electricity to return.
What happened yesterday was similar, although I didn’t feel that frightened and discombobulated.
And that’s despite my lack of confidence since my wife died.
I went out and fiddled the stand-by into doing its job.