Is a generator a wise thing to have?? (Colorado Springs, Black Forest: power lines, appliances)

[vnodak]

We are moving to the area this year. We have lived in rural Oregon and used a generator a few times. We now live in the Seattle area and specifically in unincorporated Snohomish where we have used a generator more than when we were in Oregon. We have been out of power for as long as three days but I have known others that have gone a week. My question is this, is it wise to bring the generator with us and look for places that already have hook ups or is it over kill there. I have lived in lots of areas where it has not really been much of a problem so I was just wondering. Thanks for the feedback. Vickie

[Mike from back east]

It's overkill for the main city which is served by Colo Springs Utilities, a city-owned outfit that IMO is near bullet-proof. Been here 8 years with them and had only a few short outages, like 20 and one of 90 minutes.

Depends where live, if outside the CSU service area you many need it but I rather doubt it; maybe some people out in those areas will speak up.

[beezle1]

I live in a semi rural area of northern Black Forest up on the Palmer Divide, served by MVEA (Mountain View Electric Assn), and I have never had a need for a generator in the 20 years I have lived up here. Only a few short outages (minutes to maybe 2 hours at most), and the biggest inconvenience that they caused for us was that since we are on well water up here, when we lose power, we also lose water.

One thing here is that most power lines are buried in the Colorado Springs area so we don't have a lot of issues with tree limbs falling on them and cutting off power like in many other areas of the country.

[otowi]

If you have space for it it doesn't hurt - my dad has one and has used it maybe once or twice in the past decade.

[hollyt00]

I lost power once when we had a blizzard. I was trying to bake bread and it didn't end well but we had power back very quickly. Still didn't save the bread :'(

[Miss Hepburn]

My friend at Cache and Institute didn't have electricity for days a few yrs ago...
Downed lines as I recall...I'll ask her more info....she then put in a woodstove.

That would be south of Uintah, west of Union area....so, north of downtown
by about 9 blocks

[vnodak]

Thanks for the replies. I think our issue here is lots of large trees and some areas without under ground utilities.

[otterprods]

I have one, and would recommend it for other too, because:
1) We have some pretty cold weather in the winter, and even a relatively short failure of an hour or two could leave you pretty cold and uncomfortable for a while, not knowing if/when the power will be back on. (besides, past performance does not guarantee future results).
2) Even if you have a gas heater (I do), things like electric thermostats and electrically triggered 'on' switches don't work with no power. Are you really willing to have NO way to heat your house in the case of an outage, however long?
3) Generators can come in really handy for many other things to like camping, picnics, etc. I have a neighbor that uses one to run a pump to get water onto the surface of a frozen pond to make a really nice outdoor skating rink. You could also run some tools/chargers off it at an off-grid worksite if needed.
4) They are really quiet, efficient and affordable these days, so if you can afford one get one it will very probably come in really handy one day when you really need it in a pinch. And all the more so if you already own one that you like. Why would you not bring it?

For the record: I'm really not talking about some sort of whole-house backup system, which would be overkill in most places (though still not a bad idea if you could afford it). I'm just talking about a little backup power to run a space heater or plug some basic appliances into if needed.

[lurtsman]

It's useful if you are going to be far away from the city, or if you plan to make trips away and want to bring a power source. If you will be anywhere within the city limits, you won't lose power for a meaningful amount of time. I suppose if you have extremely urgent work worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that must never go offline, that could create a need for a generator. In the year and a half I've been here. We lost power once for maybe 20 minutes or so. I think someone drove into a transformer or something. Finding out the specifics wasn't really important to me. I was just about to go to bed when it happened. Noticed the power was out, then we looked around the neighborhood, confirmed their power was out, and went to bed.

[phetaroi]

We lost power for about 5 hours on a hot summer night a year or two ago. Broken transformer. Best community get-together we ever had!

I did get a little worried last month in the middle of that very cold snap when the power went out one evening. But, it only lasted 2 hours.