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We've just moved here this summer and we're considering getting an emergency back up generator for our house. We have elderly people here who cannot be left without heat etc, and we're wondering how often we will need to use it.
Can anyone who has lived here for a while give me an idea how often your power has been out for 4-5 hours or more? Per year? Over 5 years?
Last edited by kck69; 12-01-2007 at 02:03 PM..
Reason: clarity
I've been without power for more than one hour twice in the past 10+ years (maybe 20 years - can't remember that far back anymore ). A few years ago, we had a big ice storm. Knocked down all the power lines, and covered the road with a few inches of ice. Took 4-5 days to get our power back, although we were one of the last in Wake County to get our power back. We were fine with the cold weather, but moved to a hotel once the water went out (we are on a community well).
Prior to that, there was the case where hurricane Fran (was that the one?) came through the area. Knocked down a bunch of trees, and the trees knocked down the power lines. We lost power around 10:30PM, and had power back by 10:30AM the next morning. We were lucky, though, as we were near a fire station. Some neighbors a block away didn't get power back for a week.
So, in my experience, there is a long power outage around every 5-10 years. Depending on where you live, you may see some shorter power outages periodically. I don't really see any more than a few minutes where I live. For most, that doesn't justify a power generator, but with elderly people it may present a problem.
We've lived here 5 years now. Our power was off about 48 hours with that ice storm in dec '02...otherwise, our power's not been out more than about an hour at most and that's happened just a couple times.
BTW: During Dec '02 we lived ITB in Raleigh and now live in North Hills area.
We've just moved here this summer and we're considering getting an emergency back up generator for our house. We have elderly people here who cannot be left without heat etc, and we're wondering how often we will need to use it.
Can anyone who has lived here for a while give me an idea how often your power has been out for 4-5 hours or more? Per year? Over 5 years?
We've had one 35 minute power outage in the past 4 years.
I understand that 5 years ago they did have a huge icestorm that caused a much longer one for some folks, but it isn't a common thing for the power to go out in most areas.
When we lived in cary, for some reason our neighborhood had the power go out, just in flashes, on a regular basis. The only time we had a real issue was the ice storm in 02, and it was out for 5 days. Now, in all of the neighborhoods surrounding ours had power, somehow we were skipped.
We moved to wake forest in 05 and have not had any major power outages.
When we lived in cary, for some reason our neighborhood had the power go out, just in flashes, on a regular basis.
We live in Cary, and we do seem to get a lot of short outages. We also were part of a fluke outage when some kind of substation blew up a couple years ago and lost power for about 9 hours. We've been our house 4 years.
My siblings lived in this area and both had very small children when Fran came through in 1996. They lost power for 4-5 days. I think that's what inspired my brother to buy his generator.
I've lived here my whole life and never owned a generator, although I wished I had one twice in my life, once after Fran and once after the ice storm. Both times we didn't have electricity for 1-2 weeks. But that is basically twice in almost 40 years?
More often, you'll get outages once or twice a year for max a day, usually much more like a few hours.
If they have a fireplace you can get gas logs and it won't matter if they have heat or not!
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). A few years ago, we had a big ice storm. Knocked down all the power lines, and covered the road with a few inches of ice. Took 4-5 days to get our power back, although we were one of the last in Wake County to get our power back. We were fine with the cold weather, but moved to a hotel once the water went out (we are on a community well).
