Power Outages: What's Your Experience?

[SarcasticDave94]

As far as I know I have not had any power outages during the night hours. We have underground utilities, which seems to minimize this from happening. I voted above as a guess to what would probably occur if we did have an outage, based on noticing very brief outages of a second or so occasionally last month.

BTW I am only aware of those very brief outages from the beeping alarm on our UPS for the home network wireless router, modem, and WiFi transponder for the garage door opener with battery backup.

[Sleepster]

With those UPS batteries, you're only going to get anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours of CPAP usage out of it.

Mine starts beeping at me, and along with the air filter machine shutting off, that's usually enough to wake us both. The last time it happened I reached over, turned the humidifier down to zero to extend battery life, then went back to sleep. Power came back on before morning.

The time before that was Hurricane Harvey. We lost power for about six hours (very fortunate compared to many others). A UPS won't get you through that, especially if you have the humidifier on. (The element that heats the humidifier water is the culprit). In that case I went out to my car, pulled the battery, brought it in the bedroom and hooked it up to my PRS1, a CPAP machine that runs natively on 12 volts DC. With no humidifier it lasts a long time. Put the battery back in the car the next morning and the car started right up. Doing this a lot will shorten the life a car battery and an alternator, but this is only the second time I've done it in over six years. If you do this a lot you really should use a battery charger to recharge the battery before putting it back in the car. This won't help the battery, but it will help extend the life of the alternator.

[MitchS]

We have a big diesel generator, but the last power outage it didn't work.  I am pretty sure that the fuel froze and I have to do something to make sure that doesn't happen again.  When it works it waits 15 seconds before starting and then runs until the power comes back on.  I live in northern New Hampshire where we get -40 fahrenheit.  Diesel fuel turns to jelly.  It's really beautiful up here but cold in the winter!

Larry,

You might try Diesel 911 by Power Service. You can find it at most auto parts stores and I even saw it In Walmart the other day. We use it with all of our diesel equipment, although our temperatures don’t get anywhere near what yours do.

[MitchS]

We’ve had one power outage since I started cpap over two years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant way to wake up.

[LarryRapp]

Pupcamper,

What's Diesel 911?  How much would I need for a 275 gallon tank (if you know)?  Thanks!

[SarcasticDave94]

We have a big diesel generator, but the last power outage it didn't work.  I am pretty sure that the fuel froze and I have to do something to make sure that doesn't happen again.  When it works it waits 15 seconds before starting and then runs until the power comes back on.  I live in northern New Hampshire where we get -40 fahrenheit.  Diesel fuel turns to jelly.  It's really beautiful up here but cold in the winter!

Larry,

You might try Diesel 911 by Power Service. You can find it at most auto parts stores and I even saw it In Walmart the other day. We use it with all of our diesel equipment, although our temperatures don’t get anywhere near what yours do.

This may be the same or similar, but there's a bottle of additive at most truck stops that is supposed to be real good at de-gelling diesel fuel. I've never had to use it, but I've heard it does work. Over the road truck tractors that I drove had a pair of fuel tanks equaling 300 gallons.

[SarcasticDave94]

Pupcamper,

What's Diesel 911?  How much would I need for a 275 gallon tank (if you know)?  Thanks!

Heard of:
Northwood's Truck Stop
161 Main St, Colebrook, NH 03576

They may have it or Wal-Mart if nearby. Wal-Mart is listing 80 oz at around $16

BTW ...Diesel 911 is a chemical fuel additive where you should just add it to your fuel tank and it will basically "warm" the gelled fuel making it a liquid again.

[MitchS]

Pupcamper,

What's Diesel 911?  How much would I need for a 275 gallon tank (if you know)?  Thanks!

It looks like our company is  using the wrong product to prevent gelling and freeze ups. Diesel 911 de-gells after gelling has occurred and helps thaw frozen fuel systems. We should actually be using Diesel Fuel Supplement +Cetane Boost by Power Service, which we have in the past, or a combination of the two products for prevention.

A quart of either will treat 100 gallons.

[SarcasticDave94]

Going by pupcamper's info of 32oz treating 100 gallon, the 80 oz bottle should be good for 250 gallons I think.

[MitchS]

88oz should work. I multiply the number of gallons it takes to fill my tank at the end of the day by .32 figure how much product to add to the fuel.