WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out

[SuperSleeper]

I have a truck battery in the garage, I keep a float charger on it 24/7 and when the power goes out I use the battery with an inverter to run my bipap, ( turn off the humidifier). My blue cross wont pay for a good cpap from battery geek ( 400 bucks) so for now no camping but if Im at home Im covered.

[SuperSleeper]

I've got a back up generator in the shed. I shut the main breaker off in the house, then back feed the outlet in the shed. I have my furnace, hot water heater and a few outlets and lights in the house that are working. My machine has a alarm on it, when the electricity goes off, it sounds off.

PapaGoat - welcome to Apnea Board!

Does this setup cause any sort of risk? I'm not an electrician, but I do have a small generator, and are you saying you just flip the Main grid breaker off, then plug the generator into one of the outlets, and it feeds the entire house's outlets that way?

Sorry for the delay in an answer. I'm not seeing where to know there are reply's to a thread and I don't get back enough to find where I left off at LOL.

I have three friends that are electricians, one of them feeds back the same way I do. As long you shut the main off it will not feed back to anyone on a pole. However, if the line man sees your running a generator they will ask you to shut it off, and you can't blame them how do they know your main is off!!

And I am well ventilated the exhaust goes out side. I've test run my system for 3 hours, it works great.

The risk is there you have a jumper that has two male ends. Make sure everything is correct. I have a check list. It reads, shut the main off in the house. Shut all breakers off, plug jumper into shed outlet then plug into generator. Then start the generator. Go in the house and turn on one breaker at a time so as not to overload the generator. Then I do everything almost in reverse when I see the neighbors lights come on. Shut the breakers off one at a time, shut the generator off. Unplug the outlet from the generator first, then from the shed outlet. Go in the house turn on the main braker then turn on one breaker at a time.

Out of the three electrician friends I have none of them found fault in doing this.

And it does not feed the entire house. It only feeds what is on the same bus as the one your plugged into. A breaker box is broke up into two copper or aluminum buses that run the entire length of your breaker box. Depending on which bus your plugged into will determine which outlets will work in the house. I'm not a electrician but had the aid of one when I did it. So my explanation will be rusty but the point is there, you will not feed the entire house, and the breakers will not go down one side it will be down one then the other so part of one side will work and part of the other will not. That is why I turn all my breakers back on, I have no idea which one will be live.

I had to change one of my breakers to get my hot water heater to work at the same time as my furnace. And as I said I had a licensed electrician help me.

[SuperSleeper]

:-) ok, I live in Africa and go camping in the bush a lot. Previously my trusty S8, and for the last year, my S9 seen a lot of "out of town" work. I run the S9 and humidifier of 105Ah batteries via an inverter and get about 4 nights of CPAP per fully charged 105Ah battery.

Even at home I keep a 105Ah or two handy and connected. ....nothing worse than waking up in the big silence of the CPAP dead during a power outage.

My car has a dual battery system I utilise to charge the battery when the "grid" fails or during camping trips.

[SuperSleeper]

:-) ok, I live in Africa and go camping in the bush a lot. Previously my trusty S8, and for the last year, my S9 seen a lot of "out of town" work. I run the S9 and humidifier of 105Ah batteries via an inverter and get about 4 nights of CPAP per fully charged 105Ah battery.

Hi Jaco, welcome to Apnea Board!

Just wondering, after 4 nights using your S9 and humidifier using your 105 amp-hour battery (through the inverter), what kind of charge is your battery left with - ie- what voltage is the battery brought down to?

Also, are you using a standard liquid-acid deep cycle battery or AGM or other type?

Thanks.

[SuperSleeper]

Hurricane Irene , August 2011 :

Winds, rain pound North Carolina as Hurricane Irene closes in.

Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the U.S. East Coast, forcing evacuations in states from North Carolina to New York, darkening Broadway, closing transit agencies and threatening power outages that might last weeks.

Authorities warned of widespread and prolonged power outages, flash flooding and storm surges that could flood low-lying communities and possibly inundate subway systems. The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority will shut down its system at noon Saturday. Five airports in metropolitan New York will close to arriving flights beginning at noon Saturday.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/27/tropical.weather/

[SuperSleeper]

Hey All,

I know nothing about batteries etc... but I went to the local hardware store ( Canadian Tire) and picked up a 100 amphour deep cycle marine battery( $120), a 200 watt inverter ( $40) and a lighter socket adapter( $7) to connect the inverter to the battery and a 20watt solar charger ( $26). The charger comes with suction cups for sticking to the windshield of your car or RV but I stuck mine to the bedroom window. My battery is in my closet with the wires from the solar charger connected so it's virtually unnoticable. This maintains a constant charge to the battery.

The other night a big storm ( tornado watch) was in effect so I hooked up my inverter to the lighter adapter connected the battery clamps to the battery and plugged my S9 into my inverter. This set up worked like a charm...slept all night hooked up to my battery and never even noticed the power had gone out.

I do not know how long I could run like this but I think that the charger would charge the battery back to full power each day. For a couple of hundred bucks it seems a very good investment.

Tom

[SuperSleeper]

Out of the three electrician friends I have none of them found fault in doing this.

They should all lose their licenses...

Besides the dangers already mentioned another big danger is to others who don't know/understand back-feeding. Back feeding creates a non-standard configuration, one only known to the back-feeder, it also assumes that the electrical system is in proper working order and not compromised in any way (poor grounds, etc.) I've experienced this first hand when with someone who's son had back feed her house with a generator, the older women had no clue and kept insisting that the house "had power" and didn't understand why the coffee maker wouldn't work in the kitchen outlet. Thankfully she didn't try to flip any breakers in the breaker panel.

The bottom line to all this is whether the convenience/laziness of back-feeding warrants the risk, there are better ways to do this.

[SuperSleeper]

I have three friends that are electricians, one of them feeds back the same way I do. As long you shut the main off it will not feed back to anyone on a pole. However, if the line man sees your running a generator they will ask you to shut it off, and you can't blame them how do they know your main is off!!

The risk is there you have a jumper that has two male ends. Make sure everything is correct. I have a check list. It reads, shut the main off in the house. Shut all breakers off, plug jumper into shed outlet then plug into generator. Then start the generator. Go in the house and turn on one breaker at a time so as not to overload the generator. Then I do everything almost in reverse when I see the neighbors lights come on. Shut the breakers off one at a time, shut the generator off. Unplug the outlet from the generator first, then from the shed outlet. Go in the house turn on the main braker then turn on one breaker at a time.

Out of the three electrician friends I have none of them found fault in doing this.

I agree, the electricians should lose their licenses if they didn't tell you this is very much against the electrical code and may actually be illegal. It is dangerous. There's too much chance you'll forget something or someone else will throw a switch they shouldn't.

If you get caught by the utility, they will be very unhappy. They may cut your service off. Some of them will even try to get you prosecuted for it.

Backfeeding has killed a few electric company employees, so they have gotten very serious about this and have even gotten laws against it in some places.

[SuperSleeper]

There are proper ways to power the entire house with a generator. Many homes and commercial buildings in the "hurricane states" have automatic generators that come on when the power goes out. The key is to have an automatic transfer switch that disconnects the main power connection so that the generator power cannot backfeed into the power grid. It basically isolates the building from the grid while the generator is running. When the power comes back on, the generator shuts back down and the switch reconnects to the power distribution system. This is how hospitals, fire stations, grocery stores, and gas stations stay in operation during power outages.

For the home, if a generator will be used to power the whole house, the connection should be done by a liscensed electrician, a permit should be pulled, and the work should be inspected to ensure that it is up to local code.

If generators are plugged directly into an appliance, such as by running a cord to the refridgerator, of course there is no way to backfeed into the power system. This is how I use my generator during hurricane season, powering just a few essentials. I've lost power for as much as 8-9 days, so it's not really something I consider optional!

And the usual safety message applies: never run a generator inside a structure since the carbon monoxide emissions will kill you!

[SuperSleeper]

never run a generator inside a structure since the carbon monoxide emissions will kill you!

AMEN, brother.

This also includes the attached garage, even if you leave the door open.

Every time we get a long power outage we get a dead family or two who fired up a generator in the garage.