I'm editing and I just found something that didn't make sense.
The power is out at the moment due to the storm.
No, there isn't a generator either, or else, she would have lit the whole house, or at least places where she was at.
Aneways,
down in the basement is a stone cold room.
A scene takes place in there.
But how are they able to see?
Is there something better than just flashlights?
I ask, b/c I have one character chained to the wall (Seth).
I have the neighbor how put him there. and Ivory who is arguing with him to leave her home.

well, when he does leave and Ivory let's Seth down, there is also a sceane where it seems that it is just bright as day down there.

Ane ideas would be helpful.
thanks =)
true true. I could have candles set on the wall for the neighbor to lite when he got down there.
liking the torch idea...
=D
and this particular room doesn't have windows.

Candles or lanterns would work...but since this is a room made entirely of stone, you could also make it seem like a dungeon (since Seth is chained to the wall, this would add to the dungeon-like atmosphere). Torches were often used in dungeons. They lined the walls and a person would light them one by one and fill the room with light.

i don't see why we couldn't also have tv, fridge, ac, anything, working that way. no more electric bills. just have a winding gear by the la-z-boy that attaches to the whole electronics in the house and give it a wind every few hours. family or roommates could take shifts so you wouldn't have to get up from sleep to wind the fridge, etc. i'm trying to get away from power bills. generators are too noisy and solar panels are too expensive. also i'm in florida and dreading losing power for a week throughout hurricane season. anybody know a website or store that sells things that go on wind-up power? other alternatives to electricity? thanks!

Great idea!
You are so bright.
I ride an exercise bike an hour a day and there are lots of them at the health club I go to. I sometimes wonder why they are not attached to generators to power the whole club.
There are about 30 people riding those machines all the time. Why not generate electricity that way?
I'm in Fla.too, southeast Fla. and we have power outages during the hurricanes.
I think that exercise bikes are the answer. It would also motivate you to ride it everyday if you knew you had to so you would have power.

We can create AC from DC - the best example is House hold Inverters. We can inturn create DC from AC- Best example is mobile phone charger producing 15 v for ex. So why cant we generate Continuous AC for our house hold equipments and loop the same power needed for generating AC. Just we can loop back DC and generate AC. We have optimum power booster circuits which requires little power to run and boost the input voltage to a max level. Then we can convert to AC again. A little AC can be used to generate DC as a back loop input. So we can get a continous source of electricity for the whole house. Why cant any scientist do this? I am from electronics and comm engineer. But i cant design a machine. But why cant others? We have so many scientist in this world. WHy nobody tried it? Now if you think we cant get power from nothing then we can run a generator with fuel to give initial power. So now u got power. Lets boost it and links the loops as i said earlier. Why is it not possible?

Power is the rate of transfer of energy. When power is produced, energy is continuously converted from one form and delivered in another. In the case of conventionally produced electrical power, something is burned to convert the chemical energy that it contains to heat, a form of energy. The heat is then used to operate an engine that converts the heat energy to mechanical energy in the form of a turning shaft that can transmit torque. The mechanical energy is then used to turn a generator that converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy consisting of a voltage pushing an electrical current through a wire. As long as the current continues to flow, it transmits energy that is ultimately used to perform work.

The flow of energy is a continuous process. Energy can not be created from nothing to keep it flowing there must be a continuous input.

In the case of nuclear fission energy, some mass is converted to energy when an atom is split. Energy = mass X speed of light squared.

I live in south florida and I was wondering if this hurricane season was going to be as bad as the last few years? We probably won't get hit because we just bought a huge generator to power up our whole house, and its like washing your car and it rains right? but statistically speaking any hurricanes?

my mother lives in south florida too....and i'm always watching the weather channel and what not...they said this year wouldn't be as bad as last year....however, last year was pretty bad....so i would still be aware.....sounds like there will still be alot of activity this year too.....

I recently overheard some people talking about power, and one of the fellows brought up a very confusing statement. One guy related that he had a power generator that used very little if any fuel to work, and that it supplied his whole house with power during an outage on 3 occasions with no incident. Intrigued I listened to them more intently. This gentleman said he was going to cancel his commercial power, and use the generator exclusively for his home needs. At the mention of this the other man piped in with the "fact" that to disconnect from commercial power and use generated power was illegal during a time when commercial power was in service and available. That made no sense to me. How is that illegal, if that absurd statement is even true?
I guess i mean that if you were to totally disconnect from commersh power. Is it illegal then to use generated power, If commersh was still readily available in the area. I got the impression from the conversation that we had no option but to use commersh unless it was an emergency and nothing else during normal operating times. The answers are great though very insightful.

There are transfer switches for back up generators. If utility goes down, it'll disconnect from utility automatically and go to generator power(ATS's) Most utilities run at 13800 volts for primary and kicked down through the transformers secondary to 220volts.So if your main was still on and the generator was on the opposite would happen. You could kill one of the lineman working the lines. That could be a by-law for your area. Residential ATS's are on the market. Gentrans

Our power went out due to wind damage from hurricane Ike, in Pennsylvania. We have not had power for 4 days now, but luckily I was able to get a generator and have saved our fridge and freezer. My question is what can I power with this generator. It is a 5000 watt generator, and I was told that this should be able to power the whole house. Only thing is, I have a lot to run in my house. We have well water, heat with an electric heat pump, which has electric back up heat, and also an electric hot water heater. The well pump has a double pole 20 amp breaker, hot water double pole 30 amp breaker, heat pump double pole 25 amp, and furnace double pole 60 amp and double pole 30 amp. Will the 5000 watt generator be able to power any one of these at a given time? I know I am SOL for using them all at once, but switching between them would not be a big deal to me. Also, I know that I should not back feed into my house, and plan on getting a manual transfer switch to do the job. I just need to know if I need to get a bigger generator before I start looking at transfer switches. Thanks for the help.

I'd consider the generator to power all but the furnace, although not all at once. If you hope to include the furnace you're looking at upwards of a 20kW generator.
During outages I power twelve circuits in my house with a 5500 watt generator. Oil fired furnace, fridge, freezer, well pump, and several other circuits connect to the transfer panel. There isn't any power to spare, but I can't justify the expense of upgrading for the few outages that happen.
I may have other items of assistance on my web page listed below.

I know this sounds odd but my question is this. I am having to move into a house where the electricity is not working currently. We want be getting it fixed for another month. The whole house needs to be rewired. We have a generator but it is very loud and sucks up a lot of gas. I have tons of candles and I will be buying other types of lighting but I was wonder what is the best thing to get. Hoping that maybe there is something out there that I don't know about... you never know. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
To the person speaking about it being unsanitary. Like I stated before... we have a generator.. So we will be able to run it so that we can take showers and run the toilet... We just can leave it on 24/7

Check out the campng gear section fo the store . . there are battery operated lanterns that last a long time and have a lot of light..

we are on day 8 of no power due to Ike. We bought a 7200/8400 watt generator and it is running the whole house, even my dryer (if I turn off everything else)... So, it's getting HOT here and we thought we might try to run the 'fan' setting on our A/C unit (NO compressor!) at night when the air is cool. But the blower won't come on. Is it the generator, or is something else the problem?

I have the system set to 'off' and the fan set to 'on'..it is a programmable thermostat if that makes a difference.

the generator should be able to handle the a/c fan however the a/c fan is probably two twenty power and you are probably only supplying one ten to the house. (dryer motor and timer is one ten) look at your supply and connections. tmnm

We lose power often in our town (basically every time there is bad weather) and we are tired of everything getting spoiled so we are thinking of getting a generator.

Anyone know the best type to get? How much they generally cost?

I guess we just need one that would back of the fridge and some lights (doesn't need to power the whole house because when we move we want to be able to take it).

Any advice on generators is appreciated!
Yeah it would have to be less than $1000, we can't afford anything too expensive.

We can hook it up ourselves or do we need an electrician?

I have a 7500K Generac. Home Depot sells them for under $1000.00. They come with a special extension cord that lets you hook up at least three items. You can use another cord and hook up more. Mine is gas. You keep it outside. I run my cord through the doggie door when I need it. They are very simple. You can probably use a smaller unit for what you want. But get the largest you can afford. Mine is an electric start. You just press a button.

I am installing a generator in my house (professionally of course). It will be a 8000W continuous and 10000W surge. I am not 100% on HOW to do it. Do I need to get a subpanel with individual circuits? Or can I get a single transfer switch to power the WHOLE house?

You can install a transfer panel either way. In my house the transfer panel powers 12 circuits. During an outage the living room lights are not powered by the generator. They provide a ready indication for when power returns. With a whole house manual transfer panel you would not have a ready indication and would have to monitor neighbours or occasionally switch back.
I have pictures and other information on my generator web page.

http://members.rennlist.org/warren/generator.html