Glad we bought a generator!

We recently had a bad thunderstorm and lost power in the park for over 5 hours and we needed our generator for the first time. We had run the generator once a month as part of our maintenance. During the May maintenance run the 20amp breaker at the generator kept flipping. It quit when we shut off the living room a/c. We planned to figure out what was on the 20amp vs. the 30amp legs at the June maintenance run. When we lost power last night and it was still hot outside we had to figure things out in a hurry.

Knowing that the living room a/c might cause problems we turned it off before we started the generator but the 20amp breaker flipped off. That required Bob to run out in the rain and dodge lightning and reset the breaker. There is a remote starter inside the unit so Bob did not have to go outside to start the generator which is real nice. We have DirecTV DVRs and when power is restored the DVRs start up and both are on the 20amp breaker. So while Bob is dancing in the rain Jo is frantically trying to turn off the DVRs. This happened two more times since we learned more each time we repeated this just how much was on the 20amp breaker. Turns out that the bedroom a/c and the microwave are the only things on the 30amp breaker and EVERYTHING else is on the 20amp breaker including all the outlets, the living room a/c, converter, refrigerator and water heater. Knowing this Bob switched the refrigerator and water heater to propane and unplugged or turned off everything plugged into an outlet. Doing this meant the last lightning dodging dance in the rain for Bob. Well maybe one more time since after we had done all of that we turned on the TV and still had power so we got cocky and turned on the surround sound system and yeah you guessed it, click and now no power. One last time outside and this time we ran the TV with the TV sound and not the surround sound system.

This story does have a happy ending because for the rest of the evening we had one air conditioner running and were able to watch TV comfortably cool. Then the power came back on and we plugged everything back in. We have been spoiled with 50amp shore power and the ability to run everything with impunity, maybe 30amp shore power at some of the parks will be roughing it.

Till next time,

Bob & Jo