Question: My husband and I are seniors who live in one of the foothill areas of Montecito and are very concerned about the power now being turned off so frequently when even just the slightest wind is blowing.
We have expensive medication and food in our refrigerator and freezer that we rely on and don’t want to throw away after the next power outage.
I have friends who have purchased generators, and we want one also. Can you tell us what we need to do; we are pretty handy and do all sorts of projects around the house.
Another concern we have is that many of our neighbors have had problems caused by power surges when Edison turns the power back on. Please tell us how we can protect against that happening to us.
Your Handyman: After two rainy seasons back-to-back with record precipitation, we now are in an extremely serious wildfire hazard situation due to basically no rain. When was the last time you were watering the plants in your yard with a garden hose in the middle of January?
Thank goodness that santa ana winds generally do not affect Santa Barbara County’s coastal areas. Many thoughts and prayers for the people throughout Los Angeles County whose homes burned earlier this month.
Last weekend, the East Mountain Drive area around Cold Spring Creek was abuzz with the sound of natural gas-powered generators doing their job, providing power to some of the homes whose power was shut off by Edison.
I had never heard one of these generators running before and was very surprised how loud they were. They probably can be enclosed with a sound cover.
To install this type of generator system is going to require the services of an electrician to make the necessary changes to your circuit breaker panel and to connect it to the generator, and of a plumber to provide the generator with a properly sized connection to your buried natural gas line.
The least expensive scenario is if the gas line and panel are already nearby. The greater the distance separating them, the greater the expense of your installation.
This is not a job that can be tackled by the DIY homeowner, and it does require a permit from the City of Santa Barbara or Santa Barbara County depending on your address.
A very dangerous short cut that some well-intentioned people are making is to buy a portable gasoline-powered generator at Costco or The Home Depot, have it running outside somewhere in your yard and then run a large extension cord into your home to the refrigerator and maybe a few lights in the kitchen and dining area.
A portable generator is going to need to be refueled every few hours, so you would need to keep multiple containers of gasoline ready.
Pouring gasoline into the fuel tank of a hot generator, especially in the middle of the night, has all the makings of a disaster if just a little gas gets spilled onto the motor’s exhaust pipe and it ignites.
Another concern is that if exhaust from the generator, which contains carbon monoxide, somehow gets into the house, it’s toxic to people and pets at any level and deadly in large concentrations.
The portable generator plan is a really bad idea in my opinion.
Every home office should have an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) battery that can be purchased online or at office supply stores, and is basically just a large battery that sits on the floor by your desk that you plug into a wall socket.
It’s constantly charging when your power is on and turns on automatically when the power goes out.
Depending on your internet service provider, you may still be online even if the power is down. A properly sized UPS can keep your internet router, Wi-Fi, internet phone VOIP, cell phones and even a small LED desk lamp powered up and working for several hours or more.
It cannot power any type of refrigerator, heater or kitchen appliance.
After the winds have settled down and Edison turns the power back on, it is not unusual for a power surge to be delivered to your home via the power line, which can cause fatal damage to a home appliance that has even just the most basic circuitry and happens to be plugged in.
Your electrical service is normally between 110 and 120 volts, but a power surge can deliver as much as several hundred volts in a quick blast.
Most appliances, even an electric toothbrush, will have some type of voltage sensitive circuity and may have to be replaced after a power surge.
Even worse would be a very large voltage surge that damages the house wiring that is concealed inside the walls.
The solution is to have an electrician install a surge protector at your circuit breaker panel that will stop excess voltage from entering your home’s electrical wiring.
Many Montecito homeowners did this after the 2018 flash flooding and debris flows that caused endless power shutoffs and surges as Edison struggled to get things back to normal.
This also is not a DIY homeowner project but needs to be done by an electrician.
Unless we get 4-6 inches of rain soon, it seems inevitable that Santa Barbara will have some type of wildfire.
If your house is in the wildfire zone, make sure that your rain gutters are not stuffed with leaves, which is a common ignition point for a house fire during a wildfire.
If you have any type of humidity, radon or cooling fans blowing air out of your crawl spaces or attics, disable them so that embers are not pulled in through vents. If you have large vent openings into your attics, it’s not a bad idea to seal them up temporarily.
Make sure you have garden hoses that are in good condition, that can reach around your house easily and are ready for use if needed.
Be safe and pray for rain.
