Power outage, day three

So, in the last week, two noreasters blew through eastern mass. There is third one forcast for monday that may also wallop us. First one was mainly rain and high winds, and did major damage to the power network in southeast mass and cape cod. Second one started out as rain and moderately high winds, gusts only up to around 40mph. But it changed over to snow wednesday evening and it snowed all night. My town and a couple of adjacent towns took the brunt of the power damage. Thursday morning 76% of my town had lost power, including me.

I was also trapped at home. Two trees came down across my driveway, and a bunch of large branches came down, including one blocking the front walk. There was, also, about eight inches of heavy, sticky, wet snow.
After retrieving my butane stove, fuel for it, and some tea, I brewed up some tea to fortify me and mom for the day. By the way, wednesday was also mom's 90th birthday. So I had cake to further prepare me to do battle with the snow. Went out and shoveled snow. Which was exhausting, then I got to the large branches that had fallen and blocked the walkways. Retrieving a small handsaw, which was quickly found to be not very useful, I found a larger saw that while it was covered with rust, was still sharp as heck and much more effective at sawing branches into small enough chunks to be picked up. So two hours of that and I had the front walk cleared out to the street.
Unfortunately, my mom's home health aide, who comes on thursday to help her bathe, drove up and then drove down our unplowed driveway. Where she promptly got stuck. Since our power was out, she couldn't do that. So we shoveled and slipped around and shoveled some more for about half an hour before she made it back to the street and drove on to her next appointment.
I had talked to my older brother, who had also lost power, but was able to get out. He went to the store and bought a chainsaw. He got to the house and we assembled the chainsaw, figured out how to fill it with oil and gas, and get it started. Started cutting up the branches and trees that were blocking the driveway. shortly after we started doing this, my cousin showed up, in his plow truck. He helped us cut down and clear the fallen tree, and then put a rope on the partly fallen tree and used his truck to yank hard on it while brother was cutting it the rest of the way down. (It had partially snapped off about 20 feet up and was dangling over the driveway.) This kept it from falling against the house. It was then chopped up and unceremoniously tossed into the swamp.
Whenever I was taking a break from shoveling and clearing trees, I was also trying to get my generator started. It was immensely frustrating. I'd turn on the fuel and everything and start hauling on the starter rope. It would catch, start to run, then stop. This frustrating pattern was making me crazy off and on until about two in the afternoon, when I finally noticed that whenever I pulled on the starter rope, an old cloth rag that had been laying on top of the generator was dangling right in front of the air intake, and getting sucked in where the wet cloth choked the engine out. flipping the end of the rag up out of the way, and it started right up. Hallelujah! Spent an hour or so running extension cords in a window and around the house. Got the fridge working, the FIOS box and wifi, cordless phone, the stairlift, and one of the LED tape lights we used during reconstruction. So we had food, communication, and light. Things were looking up.
The new insulation in the house is way better than it used to be, the house was cool but still comfortable all day and all night. Since I had gotten all sweaty shoveling show and so on, I decided to take a shower that evening with whatever warmth was left in the hot water tank. Which was still full of hot water twelve hours or so after the power went out, and had more hot water in it the next morning for mom to give herself her morning washing up. Impressive.
But the house was getting colder and we needed to get the furnace going for some heat and hot water. So I hotwired the furnace to an extension cord and plugged that into the generator. Fortunately there was enough zoobs left in the generator to run the furnace also. Yay heat! Unfortunately only in the basement. The basement has baseboard hot water heat, so just needed a little circulator pump. First floor and second floor heat comes via forced hot air, and when I looked, the fan on the thing calls for eight point something amps, and I was pretty sure that the generator didn't have that many more zoobs to spare. So basement thermostat set to 80 degrees and leaving the door down to the basement seems to let enough heat come up to keep the house livable. Cool but livable.
Went to work friday, regular work day. Oh yeah, generator is using twenty pound propane cylinder each twelve hours. I had four full ones when I started, plus a partially full one to start with. Now saturday. Usual saturday chores. Garbage and recycling to the dump. Pick up mom's meds at the pharmacy. Shopping. take empty tanks to refill with propane. Well, the partial tank was one of the old style ones they can't refill anymore, so bought a replacement and filled up the tanks. Took mom to clinic for a blood test her doctor wanted as a follow up on something.
Eversource, our power utility, had been promising to have our town "substantially restored" by 6pm today. Around 430pm, I started seeing eversource vehicles driving up and down our street. This greatly increases my desire to get power back and my frustration at being without power. It's 10pm now, still running on the generator. Got the reverse 911 call from the police around 7pm saying only 15% of the town is without power now, and more resources would be coming in tomorrow morning.

I want my electricity back dammit! I have also resolved to increase my generator capacity. The current 4000 watt propane unit has worked great. Definitely never buying a gasoline powered generator again. Plans are in flux. One option is to take my old broken 5000 watt gasoline generator. (carb corroded by gasoline left in the thing in storage.) Have it repaired to run on gasoline, if it is repairable at all. Then convert it to run on propane. estimated cost is five or six hundred bucks. Then run two generators side by side in the future, with independent extension cords feeding various things around the house.
Another option, and the one I prefer, is to buy a new propane fueled inverter type generator that can sync to the first generator. I have no idea if this machine even exists to be bought. If unavailable or unaffordable, then the next option is just to buy a duplicate of the propane generator I have now, run them side by side with independent extension cord and transfer switch networks around the house.
I also need to put in correct generator transfer switches for the furnace and one or both of the air handlers. I've ordered a pair of UL listed single circuit transfer switches. The intent is to put one on the furnace and the other on the air handler for the first floor. Once those are installed, I'll do the experiment to see if my existing generator can actually support the air handler on top of everything else it currently is supporting. Crossing my fingers, that would be the best.
Once we do get done with the current power outage, I am taking the generator in to the shop for a long overdue oil change and preventive maintainance. Had it for three or four years and had no problems other than the starter battery is worn out.