Light Show

06:04 Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 50.07°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 3.31mph
Words: 889

Another day, another spectacular sunset. I love living here.

A guy, Charlie, is coming by this morning at 0800 to talk about generators.

I've been thinking about this some more, and I don't know for sure, but I may have a solution. Not sure Charlie's going to like it though.

Generac had a solution that I don't think they offer anymore. Can't find it on their website anyway. It was a large, whole home backup battery and a generator. When power failed, transfer switch kicked over to the battery. When the battery became depleted, the generator turned on and recharged the battery.

So you would size the battery for the loads you wanted to run in the house (or disconnect the loads as necessary), and size the generator for the maximum charge rate of the battery. I don't know for sure how it operated, but I'm guessing it charged at the max generator output until it reached maybe 80-90% percent of charge, and then either shut off or reduced power. Either way, you're running the generator at max load, which is when it's most fuel efficient.

So, less fuel, less noise and smaller size. It may have been a DC generator too, inverter is in the battery.

There are large "whole home backup" batteries by the likes of Jackery, EcoFlow, Bluetti and so on. So I'd need a generator hookup inside the utility closet. Most, if not all, of these batteries are on wheels of some kind. They're typically rather small in terms of capacity, 3-4kWh. At Tesla Powerwall is 13.5kWh, for comparison and our Florida house ran off two of them. (Also so we could get 10kW discharge.)

I'm wondering if I could get away with just two of these portable batteries, alternating them as they were depleted. I could keep the generator between the garage and the shed and just wheel the battery over to recharge it. The batteries are all wifi-enabled, so I could monitor state of charge from the house. EcoFlow even offers a solution like this, but the generator part is rather small. Might be adequate though.

Apparently there is still some federal tax credit for battery sales until the end of the year. I need to learn more about that.

I am not thrilled about the idea of a generator outside the bedroom at any time. The utility closet and bedroom are both at the north end of the house, so the generator wouldn't be more than 10 feet from the north bedroom window.

Anyway, that's this morning's little project.

Went down to the storage unit yesterday to begin rearranging things. Wasn't there long before I was startled by a rat in a box I was going to move! Yeesh! We'd noticed the traps outside the building, but there had been no evidence that there were ever any inside. Should have guessed, though. To be clear, these are fairly new construction, and the area around them is well maintained, though they are surrounded by agricultural land.

Rat moved really fast, it was just a brown blur. It had gotten into a box of things that had come from my desk. Mostly chewed up some loose envelopes and papers. Threw most of that stuff away. Everything else was boxed or wrapped separately. The owners came by and apologized and left some baited poison. I was ambivalent about that because I wasn't really keen on a rat dying in there, back somewhere behind dozens of boxes, stinking up the place.

It seems it has become a significant problem only recently, because shortly after I arrived, and before I saw the rat, a couple of cars had arrived at the end unit. The owners had appeared quite quickly after we'd called, though they both work at other jobs, so they were probably already on their way. One of the owners said that some food had been stored in that end unit, and I saw people were moving things out and putting them into cars. Later, an exterminator showed up and they came into our unit to look at the top of the unit where the header for the roller doors ran above all the units. Apparently that's the main mode of travel between units. He wanted to get into the unit adjacent to ours, but it was locked.

So, creepy and, well, ick! I did some rearranging and taped up some boxes that had been opened. Tried to put all the totes on the floor, stacking cardboard boxes on top of them. Moved stuff that I thought we might want to get to before we move everything out eventually toward the front, where it would be more accessible. Covered other things with cloths and tarps, though I wasn't sure that would really help.

Everything's hanging fire until the Florida house gets sold. We did have a showing on Sunday and the prospective buyer sounded enthusiastic as we observed them on video. Later feedback from his realtor indicated that they saw five houses that day, and he's interested in two of them, one being ours. He's supposed to see it again in a couple of days with his fiancee.

So, fingers crossed.

(If I really wanted the house, I'd say I was interested in two as well. Stronger negotiating position. So, fingers really crossed.)

✍️ Reply by email