On today's episode of survival Dispatch News we're discussing grid down and how You can prepare for it [Music] Today's video is brought to you by Energy they're an Idaho based company That makes some of the most rugged power Stations that we've ever laid hands on They've also won several DOD contracts Which is one heck of an endorsement on Top of which they have a focus on EMP Protection that we have not seen from Any other Power Station manufacturer Check out the link below for Energytech.com if you'd like to learn More and we're back with Steve and Dan From anything outdoors with Steve good To see y'all thank you for having us Back Chris yep well I mean we kind of Had to have you all back because you're Like the resident experts on uh Electrical stuff so whether it's Steve Being an electrician or your background In the you know tech industry and Electronics and all that sort of stuff Dan we really appreciate you coming on And sharing your knowledge with the Survival dispatch audience so I don't Know if you guys have heard it but our Audience has certain certainly heard me Say multiple times you know we've become A first world country with a third world Power grid uh Steve can you kind of Expand on that a little bit yes
Absolutely yeah so we've got uh three Main power grids in the United States You've got the East Coast West Coast and Texas and they are fairly isolated Between them they do have some Infrastructure going between but they Are fairly isolated and the way the Substations work if you took out about a Dozen substations uh strategic Substations you could potentially take Down the entire grid and so that's scary In itself and it ends up being a Cascade Effect where you take down one Substation and it overloads the next one And it just automatically starts popping All these Transformers because they're Being overloaded and so they do have Load breaks available for a lot of these To prevent that from happening but Sometimes those fail as well so it is a Very scary scenario to where somebody That's nefarious could do a lot of Damage or just you know your your local Teen with a pellet gun so it's it could Be something really bad There's probably not an inventory of of Stock waiting to be waiting to Absolutely not components yeah a lot of This stuff is overseas components yeah From what I've read that we average as a Country somewhere around 20 plus acts of Vandalism per year and that's physical Acts of vandalism like somebody going And shooting out Transformers I have not
Seen any numbers on how many power Stations have been our substations have Been attacked over the network you know From you know clandestine adversaries And I've also uh read and been told that You know we don't manufacture Transformers domestically and if we do It's not very much we typically get them From Germany uh they come across on a Shipping container they take the Container off they put it on a rail line And they send it to wherever the Substation is they have a crane there Picks it up and installs it so I think The lead time the last thing I last time I read on this was about 18 months so It's no joke yeah it could be a lot Longer if you start having multiple Components that need to be replaced too Because even those manufacturing places They don't necessarily have stock on Hand either and they have to custom make A lot of these Transformers they're not Something that they just have on hand And beyond that the infrastructure Itself around it is aging too so you've Got more and more frequent instances Where the power grid is dropping because Of the infrastructure beyond the Substations and so it's so malicious Delicious uh you know vulnerability Aside you know terrorists and and so on Or just you know naughty boys and yeah Things wear out storms happen things go
Down yes we're very vulnerable yes I Yeah I think that's the key we have a Very vulnerable power grid I mean last Time you all were on we discussed emps We know how vulnerable we are to that We're vulnerable to vandalism we're Vulnerable to Mother Nature taking this Stuff down I mean Lord knows we know That here in Florida you know with Hurricanes and you know this is Anecdotal of course but we've seen a Higher frequency of grid down situations Here and lasting longer than ever before So you know you maybe we've gotten more Coming yeah I mean we might have like a Thunderstorm come through and in the Past maybe it was like a matter of hours Or a day that the Grid's down babe when Our power goes out here it's a minimum Of two or three days now and if it's a Hurricane it could be weeks you know We've I've lived through it where we've Gone without power for three plus weeks And there's places close to us here like New Smyrna after Charlie spanked us that Was a cat five that there was parts of New Smyrna Beach that went three months With no power so yeah it sucks big time Anecdotally anecdotally uh we lost our Power with a windstorm a couple years Back ours was restored within the day Our neighbors just across the street Were a week and a half before they got Their power restored and look at that
Little separation you know and they're Sitting over there thinking man what did I do to piss off the power guys that's Right so exactly I mean this episode of Survival Dispatch news the Crux of it Really is is what can people do to Prepare for grid down and we're going to Hear more and more on grid down stuff so We've we've got a few examples of things Um you know something small like this This x torch and by the way we don't Have an affiliate relationship with them Or anything uh solar powered has three Lights on it has a USB port on it so you Know these are fairly cheap I don't Recall the exact price of it but I I Want to say it's around thirty dollars So if you had something like this at the Very least you could charge your phone Up up Um and by you know may have a light have Some connectivity so if maybe like a a College student who's on a budget that Can be pretty handy to have something Like this uh The Next Step Up would be You know to get into a a battery power Bank of some sort this one's ten Thousand milliamps I mean you can get Them 50 000 milliamps and whatnot Depending on your budget but you know a Bunch of different USB ports on it to Charge your devices uh you could always Add a small solar panel of this for a Very you know small amount of money and
Then from there you might move into Something like I would qualify it as Like say the 400 to 700 watt power Station range they're pretty reasonable Um I know these guys here all powers They had a special on not too long ago Where the 700 watt power station plus 110 watt uh salt folding solar panel I Think was like 389 dollars I mean that That's pretty reasonable for what it is Um and then from there you could go into Something like uh say a 1500 watt hour Power station they average about 1500 Bucks I mean you get them a little bit Cheaper a little bit more but that's Kind of an average price then you could Always add solar panels to that and then The next thing up will be one of you Know small generator this one just so Happens to be propane but whether it's Gas or propane you can buy a cheap Generator for about 500 bucks and the Next step up from there we get into some Sort of whole home uh Power Station you Know and you now you can spend 3 500 to 10 000 uh this one is like 6 200 list Price but there's always sales and then Of course you could add solar panels or Something like that uh then the The Next Step Up would be by getting into Generators uh like whole home generators And actually actually between the uh the Little generator and this power station You could go to you know a 8 500 watt
Generator that sort of thing before you Have to get into a whole home generator And then the mac daddy would be you know A solar PV system photovoltaic cells With the Tesla wall uh you know average House here in Florida at least 60 to 80 000 for that investment so let's go Right back to the beginning and I'll Cover our first couple little cheap Things just to get them out of the way And then I'd like you all the subject Matter experts on this topic to discuss The pros and cons so obviously one of The pros of this is it's cheap the Content is it's not going to provide a Whole lot of functionality you got a Light maybe you can charge your phone uh Yeah you're giving up uh portability for What its capacity is right uh then you Get into these small power Banks again They're not super expensive you can buy A really decent one for about 100 bucks Um oh yeah that's even more milliamp Hours than this uh so you can charge a Few more devices whereas you might only Charge one on this you can pair it up With a small uh solar panel but then the Next step up from there I'm going to Turn over to y'all now is to get into Like that four to seven hundred watt uh Power Station range what do you see is The pros and cons Um now that we're getting into stuff That's costing yeah so so now you're
You're again portability for for Capacity again because it is a smaller Unit Um so you are very limited to the power Loads you're able to run on those things Um the the biggest issue I see with Those is uh whether or not it's got a Clean power or not and a lot of them do Promote having the pure sine wave and I Can touch on the the importance of that Um so I drew up real quick a few sine Wave Just for a visual so the top one being Pure sine wave the second one is a Square sine wave and then you've got two Versions of modified sine waves you'll Have one stepped and one's modified And so that gives a good visual of what The sine wave gets converted to when You've got dirty power uh that square Sine wave ends up being about 48 THD Which is your total harmonic Distortion And that's what affects your motor loads And your electronics drastically can I Can I interject yeah Layman's question Here Um so What you're talking about let me make Sure I understand what what you mean by A clean clean power supply a dirty power Supply is anomalous voltage so over Voltage under voltage fluctuations and Voltage Um frequency high frequency waveforms
What is that called harmonics I believe Uh it's it's the variations within that Frequency that are called the harmonics So all of the all of these things of Death to Modern electron they are yeah They are very detrimental Um the issue that's the biggest are your Electronic devices so whether it's your HVAC system your your house furnace a Lot of them have a motherboard that's Only capable of handling up to a certain Uh harmonic Distortion and sometimes It's only down to eight percent total Harmonic Distortion and so some of the Cheaper generators and inverters and Whatever uh portable battery packs if They don't have a clean sine wave it can Destroy thousands of dollars of Equipment real fast Um it will run for a while and what that Harmonic Distortion turns into is heat And it's heat that kills the electronics And heat that kills the motor windings So okay yeah and I was just going to say So if one vulnerability is the Electronic piece you know logic boards Motherboards and then the other one is Electric motors correct yes absolutely And some of those Motors can be Thousands of dollars the electronic Boards you might be waiting weeks before You can get a new one and so when your Power outage you don't have necessarily An alternate means because you're
Relying on this unit this generator Whatever it may be to run your house run Your total loads and now you have to buy A new refrigerator because your power's Been out for a week and a new furnace And you know the list goes on so you Save a few hundred dollars on a Generator but you have to spend Thousands to replace equipment so Assuming somebody's watching this video And they've they have a generator or Power station whatever and this tweaks Them and they go pull up the Specifications And it it doesn't specify it's a pure Sine wave What can they run off of that generator Or power station without destroying it Yeah the best things to run off those Are resistive loads so whether it's your Uh Edison Light Bulbs the the filament Light bulbs not the LEDs but the LEDs Will run that's a minimal cost Replacement at least uh so you could Still run your lighting you can still Run uh any resistive loads whatever it May be resistance heater yes your Toaster resistance heater hair dryers You know things like that that have just An element inside not a lot of Electronics some of the electronics are More robust to where they can handle it For quite a while even computers can Handle a dirty sine wave for a while
It's hard on their power supply and That's that's where it's trying to clean Up that power within the power supply And ultimately it does create more heat Within that computer so you want to Limit the time that you're on it So the good news is like if Steve and I Or Dan and I probably had a you know Something producing dirty power that we Could still use our hair dryer You can run the devices but you want to Definitely limit the exposure they have To the dirty power so keep that in mind When you're running things that you want To just limit it if you've got one of Those devices and it's like pulling Teeth trying to get it from the Manufacturer there was a big box store Selling a generator that was Triple fuel So you could run gasoline natural gas And propane which is really attractive For that type of setup but they didn't List what they were using for their Inverter on that generator so you don't Know and I had to call them and directly Talk to one of the manufacturers uh Design team to get that number out of Them and it ended up being 20 THD which Is the stepped sine wave and so it's It's very harmful to electronics over a Long period of time Amazing so uh if we move up from you Know these smaller power stations yes Data one that's like around 1500 watts
Like this one here uh pros and cons to Something like this the expandability of Those devices is what's really I mean It's a portable device but still you've Got modular expansion that is really the Key to that type of device Um and it depends on the outlets they Have contained go on them as far as what You can run some of them will have a 30 Amp outlet on it where you can run maybe Even a motorhome RV whatever it might be Yeah old roads to where if you can't run Anything else at least you've got that And right essentially have a warm place To sleep at night and be able to contain That unit within uh you can still tie it To some loads within your house and uh That's where some of the bigger units Come into play because some of them will Offer a 240 volt power uh split phase Power to them to where you can Potentially tie it into your electrical Panel and they've got everything from an Emergency panel available to a cheap Little metal slider plate that turns off Your main breaker when you turn on that Generator or alternate powered device so You can actually have it wired into your Panel with even a smaller device that Offers 240 volt and it just turns off Your main breaker when you turn it on And so that's the only legal way to tie It to your panel is to have some sort of Load break where you're turning off the
Power Downstream so you're not Electrifying the transform Downstream Right So when we get into these I'd like to interject regarding solar if You're relying on solar power so Stripping photons from sunlight to to Recharge your device For you people living in the land of Eternal Suns from the fasting in your 85 Degrees while we're you know if you have It snowing outside up here up in the North Where we vampires lift there's not a lot Of sunlight and there there's not a lot Of photons in the winter in the winter Months It's going to take a long time to get Any kind of charge on any solar device I Mean even the yard lights that have that Have very minimal Um amperage requirements when the light Is burning and all they charge will give You you know a few hours maybe a couple Hours of really minimal light so if You're if you're in the north you might Not want to rely on the sun to be your Primary primary source of power yeah That's that's a good point I've seen Some uh solar farms in Upstate New York And to try and maximize what they're Getting out of them they've got motors On them so the declination stays Perpendicular to the Sun as possible
Because we we've had accident survival Dispatch we've shown how you can take One of these solar panels and move in a Matter of 10 degrees and you could go From 60 70 Watts down to 30 watts of Input just like that so yeah Point well Taken you know angle the sun we don't Have a lot of choices here in Florida With regards to solar panel angles Because of hurricane loads so don't Quote me on this but last time I checked It was I think 10 degrees maximum is all You could put the angle of solar panels Any more than that we risk hurricane Force winds coming around and off they Go yeah so moving up from there getting Into like these 500 generators whether It's a you know an Alp propane generator Like this or uh you know economical gas Generator pros and cons of that Steve Yeah usually when I'm giving advice to People I tend to direct them towards the Most inexpensive device first whether It's to power the loads in the house That they need so I am usually directing Them towards the generator first and Then building from that on and so those Smaller generators are excellent they Can run a lot of loads in your house and It's amazing how little refrigerator Actually draws right and different Devices like that that are the most Important to keep running and so even Those little Honda inverter generators
That are a thousand two thousand Watts You can run quite a bit in your house Without giving up too much and still be Able to have your furnace running so Just an interesting point on these Alps I've had the opportunity to speak of the The founder and the guy who designed These he's been doing these for years They can be Daisy chained together Unlimited number that's that's perfect You know you spend 500 bucks when you Have it you spend another five bucks in Daisy chain it and you know get your Wattage output to where you want or need It to be which is a pretty cool feature I mean I guess you know if we're talking Grid down there's different levels of Grid down and you know if we have an Extended grid down from an EMP as we've Discussed before Uh you're probably gonna run out of fuel So I wouldn't rely just on something That burns propane or gas sorry Dan the Nice thing about propane is it lasts Forever so you don't have to worry about Rotating yeah So I keep my fuel cans rotated Constantly and I'm every week switching Out fuel now let's keep the constant Rotation on it and I just dumped that Fuel in my car and then fill it up again For the generator and in the event that There's a prolonged power outage but the Generator's purpose is not a full-time
Running either it's it's there to charge My battery bank which I've added on yeah And we've touched on that before Dan go Ahead yeah so yeah we touched on that a Little bit so you know I have a real Life situation where I have a rural farm And farmhouse in in Thailand and it's Way way at the edge of the grid which is A kind of tentative power supply at best You know you'll be sitting there at Eight and eight o'clock at night and Without any warning you know you're in The dark You're learning these kind of situations What your real power requirements are What your yes mandatory power Requirements are and they're they're Actually a lot less than you know Americans we we have luxury we you know We walk through the American house and There's lights on everywhere and you Know the dogs The Dog House Wi-Fi is on Or whatever and Really when you start calculating your Your real power requirements it's quite Minimal yeah you know your refrigerator Your freezer I I have a a well so I need the pump to Be able to pump the water up into the Pressure Tower that's it and and then Then the light bulb so you can see where You're going and when you calculate the The wattage requirements it's it's Pretty minimal yeah and when I'm talking
About sizing generators and and Battery Banks those are the key elements that You have to look at is water pumps so if You do have a well or even sewer pump Which is extremely detrimental if that Stops working yeah hopefully your water Stops first But uh yeah there's there's one viewer That's going to be watching this that He's got a sewer pump and and if that Thing goes down he's got that stuff Backing up into his house so sure he Kept his bro going but he doesn't have Enough power to keep that thing going Then that becomes an emergency real fast So size it off of those loads first and That's where you want to continue from There and then it might it might be Worth saying that you know maybe some People that are watching this you know Their eyes gloss over and they and they Think wow it'd be nice if I had Wheelbarrows full of money to to buy Lots and lots of equipment and you know This is a this is a extravagance that I Can't afford I would say it's one of the most basic Requirements that we have you know for Our survival especially if it's cold Outside or or if your refrigerator goes Off or your freezer goes off how much How much money did you lose if Everything in your refrigerator and Freezer feels fast yeah and compare that
To the price of a of a of an okay Generator yeah It's it's a worthwhile expense Um another thing that a lot of us do in In First World countries We we think oh catastrophes that's what Happens to other people it doesn't Happen to me right yeah right until Until And it's becoming more and more common To where that power grid is down instead Of for a day or two for a week or two And so more people are realizing this The more taxing loads that we have on There as we're adding EVS to the to the Grid it's affecting it greatly So just back to your comments on size And you know a generator or battery Backup power station those sort of Things obviously pretty much everything Has all those specifications on the the Device or Appliance or you can always go Look it up online but we have a little Device here as well that we don't always Find that the manufacturer's specs are What's actually being drawn by that Device so these are pretty cheap you Plug out the socket then you plug the The cord into this and let it run and it Will tell you what the average load is You can even put in what your price per Kilowatt hour is and it'll tell you Precisely how much some particular Device burned up so it's kind of a handy
Little uh anybody who's like in the tech Geek stuff like that likes this kind of Stuff you know so you know well it's More information is better because now You know exactly what your refrigerator Is drawing per day or exactly what your Well you can't really hook it up to your Furnace but they do have CTS that you Can hook up around that line too to Where you can extrapolate that data too And that data is very important as to What your real requirements are and Still even with that it doesn't have to Run all day either you can run it for a Couple hours and then turn it off and Then six hours later turn it back on Yeah I think at a low temp I think I Mentioned in a previous uh discussion we Had that uh general rule of thumb here In Florida is if you run your Refrigerator for 45 minutes during a Grid down situation so power it off your Generator or whatever it'll keep the Food fresh for about 24 hours so yeah You know 45 minutes to an hour a day on A refrigerator is pretty good practice So moving up from like a small generator To something a little bit larger let's Talk uh let's talk something like in the 8 500 watt to you know 10 000 watt Generator yes how much they cost and What the pros and cons are there before We jump into the larger power stations Yes yes some of the larger generators
You can get 240 volt out of them and so Now you can start tying them to your Panel even though they're portable Generators you still can tie them to Your panel and so people that are Looking at that Standalone unit right Outside their house that runs on propane That other option is available and as he Was mentioning you don't have to run Everything in your house so those will Power quite a bit of your house loads And you don't have to shed too much so Shedding power loads is what you Typically are required to do with those Cheaper generators which is fine you can Get through the the scenario at least And and and not have things go to waste In your refrigerators and freezers and Still have water you still have uh your Sewer pumped but a lot of that stuff Still requires the heavier Duty uh Generators to to power those Motors yeah But if you if say you know again uh like Dan brought up people's budgets and Whatnot if you got into a slightly Larger like not these little thousand Watts you got into something that's got Some more power behind it I you know 2500 to 3 500 range or you can get a Generator that'll power a lot of stuff In your house uh yeah the the pros are The cost versus what you get for it is Pretty darn good uh but on the cons Because they're portable there could be
Stolen I think I mentioned you all Before about people during uh Charlie Hurricane Charlie you know they'd show Up at people's houses in the middle Night fire up a lawnmower that they paid 30 bucks for on Craigslist and walk off With the person's portable generator the Person think my generator is still Running get up in the morning it was Gone uh and the other thing is you gotta Have fuel so we have extended power Outages here there's nothing to pump gas At the gas stations either so those are Some of the cons as well which kind of Dovetails into like the the next jump up From a portable generator will be like a Larger Power Station like this one here Which is 6 000 Watt hours and yeah I'm Talking uh cost wise larger and but the Thing is and we mentioned before uh you Could spend six thousand dollars on this But put a hundred dollar solar panel With it and get 30 back on your on your Tax return so in reality you're paying About four thousand dollars uh for that Type of battery backup and you know I Recommend that people utilize your Strategy Steve where they run their Generator power that sucker up run it For an hour shut it down yeah and make Your gas power throughout the day but You can you got say two 10 gallon jugs Uh or Jerry cans of fuel you can stretch It out to about 20 days
If you have something like that to store The power you don't have to worry that Holy cow I can't get gas for it but give Me what in in your opinion what do you Think the pros and cons would be for for That type of system it does do 240 split Phase it's got six thousand watt hour Battery in it fairly expensive and as You saw when I picked it up fairly heavy Um yeah so give me your pros and cons on Well and that's precisely where I tend To lead people is get that cheap per Watt power first get that generator and You could potentially size the generator Smaller if you get one of those units Because now you've got more available Capacity on demand and you don't need a Big generator to power it so you can Charge that battery Bank over a couple Hours and that large impulse for the Motor loads is taken care of by this Unit and so that's the perfect little Segue into that type of unit is you can Downsize your generator and get a good One and one that'll last a long time too And then have it just supplement this Type of unit and being that it's 240 Volt you can grid tie it to your panel But you have to make sure it's only Legal to tie it to your panel if you Have some sort of Disconnect means Between the main breaker and your panel So you're not powering things down line So I have a question regarding that
Again from a Layman's perspective so When we had the big Windstorm not so Long ago and all the trees fell down and All the power went out I saw people not Everybody's an electrician like Steve And wire you know you know Rockets to The moon and so on right but You don't have to be it doesn't require A lot of technical expertise you have an Extension cord you have a generator push The on button and a single point device Single point chart get your refrigerator Going for an hour Um switch it to the freezer You know cool your freezer off again Um there you go you know we all know how To plug in an extension cord But if somebody were in a position they Already have the investment in the Generator now we would like to integrate That into our electrical infrastructure In our house what's the most cost Effective and practical way to do that Manual transfer switch is the legal Route You cannot do any type of panel tie Legally Stress that without having some sort of Manual transfer switch to where it turns Off that main breaker and so you're not Feeding things down line and a manual Transfer switch you can get for a couple Hundred dollars automatic it goes into The three or four hundred dollar range
So I I should back up it's from eighty Dollars to a couple hundred dollars for The manual and then the automatics range From that two to three four hundred Dollar range depending on the load Capacity that the switch has and so they Are fairly inexpensive to be able to tie That generator or that power bank to Your panel that way and That's really the only legal way to do So is and they've got to even down to a Like I was talking about before a little Metal plate that goes from a two-pole Breaker to a main breaker so when you Turn on the two pole breaker to apply Power from that power bank to your panel It turns off the main breaker at the Same time that little metal plate is 20 Bucks and it just tied between those two Breakers and so that single throw pulls Both of them and so it's Like a quick question since we're kind Of moving up in cost now especially when You get to these these larger power Stations What are the considerations and the Different types of batteries that these Things have Um yeah uh the the batteries that they Typically contain once you start getting Into the higher end units are the lifepo Batteries uh lithium iron phosphate and They have a really nice battery setup to Where it's 5 000 cycle charges on it uh
Before it starts dropping down to about 80 percent uh capacity on them so that Same wattage that you've got initially Remains for 5 000 Cycles is pretty Impressive they're Lightweight by Comparison to lead acid batteries and They are sensitive to temperature though So you have to keep them in a fairly Warm climate you put them outside in the Cold they don't last very long and they May not even work in the cold winter Yeah so uh just anecdotal story uh we Had a cold snap here and it was much Worse north of here during the Christmas Holidays and and there was a article in The local newspaper that somebody had Rented a Tesla and traveled from here to Virginia and they had to stop something Like 12 13 times to charge the car up Because as they got into colder and Colder environments They couldn't get the mileage out of it And I'm not suggesting that that's the Case with all Teslas or anything like That because I think there was something Mentioned in that article that this car Had quite a few miles on it and I want To say that once you get to somewhere Around 80 000 miles on Tesla's you You're probably looking at replacing the Batteries for uh you know handsome sum Of money but bottom line was is the Person who rented it was not aware that In colder climates that these
Lithium-ion batteries they don't like it Yes yeah and those are lithium ion not Lifepo Um right Tesla was looking at using Lifepo batteries for their more Inexpensive cars the the cheaper lines And uh surely because it is more cost Effective to get those type of batteries In there but they do have the same issue Where temperature affects them greatly Very interesting okay so now that we're Kind of moving up the food chain in cost And whatnot we get into whole home Generators so typically powered by Whether it be diesel propane or natural Gas pros and cons or something like that Steve and the average cost to install Yeah they've run up in costs from there So they they can start around ten Thousand dollars for a whole house Generator and some of them are a little Bit cheaper it depends on what you're Getting But the quality has gone down so much Over the years too that you may not even Be getting a pure sine wave with those And so you're looking at something that May not be feasible for your house even Though it's designed for your house so You have to do a lot of research on Those before you get into something like That and see if that's what you want to Do the pro is nobody's stealing it Without a lot of work and if you have
Natural gas or propane tide you can Store those fuels not the natural gas But the propane you can store that fuel Indefinitely as long as it doesn't leak Out of the tank so you can get a large Propane tank on your property and power Other things from it too like your range Of your hot water and so that way during The power outage you still have some of Those sources and even if it's a backup And you've got the means to be able to Provide for that type of setup it works Really well as a backup means and so you Can have that propane generator run for A really long time and even some of the Smaller portable generators same Scenario area you can tie into propane And you just have to make sure it's a Dual fuel type generator yeah I've had Several uh Generac whole home generators In the 20 plus KW range and something Like that installed here now in Florida You'd be looking at about fifteen Thousand dollars yes yes In your backyard get ready to Shell out A few grand just for the fuel you know Yeah that's exactly what I'm referring To is the cost of the device only uh Once you get it installed even things Like the Tesla power walls you have a Price point for the power wall That's Not including installation so what They're showing you on the website does Not include installation and you can be
Out another five thousand dollars to Safely have that within your garage and Tied to your panel by the time you're Done so I again I have a fair bit of Experience in solar here in Florida a Commercial and residential so uh Tesla Dealers hate Tesla and the reason they Do that is Tesla will advertise a 13 000 Watt hour Tesla powerwall for ten Thousand dollars the dealers are when They come out and they quote it with all The fees you know the permits the the Install all the accessories that go with It it's twenty thousand dollars here in Florida for one Tesla power wall to be Installed so then the people are like I Saw Tesla advertising for ten thousand Dollars well then when Tesla sends Somebody out and adds it all up it's Still twenty thousand dollars but yeah The dealers are forbidden from for Saying that so Tesla's you know eating a Lot of business that would go to their Dealers by saying hey you get Tesla Powerwall for ten thousand dollars and The dealers are quoting twenty thousand Installments and apples to oranges Comparison it's not fair Um and people need to be aware of that From an expectation standpoint that if You see a Tesla power wall 13 000 Watt Hours for ten thousand that's just the Power wall That's not installed or any Accessories that go with it yeah and I
Feel a little bad for the people that Inadvertently just buy the power wall And have it shipped to their house and Then have to look at getting it Installed because now they're already Invested and they can't necessarily Return that without losing a bit of Money right off the top too so so yeah That's I I really do feel bad for some Of those people but Um and that kind of goes in line with The generator too the whole home Generator you buy the generator itself You still have to install that and if You're getting natural gas you have to Pay that natural gas guy to bring a pipe Over to it have a regulator put on it And so there's additional costs involved In all that so setup and the propane Ends up sometimes being cheaper even Though you have to buy a tank because You don't have to necessarily bring Natural gas all the way to it and so That can add a lot of cost to a device Like that Um so the default side of it you're very Limited on capacity and you have to run That diesel out otherwise it gets old Yeah just back to the security thing you Were mentioning you know a whole home Generator not as subject being stolen as A portable generator which is a valid Point I'm going to say for at least the Past 15 years Generac has had an
Anti-theft built into their generator Whole home generators where when you Hook it up you have to call Generac give Them the serial number provide proof of Purchase uh connect it to your Wi-Fi and If that generator senses that has been Unbolted and picked up even a couple Inches you have to call them back to get A new code to punch into it so if Somebody were to come and unbolt it from A slab and throw in the back of a truck And take it somewhere and try to fire it Up it won't go past idle it'll go up to A thousand RPM and that's it and you've Gotta there's no way around it it is Completely disabled I wonder how well That works through a earthquake if you Have to call them up afterwards So earthquake Powers down and I have to Call Generac and their lines are busy Safe to say if you're going to do a Whole home generator a installed Probably 15 to 20 000 here in Florida Yes you're probably in a fairly sizable Investment by the time you get to that And the downside to all these motor Generators is noise uh they do have Quieter generators in the smaller Package but once you get bigger they do Have decent Mufflers on them to kind of Keep that sound down but the other segue To the theft side is vandalism so you May have a disgruntled neighbor that They see your lights are on and and they
Hear that motor running after about Three or four days and their power's Still out they may want to take a little Crack shot at that generator just to Shut it up when uh when Sandy came Through it was a tropical storm and then It went out to sea and by the time it Hit uh Uh New Jersey New York it was back up to I think to a cat one hurricane but we Lost our power in our neighborhood Um I don't know maybe four or five days Something like that we were the only Ones who had power yeah and we we could Power everything so and it was hot you Know so we had a couple AC units running We could power everything in the house Except for the hot tub we tested it we Turned everything on and we still only Hit about 75 load okay so the last Option uh that people can consider the Mack Daddy the one that really cost big Bucks would be a solar PV system so Photovoltaic cells and adding a Tesla Powerwall because if if you don't or Some battery backup you don't have a Battery backup When the Sun Goes Down You have no electricity so they kind of Go hand in hand 60 to 80 000 here in the State of Florida for the average house to have an Appropriately sized PV system uh plus a Battery backup so give our audience an ID and obviously that's a barriered
Entry you know you've got it's pretty Expensive now again you get your 30 Federal tax credit which is pretty Substantial so you go say from sixty Thousand down to forty two thousand but That's a lot of money to most people and So that's obviously one of the cons and I suppose another con would be in Y'all's neck of the woods uh you know Not having the strength of sun that we Have here in Florida but give me give us Give the survival dispatch audience pros And cons as you see it for buying a Whole home solar PV system plus battery Backup yes and that's usually the third Phase that I offer people too is is once You've got your battery backup system Your Generator First your battery backup Second Some sort of panel tie just so you can Run silently some power recharge to Those batteries whether or not you're Using your generator so the the nice Thing about that is typically once you Get a properly sized solar array you can Charge a battery Bank fairly rapidly so It doesn't take a whole lot of sunlight To do so even if you've got a cloudy day You're still generating off of 10 000 Kilo or sorry 10 kilowatt system you're Still generating a few thousand Watts on A cloudy day so you're still getting Some power into those batteries at least And that's very helpful to where you
Don't have to run that generator as Often or even at all Um that's that's kind of the biggest Long-term plan that you can have is is Some sort of solar panels you can buy Them separately and have a separate grid Maybe not in Florida where you've got Hurricane and high winds but uh for our Area I can just set up panels along the Side of my garage and collect the Sunlight during the day wrap them all up Throw them back in the garage when I'm Done and so I don't have to have an Array on the house necessarily and They're making more and more efficient Panels every day so now you're able to Get a 550 watt panel that's Fairly portable still and and that's Really impressive when you compare that To the old days of 50 50 Watts for that Same size panel 100 watts and so they're Really getting efficient technology down For these solar panels to where they are Becoming more viable as a setup and you Don't need as many of them to power your House the Standard household uses a lot less power Than what they probably think that they Use and when you've got a power outage You don't necessarily need to run all Those devices you can start shedding Loads to certain areas of your house if You don't need that power there one of The biggest is resistive electric
Devices that are for heat so whether It's hot water or house heat if it's Electric those are your biggest power Draws and those are the toughest ones to To keep running in a situation like that But as far as solar panels go I still am Kind of in the wind category even up Here It's it's something that's worth Investing some money into even if it's At a small scale when you can afford it Going full on like that once you start Getting into the grid tie where you're Running your meter back now you have to Have an automatic transfer switch on That solar array to where it's turning Off the power through that solar panel Array when there's a power outage which Also means you're not powering your Battery bank so you have to get a Workaround for that to then power your Battery Bank when you've got grid down So you have to kind of keep that in mind Too there are devices out there that Have it all in one now so it's it's Getting better as the years are going on And in if we have a grid down situation Here it's law that you have a disconnect To disconnect the solar panels from the Grid and which is now you essentially You have to have a battery backup Because even during the daytime your Solar panels could be generating Electricity you're not allowed to feed
That anywhere because of this Requirement to to shut them down so if You have a battery backup that's the Only way you can get power at all during A hurricane if you have solar even Daylight hours but one of the oldest Solar installers here in Florida is a Very good friend of ours his name is Bill Gallagher's company named solarfit He started in 1975 and they've got about 30 000 installs and I can tell you solar In Florida the adoption rate is not as High as it is in other states because We've got some very unfriendly Um you know power providers Duke Energy FPL Etc but I can can tell you that the Number one solar product in the State of Florida is pool heaters the number two Solar product in the State of Florida is Dhw domestic hot water and they have a Very fast Roi so you're typically Looking six seven years 150 gallon tank Solar panel on the roof and it's 100 Paid for with a 30-year warranty on the Whole thing so it's super fast Roi on Dhw and then solar PV I mean you see Them around but believe it or not it's Not as popular as it is in other states Because of all these crazy things that The utility companies have added on to It but you know it's you're right There's been tremendous advancements in Photovoltaic cells but one of the big Differences is American-made versus
Chinese made and this is not just a Matter of me being adamant that if you Can buy American you should because it Keeps the money in our country but most Chinese panels if not all of them are Pretty weak and when they're exposed to A high wind low like we have here in Florida it breaks all those Interconnects inside of them and they're Absolutely useless so if you look at Each of the individual cells which adds Up to an array sort of thing so the American-made ones there's some that's Made here in Georgia some that's made in The west coast in California and whatnot Bill loves to do this this uh you know Hands-On test for people that's like a Competitor's panel and put it in a Ziploc bag and have the person shake it Like that and it will shatter the cell And then he'll have them take the one From say somebody like sun power which Is manufactured in Southern California You can shake it as hard as you want you It won't break it but then you can even Snap it over your leg Yeah and he'll Take out a multimeter and it shows it Still has conductivity because the Connection is around the perimeter not Through the center with all those tiny ICS so just just from again it's Anecdotal but my impression and Experience if you have a chance to buy America-made solar panels and you fit it
Into your budget not only is it more Robust when it's exposed to heavy wind Loads but some of these cheap Chinese Panels at 10 years they're generating Virtually nothing for power good American-made power panels like sun Power at 30 years are still producing Over 90 percent of what they did when They were So that's really impressive too so that Helps out your return on investment There too even in the northern states Where we've got less solar activity yeah Available through the cloud layers we're Still looking at about a 15 to 18 year Return on investment on that with the Device and if your device is not going To last that long you're not going to Get Roi now make sure they're involved In Chinese photo will take uh production Over the years I can concur with what you just said Um WT will hold up on you sorry about That Chinese friends but the truth is A lot of the devices coming out of China Yes they're inexpensive Um their initial efficiency might look Impressive but let's see what they look Like in a year or in two years yes or if There's a little bit of dirt on them or Like you say that the wind blows a bit And some of the connections break as my Uncle used to be fond of saying if you Pay him peanuts they'll send you monkeys
So yeah And sometimes they they may advertise The 20-year uh lifespan on some of these Panels just because it's still producing Within 80 of that original Manufacturer's spec but it's how fast it Gets down to that 20 initially that Lowers your return on investment as well And so even even being 15 18 years here That's excluding power rates increasing So throw that factor in there how fast Power rates are increasing and how fast They will increase real soon Because it's going to go skyrocketing Once we go all electric EVS everything No natural gas Those power rates are going to Skyrocket Absolutely so the investment now might Pay for itself really fast I I've seen There's not a lot of exhaustive studies But I have seen a few because it's used In some sales presentations by our Friends at solarfit but those studies Show that if you go into a cookie cutter Subdivision you know where all that Changes is the facade on the front the Houses that have a whole home solar PV System typically sell for about 15 Percent more when people flip their Houses so I'm not talking brand new House but you know somebody sells their House you know seven years after they Built it and it's got solar PV and the Neighbors sells their place with no
Solar there's about a 15 difference That's pretty substantial when you start Talking hundreds of thousands of dollars For a home sure is yeah you know it Could be even more than what you paid For the solar system in the first place But All right guys well listen I really Appreciate you coming on Survival Dispatch again uh you know we'll have You back again but for everybody out There in survival dispatch land uh go Check out anything outdoors with Steve You'll see Dan and Steve on there doing All sorts of cool stuff outside uh Hiking that that kind of stuff and uh if You don't mind if you could like our Videos and share them and subscribe make Sure you hit the bell for notification Leave a comment down below we'd Appreciate it it really helps with the Algorithm thanks again guys looking Forward to seeing you the next time yep Thank you for having us on thanks a lot It's nice seeing you again [Music] Foreign [Music]
