Hurricane Irma

We've had very bad fires here in Montana....but haven't forgot to pray for you folks in hurricane country.
 
Here is some food for thought!
Hurr-uslandfalling-1950-2007.jpg

This goes from 1950 and only up to 2007 but, when you look practically every inch of the coast has taken a hit at one time or another!!
 
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Yea, but Cliff, see how many more dots there are along the northern gulf coast than along the west coast of Fla.

Yes, I do see the track is forecast more to the west now - and I do agree never totally trust the forecast as to where it's going or how strong it's going to be. Just plan for the worst and hope for best. When the tracks are bunched up as tight as they are now, the forecast is "usually" pretty good. I was hoping it would move a bit more east and stay off shore.

Ted, those fires ya'll have would scare me! It seems that almost every place has some good things and bad weather things to worry about. Boy, it's easy to put a photo in this format, I did a right click, copy, and paste and it shows up. With the track shown here the whole state of Fla is going to get hit HARD!! that storm will reach coast to coast. Steve, John, ya'll might have problems. We Pray not too much - just Pray the storm does wind up going offshore TO THE EAST!!!

11L_tracks_latest.png
 
Want to see a scary track? Note how these models are centered over west coast of Fla, and it's much wider than the NHC tracks I posted before. I WILL be keeping an eye on this storm. While I'm 30 mile from coast, and 100 ft elevation, I'm still VERY concerned about hurricanes.

AL11_2017090800_ECENS_large.png
 
Ken, I fully agree. I have learned that too be prepared and hope you just get to put it all back and never use it!!

Ted, I have been keeping an eye on the fires you all got out there. They can be fast moving and total destruction in minutes. I once saw a fire at Ft. Rucker, Al. walk across a mile wide field of about 4' tall Baharra Grass, in less than a minute or two! The flames were like 10-12 ft. in the air. It caught one company by surprise and all they got out with was there vehicles. Burnt everything else up!! We had an arsonist on base and he sit like 12 fires that summer. Never caught him but he always left his calling card. A pack of smokes and a gallon gas can.

I guess it just goes to show no matter where you live, there is always a battle between Mother Nature and man!!

Steve how expensive are those kits to convert to propane?? http://www.uscarburetion.com/
I went to their site and don't see any prices! Also I see they have a high pressure kit and a low pressure kit. I would think the high pressure might be better. Which do you use??

Ken you post just popped up as I was talking! The further West that thing goes it can draw from the hot water of the Gulf. They are all certain till.............

I am not really concerned about tidal surge being inland as far as I am, and don't think I would ever flood but, if the winds are very high, that is when it gets hairy! Everything I got here ain't worth a life!!

Did you see some of the footage of those islands Irma walked across, total devastation! The mayor, governor or whatever he was said, that early estimates are 90% of everything on the island had been destroyed!! I don't think you could pay me enough to live on one them islands! Most aren't but about 3 - 5' above sea level.

How did you know exactly the elevation and how far you are inland??

EDIT: Just picked this up while trying to get the latest on Irma. My God this is devastation!!
 
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I was thinking of moving to Fl to get out of the snow but I am staying hear the snow don't knock my home down or many other things you people face down there good luck.
 
I've pulled elevation from GPS and also from google maps - some of their maps give elevation. Distance from gulf, I just guessed at it. I checked google maps for distance and it looks like about 35 mile straight line. For an exact measurement I'd get the latitude at gulf beach, then compare to my latitude and calculate from that.

Snow? Brrrrr - I can't deal with that stuff. Hurricanes are a small price to pay for living in paradise........ as long as the hurricanes stay away {g}
 
C Craft, I forget what I paid I think is was $120.00 or something like that, when I bought it they were making changes to how they made them and putting there old stock on ebay, that's where I got mine, ebay.
As for pressures, they may be referring to tank pressure for LP as being high, without a first stage regulator.
1st stage residential regulators knock the pressure down to ten pounds, then there's a reg. at the house that knocks it down to 11" water column...which is just under 1/2 pound. if your buying it for a propane supply you may want to contact them and ask about that.
For natural gas the typical residential regulator supply's 7" wc which is a 1/4 pound, some are 2 pound with a reducing reg downstream, like for a long underground run to a pool heater or something. my generator runs on 7".
I'm pulling it out tomorrow and lay out the line over to my meter, another thing I did was install an outlet next to my breaker panal outside and connect that to a 30 amp breaker. when the power goes out I turn off the main breaker...turn on the 30...and the generator back feeds thru my panal into the house.

I just covered up a couple vulnerable windows I have today.
on another note...my area is so low that on some jobs we have on the beach putting in gas mains we have to put down well points the day before we dig, and on some we even schedule or jobs according to the tide. it's crazy.

I'm not in a flood zone , so I'm not leaving....lock and load baby !
 
OK Ken, I thought maybe you had a site you could put that address in and it spit out all that info!!

Rick, I was born and raised the first 17yrs of my life right in the middle of Nebraska. I use to miss snow at Christmas time but, anymore the cold goes into my body and finds all those place where I was stupid. Like the time I fell of a top plate I was walking backwards laying out for trusses. I fell into a bay window that had no header in line with the outside wall. My cut man told me I hit every brace we had in that window area but, I think that is the only thing that kept you from landing on your head! I jumped up, pulled trusses up and started slinging decking and had half the house by the end of the day. Of course when I got home from the job I had to have help to get into the house!!

No sir, I don't miss the snow and cold anymore. Rick I think no matter where you live if you like it, you got to be willing to pay the price for living there!!
 
I'm not in a flood zone , so I'm not leaving....lock and load baby !

I hear you buddy, you be careful!! Thanks for the info on the conversion!!! I rode one out that in the height of the storm I was questioning myself but we were boarded-up and all was good. The worst moment is when I heard the freight train coming over the house. Thank God it did not drop down. Afterward you could see for a mile from house, like a tunnel thru the trees and not a leaf on any tree down that path!!
 
Steve, isn't that 10 psig pressure on a 2-stage system? The typical LPG system around here typically doesn't have a very long run from tank to house so uses only a single stage system which drops the pressure to the 8 oz range you mention. The difference in the propane regulator on a BBQ tank vs a house regulator is the volume they will flow, but the pressure is the same 8 oz. This info came from a tech yesterday with propanecarbs.com folks.

Steve, since you work with NG systems, my question to you is what the tech told me true? OR, since all LPG equip (stove, hot water heater, etc) have a regulator built in, does the tank regulator only drop to the 10 PSIG with the stove regulator doing the rest of the drop to 8 oz pressure?

Their system lists for $169 for a 7KW to 8KW generator, while on Amazon it's sold for $125 shipped.
 
Ken, on the double bottle system you see where an lp company changes out your tanks, those have regs. that knock the pressure down to 11" to go in the house, my company doesn't do change out tanks, we put in semi permanent tanks and come out and fill them. a normal house size is a 120 or 250 gal. we go up to 1000 gal. tanks. our tanks are usually set a way's from the house either above ground or buried, so with the length of run we send 10# to the house...right where it goes in is another reg. that drops it to 11"

on your second question, the normal pressure entering a house is always 11" for propane and 7" for natural gas, there are some instances where we will bump the nat. pressure to 14" due to the size of the house piping but you have to be certain that when the appliances are off, the lock up pressure at the reg. does not go above 14". and yes most all appliances have regulators built in, in the case of a nat. gas water heater it's 3.5 - 4" , if you have a gas w/h you can look on the side of the control and it will tell you the max. inlet pressure...which is 14" that's why you have to be careful what your sending into a house, if it's over 14" and the appliance reg. fails...bad things can happen.
 
Yep, I believe that if I convert my generator it will be to propane. The I can run it off a 40 lb. tank, and use my manifolded 2 - 20lb tanks I have for my forge as backup. I looked at how they were doing the installation and it is a whole lot easier than I ever thought it would be!!

I was asking about using the HP is because I have found a HP regulator is more efficient and easier to control than a low pressure regulator. Such as you have on a BBQ grill! We do not have natural gas here. But it is on the street I live on, as some in the neighborhood have it!!
But that is a whole different subject than you all were discussing about the natural gas!!

Man that would sure beat gas hunting and after Ivan there were several places that were able to sell propane. A lot of folks including me were using propane to cook off of!!!
You would stop have yall got gas, nope I got propane.
 
A guy with some property up by my place in the woods has a whole house generator with a 500 gal. tank, and that's all it's for is that generator.
I'm thinking I might be seeing that up at my place in the future.
 
You Florida boys be careful I hope all is well. I love Florida, my Uncle for 20 years lived there in Bonita Springs. We would visit frequently, I even marries my wife in FL on the beach.
Mother Nature lately has beem showing us who's boss, hang in there.
 
Ya'll folks on the West coast of Fla - LOOK OUT!!! It sure looks like Irma is coming right up the west coast now. Be careful and keep everything tied down.

When I moved off boat to house I'd always planned to have a whole house generator. After buying to house, I got to checking the cost of running the generator - at a gal/hr the cost added up pretty quick. If a person didn't need A/C the cost wouldn't be so bad running a few hrs/day. If power is out for an extended time, what are the odds water might be out also, unless you've got a water well? I've got the portable generator that would be pretty easy to use for a few days, but for extended time.... I might just run for the hills. Got plenty of family in north Alabama that would put us up.

It seems the small 7 to 8KW portable generators converted to LPG uses about the same as a 16kw whole house generator, at 1/2 to 3/4 gal/hr running half load, but 1 gal+ running at full load.

Good luck ya'll Fla folks,

Ken H>
 
Yea, this is looking bad now. it looks like it's coming right at me. I know John Wilson lives in Tampa, so at this point they have the track coming over the two of us.
 
See and Yall thought I was crazy when I said it was going W! I still ain't sure its gonna make that N turn, where they are predicting. And yep, I know the models are all saying so. That Gulf has been a hot as Hades all summer and I have this feeling as that storm rebuilds coming off of Cuba, that hot water is gonna pull it even further W.
Over the years I have learned to trust my gut feeling on these things and several times I have been closer to right than the forecasters! From the beginning I have had the feeling this one was gonna shoot the slot between Fl. and Cuba and into the Gulf, then all bets are off. I don't have the benefit of all the data they punch in for their forecasts but in my uneducated view I don't see the conditions that are gonna make it turn. Time will tell. Everyone in Fl. should be keeping a close eye on this one!!
 
Cliff, hush your mouth!!!! That storm is going to take a hook to the NE and head out to the Atlantic!!! Boy, wouldn't that be nice.
 
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