Thank God for Buses

[Eagle]

Here in Louisville KY yesterday we had the after effects of hurricane Ike.  We had winds 40 to 55MPH and gusts up to 75MPH and now we have over 260000 homes without electric.  Since we left Florida I never thought we would go through a hurricane up here. With the generator we are able to run extension cords and keep refrig and freezer going.  They say we may not have electric until next week and since the Ryder Cup golf tournament is here this week you can bet that the politicians will take care of them first.  I love my Bus especially the generator, Thanks Wrico.

[David Anderson]

In the same thought, I just saw a San Antonio news story reporting over 5000 people have evacuated to various state parks in Texas.  They can stay for free.  I think that is a good idea and much more efficient than putting them up in FEMA shelters.   Most of the RV parks are full, too.   Owning an RV (bus) living near the coast is a smart thing to have.   You can boogie out and have a place to live until you are able to return.

David

[FloridaCliff]

I have used my RV and Bus several times in just these situations.

Since I work for a major service provider in our area, being able to leave the family in a good situation helps during the long hours during recovery.

I have thanked God for my bus several times, and I am sure I will again.......

Cliff

[Dreamscape]

Yesterday we were informed that anybody could stay at Eisenhower State Park in Denison TX at no cost. I think Randy and Sue Davidson did just that.

What a great idea someone had.

Aint busin fun!

Paul

[Jriddle]

I live in remote area of NV. I am in the early stages of my build. One of the first things I bought and installed is the generator. I have not used it for my bus yet but have watched tv and cooked dinner this last winter when power was out. Love my bus!
John

[CraigC]

We have also used our Bus/RV a couple times when our house was not habitable. I do live in the center of Calif. We I live in the country and the last house on the circuit. Power loss does not happen as often as it once did. We also would run an extension cord in the house to run a few items. The following was a plan of mine. Running from where I park the bus to the few important items so life could go on pretty much as normal a separate plug to a few locations. I was going to this right buried conduit and all in wall plugs in the house up to code. This would in no way be connected to the house wiring it would basically be a circuit that only had a male plug in a box out by the RV. In the house you would have to switch things to this plug like the red plug I see in hospitals.
Just throwing out one of my wild previous to do things, that will never happen.

[Bob Gil]

This would in no way be connected to the house wiring it would basically be a circuit that only had a male plug in a box out by the RV. In the house you would have to switch things to this plug like the red plug I see in hospitals.
Just throwing out one of my wild previous to do things, that will never happen.

You can do it a lot simpler They make a juntcion box simlar to the switch on the incoming shore to genset of your bus that will allow you to run the house off of the genset and be in code too.  It would be a lot cheaper than the rewireing you are talking about.

Bob

[DrivingMissLazy]

I did mine somewhat different. First I installed a 50 amp 240 volt shore cord with an outlet beside the bus. This cord was fed by a 50 amp breaker from the home utility circuit breaker box. Normally I kept the coach plugged into this outlet.

I made provision in the transfer switch so that I could feed generator power back thru my shore cord back to the 50 amp breaker in the house. 

When I had a utility failure ( and we have quite a few here in the hills) I would disconnect the utility power from the main house circuit breaker box so I would not back feed the utility.

I would then turn off all the breakers in the house breaker box.

Then re-direct the genset output thru the shore cord to the home circuit breaker.

Then turn on the shore cord breaker in the house. I now had 120 volts on each of the two legs of the house breaker box.

I could then turn on any 120 volt breaker in the box and feed the genset to the various circuits in the house, such as lights, furnace fan (120 volt) and any other 120 volt appliance that we needed to use.

I did have a couple of 240 volt outlets that I could not use, but all the regular 120 volt outlets I could use. This made it very convenient for everyone.

We had an ice storm a few years ago and this arrangement came in very handy for several days.

Richard

[Eagle]

Folks we have power.  You never know how important these utilities are until you don't have them.

[CraigC]

Eagle

I am very happy to hear that you have power again. We do not realize how dependant we are on power until we have lost it.

Bob & Richard

Thanks for the ideas.

Craig

[Merlin]

Ditto on the back up source of power.  I was ready to start our bus genset up after the big wind took out most of the utility poles here in central Ohio.  However by a fluke of luck, our electric only flickered a few times.  The neighbors were not so lucky.  Our power comes from an underground cable that was put in to supply the shopping area next door.  Paranoia caused me to start up the genset this morning just to see if it would run.  Bingo ... fired up like an old soldier and purred like a kitten.

I think I'll put some effort into rigging up a manual transfer switch at the house so I can run a line from the bus to power up in the event of power outage.  Winters are what I fear the most as far as power outages go.  We probably can live well by just moving out of the house and into the bus, but the house would suffer from frozen water lines if I could not get a small source of electric to run the oil furnace motor and fan.  I guess the alternative is to spend eons of time and effort draining lines and putting antifreeze in the drains. We have to get the heck out of this house and start full-time "bussin".

Merlin