Los Angeles feedback
I live in Los Angeles right on the edge of an evacuation order area. We are currently under a “Boil Water” restriction. We just got our power back after 48 hours without power. Here’s what I’ve learned over the last few days.
Water goes faster than you think. People don’t understand how much water gets wasted rinsing out bowls and dishes after you use them. Also simple things like rinsing off your toothbrush after you use it. We have three large water dispensers we typically use for holiday parties that we set up next to each sink full of filtered water. We then put a bowl in each sink with soapy water in it. You use the soapy water to wash, then when you rinse your hands with the clean water it flows into the bowl, this way your water lasts twice as long.
Leave things in your refrigerator and know the specs on your refrigerator.When the power first went out, we took everything out of the refrigerator and put them in coolers with ice to keep them cold. This just resulted in our food getting wet from melting ice. Fail. We shifted tactics to running the generator for 2 hours every morning and every evening to recharge devices and cool down the refrigerator. This worked way better. But those time frames were guesses on my part. It would be very beneficial to buy two battery powered Bluetooth temperature probes or hardwired probes to be able to put in the refrigerator and freezer so we can monitor the current temperature in them. That would have saved me a lot of resources in wasted gasoline running the generator when it may not have been necessary. Also, a log book and prior research knowing what the max and minimum temperatures of safe food storage would be good so I know when I need to turn it on the cool it down again. Also, fill 1 gallon bottles with fresh water and put them in the freezer to help keep it cold. They take a long time to thaw and hold the cold well. Also you can drink the water after they melt.
Solar power is great, but not great. I have 8000 watts of solar on my roof, but it’s tied into the grid with no battery bank. The irony of having no power for 48 hours was like salt in the wound. I set up a separate system using two 50amp AGM batteries, two 100 watt solar panels, and a solar charge converter with inverter. This worked decent until the smog from the fires started to kill the suns ability to charge the batteries. I hooked up a battery charger/tender to the batteries so that when I run the generator it tops off the batteries. Plugged into this inverter, we have a deep freezer. These was great throughout this as it only pulls 1.4 amps. I could run it around the clock off the batteries without issue. We emptied our freeze contents from the house into here and it kept everything cold.
Air quality sucks. You cannot escape it. Even if you are nowhere near the fire, everyone is affected by the air quality. I have two air purifiers in the house that run on 120v. Useless when the power is off. It would be good to have some of those 24” cheap box fans that you could run off a battery bank with HEPA filters zip tied to the intake side. Also, you’d be amazed how much smog comes in under door sills and mail slots. We needed up rolling up wet towels to block these, but I’ll definitely be installing an exterior mailbox on the house and plugging up the mail slot permanently. I cannot imagine how much that has effecting my heating/ac bill. Also, I’ll be installing new gaskets and door sills.
Buy disposable one time use plastic utensils, cup, paper bowls, etc. these will go a long way towards eliminating your water usage due to washing dishes.
Have bottles of hand sanitizer ready to put by your bathroom and kitchen sinks. When water rationing goes into effect, you’ll find you end up washing your hands less open and this could help you from getting sick.
Anyway, I gotta get back to it. We’re not out of this yet. Cheers. I hope this was helpful for someone.