Air Conditioner – Graves On SOHO Technology

Presenting on Backup Power to the Montie Beach Civic Club

The evening of Thursday, September 12th I will be giving my presentation on an Affordable Approach to Whole Home Backup Power to a meeting of the Montie Beach Civic Club. This is the fourth time giving this presentation this summer, and most likely the last.

Each time I give it the slides change a little to reflect the time and place. Also to add little things that I’ve learned along the way. This time I’ve added the following image which reflects the reality that we are currently in the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

This week Houston had a near miss with Hurricane Francine. Initially moving toward the Texas gulf coast, it veered northeast toward the Louisiana coast. Nonetheless, it serves as a reminder that we need to be prepared for those events that impact the city. We’ve already suffered a number of days of power outage this year, the result of the derecho and Hurricane Beryl.

In truth, much of the reason for this post is to give me a place to put a link to download the slides as a PDF. That way I can have a URL to be the target of a QR code contained in the slide deck.

Webinar: An Affordable Strategy for Whole Home Backup Power – Follow-up

Well, that was fun! I’m pleased to report a resonable turnout of people interested in the subject matter of last night’s webinar. We had about 20 people join the presentation live. Further, a number who could not attend have inquired about the availability of a recording. So, here’s the video:

You can also download the slides in PDF format.

An Affordable Strategy For Whole Home Backup Power

June 12, 2024
Michael Graves
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Predator 9500 Inverter Since the crazy storm of May 16th took out power for much of Houston, there has been a lot of chatter about strategies for backup power. So much so that I posted to NextDoor to see what interest there might be in a seminar on the matter. My intent being to share our own experience and that of a few friends who have followed a similar path. The response was very strong, the thread resulting in over 160 comments in just a couple of days!

So, I guess I have to get busy crafting the presentation. While I do that, and for the very impatient, here is a list of related items I’ve written previously:

Decisions: 2021 Household Projects – Describes our strategy for backup power and a new air conditioner.
Connection Options for Backup Power – Details four ways so connect a portable generator to your home.
Backup Power: 9kW-ish Portable Invertors – An overview of large, portable inverters in the 9 kW class.
Central Air Conditioners: Variable-Speed vs Soft Start Kits – Considering how central AC can be run from a modest generator.
How-To Geek: Be Careful Before Running Your Computer From a Gas Generator – Comparing a generator to an inverter.
NYT on Household Energy Monitors – Using a cheap energy monitor to learn how much power our home uses, which informed our choice of generator.

It will take me some time to tie everything we’ve learned into a single (hopefully) coherent presentation. Given the level of interest, it will most likely be conducted as an online webinar. Details to follow as it progresses.