In this episode, Ready Radio hosts John Rush and Bill Anderson navigate the complexities of power outages, emergency preparedness, and self-defense scenarios. Discover how planned scenarios can improve your mental readiness and why mindset is as crucial as the physical tools you have. We share insights into backup power options tailored to fit various needs and explore the true nature of necessity during power outages. Whether facing hailstorms or contemplating societal shifts, tune in to rethink how you prepare for the unexpected.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now. Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush. All right, welcome. Ready Radio, KLZ 560, live program today, June the 6th. June the 6th, so thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it very much. If you’re listening to a replay show, you know what day we recorded this on. Bill Anderson joining me, as he typically does. Bill, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m doing okay. It’s raining again here in Elizabeth. I tell you, it’s crazy.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was reading something this morning. I didn’t verify this. You see a lot of different things out on the Internet and so on, and I didn’t verify this. But I read that we’ve had double the rain of Seattle since May.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. I read that this morning as well, too. Yeah, in fact, you know, it looked like it snowed at my house last night with the hail again. It’s just like, holy cow. I don’t know. You know, it fits right into the theme of this program, right? Because life is so unpredictable. That’s right. You know, you don’t know if you’re going to have a hot season, a cool season, a wet season. You know, and we did all this garden prep stuff, and it’s like I’m just watching it, like, all get washed out. And I’m like, oh, man, you know, okay, well, plan B, you know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and as you said a moment ago, we could have all of those in one season, by the way. It could be cool and rainy, hot, tornadoes, hail. I mean, Bill, it’s Colorado. We could have anything.
SPEAKER 09 :
We could have anything. You know, I once had an old electrician tell me one time, he says, hey, be really good at plan A. but, you know, be exceptionally well at plan B. You know, we all try plan A, and we hope that plan A works, right? I mean, that’s the idea, but, you know, I mean, I don’t know about you, but Murphy seems to show up a lot anymore, and it’s like, okay, well, now let’s adjust.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, you’re right. I think that, I mean, here with what I do in this seat, folks don’t recognize it or see it because things that go on behind the scenes, you know, guests don’t show on time, or they can’t show up at all, or other technical snafus might happen, or he might have a software issue or or or bill i can go down the list of things that happen and and i think your other electrician friend is very correct and and frankly there are there are those out there that get so structured in this world by the way you can’t be because things can happen and you have to be prepared for that and ready to roll no matter what and that that can apply to every area of life by the way should apply to every area of life
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s actually a really good thing, and it fits right in with what we talk about on a weekly basis here of, hey, we plan, we think we have an idea of what’s going to happen, but shoot, you never know who’s going to jump on the TV. get into a quarrel with whoever. The whole economy tanks and shifts and stock market changes all based on silly childness, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, and frankly, I think Wall Street itself can be very childish along those lines as well. Those guys are a bunch of knuckleheads sometimes. Also, don’t get me started on them because most of them don’t understand reality any more than the folks that are causing some of those things you just mentioned. So I have my own… Most people know my feelings on that. I don’t have a lot of respect for Wall Street and the traitors that are there. I’ll just say it that way.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, you’ve just got to understand this. They have an agenda, and they make their money, as most things in life, they make their money on 90% of the maybe uneducated or the unknowing, we’ll just call it, of those traitors. that get in the market, try to do stuff, they’re really driving it, right? It’s the whole 80-20 idea of life, right? It’s like they’re driving everything, and those guys are making their money on the backs of the people who are doing the investing and things like that. I don’t know if I’m stating it quite correctly. I think you’re right. It’s all driven that way. It is. You lead it. You lead what you want. things to happen for for whatever outcome and you know that’s just the way it is you know and and i’ve been thinking about this this week john and i’ve really kind of dropped the whole quote prepper prepping idea and here’s why right um it’s it’s not i’m not preparing for anything anymore it just now is my way of life right you know i’m going back to what my my granddad did what my grandma did And that’s what they did. You know, they had a garden and they put up stuff for the winter. And, you know, I mean, they weren’t called preppers. They were just living. They were providing for themselves. And it’s like, you know, if you have that kind of mindset, John, then I think it kind of takes the whole stigma away from it and people get a little bit more comfortable with it. And it’s like, you know, hey, I’m, you know, it ain’t no different than putting money in a bank account or putting money in a retirement account or whatever. It’s the same idea, right? You know, I’m putting things on the shelf for the winter.
SPEAKER 07 :
Fully, fully agree. We’ve talked about that a lot here that that term can get a lot of, you know, at times negative connotations depending upon how involved you are or aren’t or maybe some of your past history and people that you’ve known could even be family members. I think at times people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater, Bill, because they, you know, I don’t want to be that. That’s the last thing I want to be. Well, time out. What if you called it something different or what if you took a different look at it versus what you’ve been used to? You might have a whole different perspective. In other words, change your perspective on it, which I think if there’s anything we’re trying to do on this program each week, to your point, is – that whole perspective, getting people to think, okay, what if this happened or what if I found myself in this particular situation? Am I ready? Am I able to, you know, take over? Do I have not only the physical tools available to me to make it through this particular predicament? Do I have the mental skills? Do I have the knowledge? You know, do I have everything that it takes to make it through some of these things? Because as I, and I know you do the same thing as I read books, a lot of these different books for end-of-the-world type scenarios and things like that. I’ll give a hand to these particular authors. They think of things at times, Bill, that, frankly, I just never would have thought through. They come up with things, and granted, that’s what they do. That’s why they sell books and so on. But they’ve got me thinking about things that, frankly, a couple, two, three years ago, I wouldn’t have thought about because it’s just not something that’s at the top of your mind.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. It’s kind of like in our self-defense classes, we constantly are running what you would call scenarios, right? A scenario, hey, you’re in a bad neighborhood, or hey, somebody ran the shopping cart into your car, or they are accusing you of running your cart into the car, and how are you going to handle that situation? And basically what these books and things do is they’re running scenarios for us in our mind. And when you get the reps in, Here’s an interesting thing about your mind. Your mind doesn’t know if it’s a real scenario or a fake scenario, or even if you just imagine it in your head. Your body really doesn’t know, and that’s one of the bad things about reliving a tragedy in your life is you’re re-experiencing that tragedy over and over and over and over again. And it’s not healthy, right? And I know that’s easier said than done, but sometimes that’s hard to just shut that off. But, you know, your mind doesn’t really know. And there’s so many studies with the whole thing of, you know, kind of imagining, you know, hey, throwing three throws versus the test group that is actually throwing them. And the percentage is not that big of a difference of the people that just imagined it, they visualized it, and the people that did it, right? And so, you know, we are kind of doing that, if you will. And every week when we talk about a particular topic or things come up, we’re running scenarios. And as people are listening and thinking about it, they’re getting a rep in. Now, what you do with it is important, too. You know, you can’t just say, oh, you give me something to think about. Hopefully we’re giving people something to do. You know, in church, you know, it’s kind of one of my things. If somebody comes up to me and goes, hey, you gave me something to think about, then I look at that as like, oh, I failed. Because I should have given you something to do, to take what we talked about today and go apply it to your life, in whatever area we’re talking about. And hopefully we’re doing that, you know, as we speak today. But one of the biggest things that I think we miss in all of this is if stuff goes, you know, we have the tools, we have the skills, do we have the mindset, right? Right. Do we have the mindset? Are we becoming fearful? Are we becoming overprotective? Are we becoming, you know, have we thought about that side of it? Because, John, I think a lot of people miss that. element, you know. They missed that portion of it.
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree, and that’s one of those things, again, we continue to talk about here. Somebody asked also, and yes, this is a definite yes, if there are any kind of bad weather situations while we were on air, hail uh tornadoes things like that whether it’s this program or any other ones that i do live will you guys be notified of them absolutely plus you know klz is part of the emergency broadcast system as well so not only would i say something but you guys would hear that as well so at the end of the day yes you guys will all be notified if something like that happens bill one of the things in light of some of that because i was thinking today you know we’re in that type of the time of the year where we can get all sorts of different storms we can have bad hail rain tornadoes things along those lines and backup power is one of those things that I think a lot of people think about but maybe never exercise anything on. And I get it. There is a broad spectrum of what is a need versus what a want is. In other words, some may want the entire house to have backup power. Well, that may be unrealistic depending upon your budget. So I thought maybe we could get into some of that and helping people understand that. you know, what do they need versus what they want, and then how do they determine whether they want, you know, whether they need, I should say, battery backup, regular, you know, generator, gasoline power, you know, natural gas type, you know, diesel power generators, things like that. And I guess the first thing I would ask you, given you’re the electrician in all of this, where do folks start? What’s the first thing that they should really look at in determining what they need?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, let’s start there. But let’s kind of touch back to the weather notification. So here’s your first one. It is now hailing at my house. Okay, gotcha. So there you go. It is hailing. So the first place to start is, you know, there is no cookie cutter. You must understand that. And you’ve got to be careful, even listening to a show such as ours, or anybody out there for that matter on YouTube or whatever book, and thinking that, oh, you know, hey, John said this, so that’s what I’ve got to do. You know, John’s situation, Bill’s situation, and your situation are completely different, right? So there is no cookie cutter in that. And, you know, I’m doing a lot of study in permaculture, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. No, I’m not. It’s kind of setting up your yard in permaculture. what you would call you know kind of you know feeding back to the land and letting you know your gardening getting away from the traditional stuff and kind of getting into like food forests and tree guilds and i mean it’s it’s that’s a very vague definition of it but when you’re looking at permaculture or a little farm you know homestead or whatever you want to call it they talk about zones and and trust me this will this will make sense here in a minute And your zone zero is the things that are on your countertop. So maybe I have my sprouts there or I have whatever growing there. My zone one is whatever’s in my backyard. And the idea is the further away from your house is, the less maintenance it’s going to need, the less care it’s going to need, because you don’t want to be traveling all the way to the corner of your property to pick your lettuce. right? Because what happens? You forget about it. It’s too far. It’s not convenient and things like that. So you have these zones, you know, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever it may be. And so the same thing is kind of true in whatever area we’re talking about. Okay. So, you know, hey, what’s my immediate need? If I’m in the house and let’s say you and I are talking right now and the lightning is strikes and the power goes off. Okay. It’s like, okay, well, how long is that going to be? And what do I need right now? Okay. Now that’s going to be given, you know, hey, is it nighttime? Do I need to navigate my house in the dark now because there’s no power? What do I need? Do I have medical? Do I have somebody on a ventilator or whatever kind of medical device? So you see how it doesn’t necessarily, there’s no cookie cutter, right? I can’t say, oh, yeah, you need this, you need this, because you may be just fine. You may actually be just fine with no power for three to four hours. Like, actually, to be honest with you, most people are. Most people can survive this world with no power for three to four hours. True. True. You’re not going to have your TV show. Okay. You’re not going to have the Internet. Okay. Guess what? You’ll live.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good point. And I’m sorry to be so tough on people.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, you’re right.
SPEAKER 09 :
People need to get out of la-la land, John, you know?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, no, you are correct. I mean, I think that’s where for the long haul, what are you needing? Because to your point, that short haul, that, let’s face it, Bill, even a half a day, if you keep your fridge closed, keep the door closed, keep the freezer door closed and so on, could you go four or five hours without power? Yeah, absolutely you could. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, but I’m on a well. Okay, well, you know, you should consider that. So, again, now we go back to what are your immediate needs. Okay, if I’m on a well and I need that power immediately, to give me water. First of all, remember this. You’re on a pressure tank, so you will have some water until that pressure tank drops. And then, you know, it’ll try to call for water, but it won’t be able to. So, you know, it’s not like your water is going to completely shut off because you do have some pressure in that tank. So, you know, again, if you need a drink of water, get it. But hey, are you putting away a couple gallons in there? Because again, you know, if I had a couple gallons on the shelf or whatever it may be, push comes to shove. I’m okay. You’re good.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. I’m okay. That’s right.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m not good. You know, people are like, I hate to be so blunt, but people are like, oh, my gosh, I’m so hungry. And I’m looking at you going, you got plenty in this tank.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you could, and people don’t realize this, water, of course, you can’t go as long without. But, Bill, for most people with food, you can go if you’ve got a good supply of water you could go a couple of weeks easily without food now you you may not have the energy levels and things that you would have otherwise some will go through withdrawals by the way because of all the crap we eat on a daily basis but you may not feel very well and by the way it’s not because you’re not eating food well It is because you’re not eating food. You’re not eating the food you’re used to having, and your body’s now going through withdrawals. So you’re feeling bad from that, more so than not having the food itself, Bill, for the first 48 hours. After that, you can go weeks without food. Not a problem. Most Americans, easy three weeks.
SPEAKER 09 :
If not more. I mean, I talk to people all the time. I’m starving. I say, you want to see what starvation looks like? Look at the people from the concentration camps. That’s starvation, buddy. You’re nowhere close to that. And again, I hate to be so blunt, but it gets a little irritating because we are… We’re a bunch of sissies, John. We’re a bunch of sissies.
SPEAKER 07 :
I can’t disagree with you on that. We are spoiled. Sissies is maybe not the right… I mean, it goes along with it. We’re spoiled sissies. Maybe that’s the way to say it, Bill. We’re so spoiled. We have pretty much everything we want. at our fingertips. I mean, we live in a society today to where whether it’s a big box store like a Costco, Walmart, Sands Club, all the way down to your local stores, all the way down to, in some cases, the quote-unquote convenience stores, gas stations, if you would, that we have placed everywhere. I mean, there’s very, very few places you can’t go find some substance to survive on literally in this country, Bill. We are very blessed in that area where most countries don’t have that ability.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, so anyway, with that said, you know, I think people get a little overzealous with their battery or their generator or whatever it may be, power, their thoughts of what they really need. You know, because, again, now we’re going back to that zones. okay so hey zone zero is okay maybe i got a little i think i’ve talked about this in the past i got a little you know knockoff pelican case or if you got the money pelican case i don’t really care you know whatever suitcase i don’t really care some type of a box and and you open it up and it’s like okay i got some you know i got some headlamps in here got some flashlights in here um I’m good for a couple hours. I’m good for a couple hours. And like you said, as long as I don’t open and close, open and close, open and close, because people are like, what about my food? Listen, we do service changes all the time. We turn people’s power off for a good four to six hours. And everybody’s food is fine. Your refrigerator will cycle for about 15 or so minutes every hour just to maintain the Right, because as long as it’s sealed up, it’s maintaining temperature. Right. Now, the more I open and close and all of that, then, yeah, I’m going to bring it down. Then I’m going to have to call for the cooling to bring it down. But for the most part, your fridge, your freezer can easily last a day with no power. That’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Real quick, I had a question that came in, and this is something you may know some about. I know a little bit about this as well, and that is somebody texted and said, one of the biggest fears I have is lightning. It can punch holes in roofs. It can do all sorts of damage, things along those lines. And what I would tell folks is if you’re in an area where you feel like you’re more susceptible to that than maybe some others for whatever reasons, and you would know that more than anybody else, by the way, because you know your house better than anything. There are companies out there that make, you know, lightning, and Bill, you’re the electrician, you would know this more than I, not necessarily deterrent, deterrency systems, but they’re systems designed to handle the lightning when it shows up. Let me say it that way. Is that the right way to say it?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, here’s the reality. Again, the reality of the situation, you know, you’re getting hit by lightning. I mean, that’s pretty big, right? You’re not going to… You know, deflect that 100%. You’re not, I mean, you’re, I’m sorry, but you’re between, you know, a rock and a hard place, to put it nicely. You know, you’re screwed. You’re screwed. I mean, that’s just pretty much what it is. I mean, I’ve got several trees on my property here right next to my house that have been hit by lightning. You could tell because there’s a big scar right up the side of them. And so out here in the eastern plains of Colorado, we get hit a lot. So, yeah, if you’re in that kind of area, yeah, you want to get a lightning system, right? And basically what they are is they’re rods that are put up on the peaks and things of your house. And then the idea is that when the lightning strikes these things, it diverts the flow away from your internal energy. wiring of your house and takes it to ground through external rods and things of that nature. If you’ve got any understanding of electricity, electricity takes the path of least resistance. You’re creating these lightning rods to dissipate the biggest strike through the path of least resistance. It’s kind of the same thing with surge protection. People are asking me, hey, what can I get? Surge protection, will it protect me from a lightning strike? And I’m like, honestly, no. You’re going to have damage. And even with EMP Shield, I think you guys offer that, we offer that. It’s not going to protect it. They’ll give you insurance with it. It might help. But, you know, if it gets into the interior wiring of your house and things of that nature or hits structure, I mean, listen, if it hits your roof and blows a hole in your roof, there’s nothing electrically that’s going to save you.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. No, it is what it is. And there was a company that was not far from a shop I had in Boulder called Lightning Eliminators. They’re still around. They do really high-end, high-tech stuff. things along those lines, Bill, to where if you’re a manufacturing company, for example, and a lightning strike would be detrimental to your business, yes, they do make systems. They’re not cheap. I doubt most homeowners, unless you’ve got a boatload of money, most homeowners couldn’t afford to put the type of systems they make in. Do they work? Absolutely they do. I’ve seen them in action, and yes, they work, but they are not for the faint of heart cost-wise.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s super expensive. And honestly, out here where I live, a lot of houses, a lot of outbuildings and things have a lightning system on them. But it comes at a cost. And this is the same thing what we’re talking about with our topic today. If you want me to put in a 22, 24, 27K generator for your whole house because you’re worried about that one or two hours of power you might not have, We can do that, you know, but whatever your pocketbook can afford, you know, we can do that if that’s what you want. I just had this conversation yesterday with somebody. It’s like, you know, you probably don’t need this. What this will give you, honestly, is peace of mind. Right. And peace of mind is, you know, enough. for you to justify the cost, then I have no problem doing that. But that’s up to you, and I don’t know your budget.
SPEAKER 07 :
We’re going to come back and talk more about that. So, folks, if you’ve got anything else, please send us a text message. Some of you are without power as we speak, so we’re on the right topic, given that some of you are texting along those lines right now. Hang tight. We’ll talk more about this in a moment. Don’t go anywhere. You can text us, by the way, 307- 200-8222-307-28222. We’ll be right back. This is Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 07 :
Bill Anderson with me today. Bill, do you have any classes, anything coming up that you want to talk about in the near future that we should mention before we get going?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, we just continually have our concealed carry classes, level one, level two, and level three. And then we also have first aid CPR, kind of stop the bleed classes going on. And those are all available via the website, prep2protect.com. co.com prep to protect co.com and you can also reach out through if you are interested in getting some generator uh information or a quote for maybe some battery backup storage or that long you could check out arc electric co.com as well
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, so folks that are thinking about that end of it, where we’re thinking, okay, and somebody mentioned that, keep in mind, if you’re somebody that’s got a high water table and you run on a sump pump, that’s one thing that you would have to be more careful on because in a big torrential storm where things may be, you know, raining super hard, you do lose power, want to make sure that things aren’t backing up inside, especially if you’ve got a finished basement. If it’s unfinished, maybe not quite as big of a deal, but if it’s a finished basement, something you probably ought to be paying attention to. what you need generator whatever to keep things going because in that particular case bill as you know you’re going to have more water coming in you would normally power is out how are you handling a potential flood issue in your basement yeah so again we kind of go back to you got to figure out your situation and there’s no cookie cutter with this let’s talk about um some things here real quick and then we’ll get back to this to answer this question but things that cause
SPEAKER 09 :
Power outage in the Denver metro area. Let’s just kind of look at what those common are. Yes, weather conditions is probably number one. High winds, snowstorm, extreme temperatures, which we’re going to start maybe have later this summer, are the primary cause for the power outages. You’ve got to remember, too, the Xcel energy power grid was built over 60 years ago. Got it? And it’s still above ground, all right? So that is, you know, leaves it all susceptible to those high winds, snows, things of that nature. But that’s actually, and that’s probably why a lot of people are starting to experience more power outages is because of that. Also, I will say this, because we love to be, quote, green, John, right? And energy efficient, right? which is a bunch of balarkey, by the way, it actually is putting more strain on our grid. The requirement of car chargers and the demand electrically per house. You know, if you go back and think about it, sometimes people would go to these older houses and they’re like, you know, hey, I only had one outlet in my bedroom. And they’re like, I just don’t have enough outlets. And it’s like, yeah, what does that tell you? They didn’t have the demand electrically back then as we do now. But we think we’re energy efficient. You know, we think, hey, we got all these LED light bulbs. We got all this green stuff. I can tell you the houses now, which used to be 100-amp electrical service, used to be more than enough. Now, a lot of these houses, we’re having to put in 400 amps, which is equivalent to, you know, three something by the time it’s all said and done. But it’s like, are you kidding me? You know, and a mandate, you know, now of, hey, every garage has to have a car charger. You know, that’s between a 30 and a 50 amp 220. Hey, you got to have this. Oh, we can’t do natural gas anymore. So all your stuff has to be electric. But hey, we’re energy efficient. This is one of my favorites. stinking hot button because it’s just it’s it’s a it’s a load of poop you know it’s it’s really what it is yeah it’s you know um It’s just garbage. But anyway, so, you know, 60% of the infrastructure of Denver is, or not 60%, excuse me, most of Denver’s infrastructure now is 60 years old. So that leads to equipment failures, right? Transformers and all of these things can lead to outages. In 2024, 15 problematic transmission feeder lines accounted for 18% of the outages in the Denver metro area. Did you hear what I just said? Wow.
SPEAKER 07 :
Amazing. Yep. Amazing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. And so then you have in 2024, the average Xcel Energy customer experienced 350 minutes of power outages, which is an average of 166 minutes between 2014 and 2023. And then additionally, 90,000 customers experienced six or more outages in a year. So that’s what’s happening. So you can take a look at Jackery.com, and you can see Xcel Energy’s outage map. It provides real-time information on outages, including affected areas, estimated restoration times. And by the way, the whole idea of, oh, I get a text message saying, when a when an outage is in my area cool that’s great it may work it may not work i mean whatever we did this last tornado we had come through elizabeth here um there was no emergency alert on nobody’s phone kind of crazy somebody really quick somebody just said that there’s a funnel cloud out towards your area franktown area as we speak to so those of you that are out in that area it’s been posted on social media so be alert be watching and paying paying attention Yep. So if you lose me, hey.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, no. Okay, so those that are thinking, okay, I do need – I want to make sure that because of the stats that Bill just read off, I want to make sure that I’m protected, at least some of my key things are protected. And this is where it gets a little bit dicey and where actually Bill even having a sit-down chat with you at their home as an electrician and even going over – hey, these are your options, here’s the cost, and so on, is really, really a great idea. And I mean that sincerely, not just trying to push bill services on all of you listening, but literally sitting down and saying, okay, have you thought about this? Sometimes an extra set of eyes and looking around your place saying, okay, you want to keep this running, but what about that over there? And so that really, I think, at times, Bill, helps. But in general, how do folks figure? So let’s say they want to put a whole house generation system in. How do they know what KW they need?
SPEAKER 09 :
so you’re going to be kind of limited to what you can you know reasonably afford let’s just say that and i would say you know 22 kw is going to give you you know approximately 92-ish amps full load max you know the other thing you need to keep in mind that in an event that you do have a power outage listen you need to be very energy-conscious, right? Meaning, hey, I might not be able to run everything. I might not be able to fire up my hot tub. I might not be able to charge my car, you know?
SPEAKER 07 :
Even the AC, depending upon your budget, right, Bill?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, maybe I’ve got to open up some windows and be a little warm. You know, again, you have to think about this. Now, when you think about that, and again, the biggest question is, too, is my furnace electric or gas yes i understand there’s a motor in there that turns the you know that blows the the blower you know and and things but there’s also furnaces out there that are completely electric elements right so is that that is my dryer electric okay and and by the way too to your point you know power outage i might not be doing laundry it might not right but then my stove. My stove or my oven, is it electric or is it gas? Because those are the big consumers. Right, right. Those guys are the consumers, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, anything that has a, I guess the way to say it, Bill, anything with a large element, that would be a stove, that would be a dryer. Microwaves are big suckers of energy as well, by the way. Most people don’t realize that. They think, oh, that’s just really easy. I’ll just zap this. Well, that is one of your largest… energy-using kitchen appliances there is, Bill, as you know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And, you know, you can look at your energy bill and see how many, you know, watts you’ve used because that’s how you pay your bill, right? Right. Based on the kilowatt hour. So you can see what your consumption is and you can kind of get an idea. And the point I’m trying to make here, John, is, you know, even though I said just a minute ago that we are sucking the grid dry, right, that our energy consumption has actually gone up, not down, right? The reality is when push comes to shove, to really survive, let’s say you have a well, let’s say you have the essentials going, the furnace or whatever it may be. Furnace in the wintertime, you’ve got to keep going. AC in the summertime, yeah, I can turn them off. The reality of the situation is I might be pulling 60 amps. But, again, I don’t want everybody to take that as a cookie-cutter answer because there’s places out here where I live, it’s like, hey, we got animals, and we got to keep the elements and the water, you know, thing from freezing. We got whatever it may be, you know. I mean, every shoe is different, so we got to tailor that. But when we throw that up there, John, you know, A 22kW, a 24, 27 should be more than enough for most people, most, you know, average-sized houses, yeah. So, you know, and those are pretty standard, and that’s going to get you, you know, 27 might get you about 112 amps. And check that out, too. Between a 27 and a 22, you’re talking maybe 10, 20 amps, again, depending on what you’re pulling. And the more you’re pulling… the more fuel, whatever that fuel is, you’re going to consume, right? So think of a pickup truck and driving that pickup truck empty downhill, I’m not going to burn as much fuel as if it’s loaded and I’m going uphill, right? So I’m going to consume way more fuel, whether it’s diesel, propane, natural gas, whatever it is, you fill in the blank, I’m going to consume more fuel with the more load I have on it, which may or may not be a concern for you. But if you are not attached to a natural gas line or if you have limited storage with your propane, now you better be thinking about that. Or if I’m running gas tanks, right? So… Besides that, really just we got to look at what you essentially need, you know, kind of going back to the person that responded with the sump pump. It’s like, okay, well, yeah, that’s a legitimate thing in my opinion. We do a lot of generators out here, John, because people leave for the winter and they go to warmer places. And it’s like, hey, I don’t want my furnace to go down with no power. and then have lines, water lines freeze while I’m gone and come back to a big mess. And so they’ve got, you know, a… A generator going there, and it’s all automated so that they don’t have to worry about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that’s another question that people need to think through as well, and you just mentioned it. If folks are on natural gas, can you power that generator, or do you want to power it with that? If you’re wanting to do diesel fuel, well, that’s a whole different animal. I talk about that even on Saturday on Drive Radio because keeping diesel fuel fresh is a whole other challenge. Maybe you’re on propane, and maybe you just want to run it on propane. Maybe you’ve got a natural gas, but you want to be able to have a secondary source and be out of the natural gas end of things, and you want to run it on propane, and you’ve got the ability to do that. I mean, Bill, these are things that folks need to think about on the front side, correct?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and again, I go back to the layering system. You’ve got to go back to the layer system, that zones, right? We have, you know, zone one, zone two, zone three, and I’ve got many options, okay? So I’ve got, okay, I got my little box here with my flashlights and my little, you know, things that’s going to get me through. Let’s say we’re getting into that one to two hour, getting close to that two hour mark, and it’s like, okay, it doesn’t look like the energy is going to come on. Okay, let’s go to the next step. The next step is, you know, maybe I pull out a Jackery or some kind of a solar generators, they call them, which is really a misnaming of those. But anyway, whatever, I digress with that. But I pull out something like that. Okay, I got this ready now. Maybe it’s a portable generator, you know, and I fire that up and we run some extension cords to that sump pump or we run some extension cords to the furnace. Again, you know, it’s The lanes here are very wide and very broad in what we’re driving in. Now we’re going, okay, it’s been several hours now. Okay, now I’ve got to start thinking about my refrigerator, my freezers. So having these scenarios, circling back to the scenarios, played out in your head, And then you have the plan to go forward and to implement the plans as you progress in that power outage, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Is there – and I get this quote-unquote debate quite often, even from those that are listening, texting, emailing, and so on – do you do power wall, you know, generation backup with solar and so on, or do you just go straight, you know, regular natural gas, diesel powered, propane powered, you know, generation backup or, or both, or does it depend on the circumstances?
SPEAKER 09 :
Uh, whatever you can afford.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, whatever you can afford. I mean, I’m sorry to say that, but it comes down to money, right? Um, if you want the, the best, what I would call create your own micro grid, uh, Um, yeah, I got solar and then I’ve got a battery wall and I’ve got a backup generator. Okay. And so the idea is this, because you got to understand, you got to understand too. And I mean, now we’re talking long-term now. We’re not talking for that, that power outage is out for, for a day or two. You’re talking long-term. Okay. So, um, I’m, I’m going to top that battery. I’m going to work off of that battery. Okay. Now, whatever feeds my battery, if the sun’s up, I’ve got my system set up that’s going to prioritize taking the solar energy minus what I’m currently using, the excess of it, and instead of sending it back to the grid for micro pennies on the dollar, I’m going to store it and put it into my battery. Now, when the sun goes down and I don’t have the sun, now I’m going to start to draw off the battery. Okay, if the battery gets drained in the night and it needs to pop off again, the generator fires. While the generator’s feeding the electricity of the house, the excess, because when your generator’s running… You’re creating electricity whether you’re using it or not. That’s one of the bad things about a generator, right? If I want the energy on demand, I have to have that thing running the entire time. A battery energy on demand is, hey, I suck it down, I turn off whatever I’m using, well, I still got potential there. I still got potential in my battery, right? It’s like a gas tank. You’re using it, and then when it gets low, you’ve got to top it back off. So the generator kicks on. I’m using the generator power as it’s running. The excess is topping off the batteries. Once the battery gets to a certain level, the generator kicks off, and now I’m working off battery here. And you can also add the grid into that to charge the battery. You can also add wind power, a turbine into that, whatever. Whatever you’re tapping your battery off with, that’s better. So now, how do I size the batteries? Well, again, you know, what’s your load? What are you pulling from? You can start off with something as simple as a 5K, or Franklin makes a 7K, and you can start off with that. You know, it runs about $3,000 or so just for the battery, not the installation, you know, but kind of a general idea. And then, you know, hey, save up a little bit more, and hey, let’s add another 7K, or let’s add two 7Ks. You know, you can… you can stack it, you can grow it as you want to. And then at some point, you know, you can become energy efficient. And then, you know, the whole talk of, well, I can plug in my Tesla or I can plug in my whatever electric car and I can drain off that. You can’t, it ain’t gonna last very long, you know, but you can pull off of that guy too if you want to, if you get it set up right. You know, just don’t plan on going anywhere because now you can’t go anywhere. But so it’s a very deep subject and it can take many different, directions. It can go off many different tangents, if you will, John. Again, we’ve got to figure out what you want, what you’re looking for, and build it around that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Somebody just had a great question, which I never really thought about. Is there battery walls? We call them whatever. Tesla’s got them. There’s several different brands that are out there, as you know, Bill. Do they have to have solar to operate, or can you run those independent of solar? In other words, can you just charge those off the grid, and then when the grid goes down, you still have that power?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, absolutely, and that’s what’s nice about the Franklin system is is it doesn’t care about the input. You can prioritize the input. So if you have a cloudy day, or during the winter we may not have as much sun, it’ll pull off the grid. And you can program it to do it on non-peak hours. so that you can be charging your wall in the middle of the night, let’s just say, when the electricity is cheaper, and then have it dispatched or use that when it’s more expensive to kind of offset the cost. Now, I will tell people this, too, because people think they’re going to make their money back, and I’m like, The return of investment on these things, solar, battery walls, generators, whatever, listen, it’s… It’s not there. You probably won’t get it, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, no. Not in our lifetime.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. So, again, you’re paying for that peace of mind. You’re paying for whatever. Now, if you have somebody in your house that needs that medical stuff, you know, needs that ventilator, needs whatever, whatever. I don’t know all the things that people use for medical things, but… Now it’s not a question of return on investment. It could be a question of life or death, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Here’s another question that I’ve even had, and this might be a dumb question, but on the power walls, do they make them where they’re external? They can go on the outside, or do they all have to go inside of a garage or a basement? How does that part of it work, Bill?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, absolutely. They’re made to go outside, inside. Now, you do want to make sure, you know, be smart about it, right? Because especially in Colorado, we have very intense sun. And, you know, the UV and the intenseness, it’s not even an English word, but whatever, the intensity of the sun really will start to degrade your equipment over time. And plus, I don’t know if anybody has an electric car, you know that that battery charges and the retainment of the energy in that battery is different in the winter than it is in the summer.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 09 :
And then people that live like in Phoenix and stuff, you know, they’ve got to take care of their batteries because the excessive heat is good for them. Correct. So, you know, I would keep that in mind. But, no, to answer your question, they can go outside. They can go inside mine personally or in the inside of my garage. And I think the life of the battery will last a little bit longer if you put it in a better box.
SPEAKER 07 :
Less temperature swings, right, just like any other battery.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, exactly. Okay, makes total sense. All right, let’s do this. We’ll take a quick break. We’ll have a couple of minutes or so when we come back. If you’ve got more questions, keep texting. I’ve got a couple more that have come in that I’ll read in a moment. 307-200-8222. We’ll be right back. Ready Radio. It’s ready-radio.com is our website.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Sure. It’s ARK Electric, A-R-K as in Noah’s Ark, and the number is 303-656-3688. eight, nine. And, you know, what we can also do is we could probably just come out and set up a consultation where we will come through, walk through what you have going on, what you’re looking to have accomplished. And then we can create, you know, a total energy, what we’d call plan that would say, okay, Here’s some ideas from all of these different layers that you can do. And, you know, we can set that up. I mean, obviously, that wouldn’t be a free consultation. That would be a charged consultation. But at least it would give you a plan. Great idea. And give you an idea of… Okay, here’s what I do. And then if you wanted to go into that, you know, that final step of, you know, the power walls or, you know, I call them power walls. There’s, like you said, there are Generac has one, several people have them. But, you know, hey, you know, give me a crescent wrench, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, no, that is, Bill, that’s a great idea. Just, it’s sort of like… um you know there’s other things where people pay for a consultation on the front side to determine you know do i want to do this do i want to do that a lot of you know remodeling things and you’ll hire a contractor or a design artist or something along those lines to really get an idea of okay these are all of my you know this is option a b and c and then after that you can sit down as a family couple whatever kind of sit down and figure out okay these are all of the scenarios this is the options of each one of those scenarios these are the budgetary items along those lines and then when it’s all said and done which direction you know do we want ahead and you’re taking a really good solid educated approach versus and this is where i’m going with this everybody listening versus seeing those ads that come in from you know honeywell or generac or wherever hey get get a whole house generation and, you know, fill this form out and blah, blah, blah. And Bill, I’ll just tell you straight up, not the way to do it. Having a consultation with you on the front side would be the best money spent.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, yeah, because I’m not forcing, you know, that cookie cutter on you, right? That’s right. That’s one of the big problems with, you know, all this stuff. It’s like, you have to do this. And, you know, and a lot of times, John, they use scare tactics. And, you know, being a pastor, I’m That’s another hot button, right? I’m not here to scare you. I want to educate you. I want to educate you, and then you can make the best forms. And by the way, through that process, too, there’s things in there that you’ll have immediate takeaways from and that you’ll be able to employ right on the spot. Be like, oh, yeah. And things that we can honestly do and get you started very, very cheaply. I mean, one of the ideas that I’ve got – You know, it’s, hey, go out and buy a bunch of those 99-cent solar lights. Stick them in your yard. Hey, in the worst-case scenario, in an outage in the night, go grab those things. Bring him inside. There you go.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great idea. Great idea. All right. That’s it for today. We’ll have more next week. We might even continue this topic a little bit more because there’s always a lot to talk about when it comes to the whole power end of things. If you guys have a specific question, again, reach out. Go to ready-radio.com, or you can see Bill at prep2protectco.com. Bill, appreciate you, man. All right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Talk to you next week.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Sounds great. You guys, that’s it for Ready Radio. Ready-radio.com, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 03 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
