Is a Joke.

Talk about drawing huge attention.
Truly like a moth to flame.

You will get so much attention from not just your neighbors but anyone passing by. Noise and light during night time will draw way too much attention.


During this “short” power outage our nieghbor has his gas powered generator running out of the front of the house. The whole neighborhood was silent except for his house.

Just thinking long term would not be a good situation to draw that much attention.

My power had been out since midnight, and I can hear several generators within earshot from my back door.

Maple Street:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monst ... ple_Street

All true.
If a disruption lasted long enough for basic supplies to become critical, all bets are off.

I have an off-grid cabin and ran a generator to charge batteries and do basic jobs that required 120/240AC... scheduled of course.
One of the things that I did to minimize the noise level was run a flexible steel 2.5" pipe underground for about 10 feet, then up a tree about 20 feet. The exhaust gas in the 10 feet of pipe buried in dirt seemed to give up a lot (almost all?) of the noise before it headed up the vertical stretch.
The opening of the vertical exhaust pipe was well above head height...
I didn't set this up for stealthiness. I just don't like a bunch of racket. The set up that I described was so very quiet... Not silent by any means, but quiet enough to be positively confusing to friends and family that saw it running for the first time.

If I were in a shithole er, city, and needed a generator during a prolonged outage, I'd make it as quiet and discreet as possible, and schedule the run times for the least chance of detection, or have a cabal of trusty neighbors to share/trade with.

A way to avoid the noise signature, is to enclose the genny in a well insulated box, with a port for fresh air intake. The exit port needs to be well shielded from the exhaust pipe heat, and installing a quality secondary muffler will quite it right down.

Out here in OK the distance between houses is pretty big. Talking acres. Even if it were closer I wouldn't care. (not all my guns were lost in the tragic boating accident).

You are 100% correct. One way to silence them further is to convert to propane. Fuel storage is much longer and cheaper also. Gasoline will go bad, and storing mass quantities is dangerous and also attracts attention.

I know you guys hate them, but I was actually reading up on a setup for using my Prius as a generator. Biggest thing needed would be an inverter and a adapter to plug into the battery. Apparently can power quite a few items depending on your inverter.

https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/ho ... lan-mcafee

I'd never heard of that.. That's awesome.

Sitting in my garage listening to the generator run now. Can hear the neighbors. Our street is closed due to downed power lines basically in front of my house. I get about 3 cars an hour that drive through the barricades, and then turn around in my driveway.. Mrs. wanted to go to a hotel. I told her, I’d be glad to do that tomorrow for cleaning up and charging devices,, but that for now, I’ll be sleeping in my house. One, in case the power comes back on and two, in cases someone wants to inspect my lead collection.

Spoke to PSE, they said it might be 3-4 days. However, house two blocks away have power. I’ve got the added benefit that my neighbor didn’t take down a tree, so it took out the power line and canister.

^^^^^ THIS. It is one of the (many) things that bug me about shows like The Walking Dead. People driving around a year plus after an apocolyptic type event were gasoline is not longer being produced. Diesel is the real way to go, while in finite supply, it should be available and easier to transfer than propane.

True story. One of my coworkers (who works in another city for my company) was living in NOLA when Katrina hit...like a good citizen he loaded up his worldly belongings and family and got to Houston before the big rush....after watching the looting on the news he purchased a generator and gasoline and headed back for home (wife and kids stayed behind in Houston).

He fired up the generator and then realized he was making the only sound and light for miles and shut it down....he also realized he had no firearms and that led him to buying several guns once normal life resumed...

I have 2 sound attenuated generators that I converted to combination gas or propane. Propane doesn’t have as much power as gas, but at least I have options. The other thing I have available in my area is non ethanol gas. I have a 35 gallon fuel tank I use to fill misc property vehicles, chainsaws ect... I also keep at least 4 propane tanks filled for emergencies.

In a true world ending situation I wouldn’t run the generators, but loss of power in normal situations I can survive for a while.

5000 gallon propane tank. Gen (propane) only to run well pump, fridges and freezers. Will last long enough to bridge from now to fully TEOTWAWKI situation.

Not a long term solution but a temporary stop gap.