OT: Battery backup

[C Day]

I don't have to worry about servers, etc. that others rely on.  We 
packed bag, locked door, and got the last hotel room within 20+ 
miles and watched TV.


On 2/25/2011 5:47 PM, Brian K. White wrote:
> On 2/25/2011 5:21 PM, C Day wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone use natural gas powered, automatic start-up, stand-by
>> generator rather than gasoline powered?
>
> We do.
>
> No worries about running out, indefinite run-tim, no worries about
> gellied gas or varnished carbuerators surprising you when you need the
> thing to "just work" "RIGHT NOW". It has an automatic timer that runs it
> for 15 minutes or so once a week.
>
> It's done it's job perfectly several times too.
>
> It is of course reliant on the gas line.
>
> A gasoline engine is subject to all those issues that might result in it
> not working when you need it, but one thing it has in it's favor is you
> are not limited to any single source of fuel. If the gas can is empty
> you can go get more. If one gas station closes there are uncountable
> others you can go to. It might be a lot of inconvenient work, but it's
> _possible_ to just keep driving all around and bringing back more gas
> from wherever you need to.
>
> Wheras the natural gas line you never have to refill or maintain or
> unclog or clean or worry about water etc... you are dependant on that
> single line from the utility. If it breaks then there is no way you can
> supply fuel any other way to make the engine run. You can't hook up a
> propane tank, they are entirely different fuels with entirely different
> properties. They do make engines with special carbs and regulators that
> allow you to run on both natural or lp, but that's a bit exotic.
>
> In our case we reasoned that the built-in reliability of no gasoline to
> possibly gum up or get water in it, and the built-in unlimited run time
> outweighed the single fuel source risk. It's like this, if there was a
> disaster that managed to take out both the electric AND the gas at the
> same time, it was probably such a major event that the servers would be
> the least of our worries and we'll just switch to off site servers
> already running elsewhere. In any event it would have probably taken out
> all the net connections so once again it wouldn't matter if the servers
> stayed up.
>
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