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 State of the Tank: (cont.) |
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We called the propane company's emergency line and after about 45 minutes worth of being completely run around, we were told someone would be coming out.
One of the advantages of having a large, acrylic system is that it holds it temperature for a bit longer than a smaller glass one. This was good because the outside temperature ran around 16F that night. A bit below tropical. As far as oxygen levels were concerned, I didn't know exactly how long it could go, but since we've had it off for a few hours during heavy maintenance and fragging without any problems, I didn't plan to begin panicking until it was off for 4-5 hours. It had been off over 2 hours by the time the propane truck showed up and another 30 minutes by the time it was determined that it wasn't a propane problem, it was a generator problem!!! Now, even though this was outside of their field, the propane guys were really helpful. We had to literally chip away the ice that had formed on the generator doors to try to determine a cause. Once opened, the smell of oil (and the low oil pressure light) gave us a clue. Luckily, one of the guys had a quart of oil on his truck and after we poured it in, the thing started right up.
By the time I went back to bed, the tank had been off about 3 hours. Everything seemed fine though, as well as I could see with my flashlight. About four hours later, |
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| however, I again awoke to silence and darkness. A check of the generator showed that the low oil pressure light was on again. So after reading that the oil capacity was 6.5 quarts, I headed to an all-night service station to pick up some more. We added what we thought was enough (the door which held the dipstick behind it was completely frozen shut) then again fired it right up. A couple hours later, it stopped again. By now, we were pretty sure we had a leak somewhere but the last thing I was about to do was crawl around underneath a generator that time of night to look for it. So we added MORE oil and it started up. This time it ran for about 2 hours. Figuring that it would be getting light soon, we just put in the last of the oil and decided to check later...when the temps would maybe break 20F. But this time it only ran for 60 minutes. |
| A look around the machine showed no evidence of the leak but as the exhaust smoke was very thick and 'oily' we were positive we were on the right track. In the meantime, I left to get more oil and on the way back, I got a phone call telling me the power had just come on. All in all, the power was out for 30 hours. And because of the generator, I'd been awake for darn near all of 'em. |
| A few days later...AFTER the second storm...the power went out again, this time for another 12 hours. But in the interim, we'd had the generator company come out and they apparently fixed the problem so we didn't have to sweat it. |
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