Summary Report: Our power went out

brownfox-ffContributor - January 17, 2022

Scenarios

Last night our power went out for four hours. Everything was fine. I sat by the fire and read a garden seed catalog by candle light. This is dangerous: now I want to buy everything! Everything looks good in the catalog!

This was a good opportunity to review what worked and what needs fixing. Sharing here in case it is useful. I find it good practice to write up a review for myself. Suggestions are welcome.

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Timeline

• Power outage started around 7pm
• Power back on around 11pm (4 hours)

What went well:

• Having a keychain flashlight. I carry three mini flashlights on my keychain, which I have on me at all times. As soon as the power went off it was pitch-black dark, and of course – one of the flashlights was out of battery. Thankfully I have two spare. I was able to calmly and easily find my way around the house, to gather the family and go get the LED candles.
• LED candle lights. These are just the cheap pick from ikea – they glow like a candle and take two AAA batteries. They give off a nice soft glow. We had enough we could hand one to each person, and leave one on a table or at the top of the stairwell if needed. Once everyone has their own light, everything is calm.
• Natural gas fireplace. With no power, the main furnace won’t run. That’s why we have this. I keep the pilot lit all winter for exactly this reason. It costs me a few dollars per month to keep it lit, but you’re sure glad for it when you really need it. We flipped the switch and got heat and light. Left the fire on during the whole outage.
• Everyone stayed calm. The fireplace is on, so we just gathered nearby and relaxed. Have a nap. Read a book. Whatever suits you.
• Group text chat with our neighbours. We use Signal, because its the only app I trust for security. We are lucky to have two great sets of neighbours, with similar mindset (and they are much more skilled than I am at e.g. shooting, gardening, and other skills. I learn a lot from them). We’ve spent a long time building a relationship for our group. The app was useful – we could gather and share info. It helped to stay informed.
• Data connection. We were able to text lots of other neighbours and check on them, to see if everyone was okay. Luckily: yes. We do have a backup emergency phone on a different network, with a ‘pay-as-you-go’ card. Didn’t need to use it.
• Pantry food. We were able to easily open crackers, canned peaches, etc. And eat dinner without cooking. I enjoy intermittent fasting, and considered making it a ‘challenge’ for myself to get through the situation without eating. But I figured if I had to go help someone, or the situation got worse, it would be better to have energy. So I ate.
• Curtains and blinds. As soon as everyone was safe and cozy by the fire, I went around the house and closed everything to keep the heat in.
• DIY home repair. I have spent many months fixing leaks to try and make our home more passive and efficient. Installing vapor barrier. Taping and sealing. Installing gaskets and covers on electrical sockets. Weather stripping. etc. I have no direct measurements but I like to hope this helped.
• Friendly backup location. If worst comes to worst, we have a family member within driving distance that is in our covid cohort. We could load up the go bag and go there instead. Didn’t need to. But glad to have the option.
• Got to have a conversation about being prepared. After the power came on one of our neighbours texted us, discussing how we were doing. Their fireplace does not work, and has been broken for a long while. Discussing our steps and situation with them got them thinking, making comments like “huh, that’s a good idea. Maybe I should look into fixing our fireplace for next time…”. Great! That’s the kind of self-assessment and improvement I love to see.

What could improve:

• Fix my power outage alerts to be text messages, not email. I had alerts configured with the power company to notify me if the power went out. It was pretty obvious it went out. But setting them to email was dumb – I couldn’t access my email over the data connection; it was too hammered and slow. So I didn’t get any updates. Luckily our neighbour in the group chat was smarter than me, and had his set to text. So we could still get updates on the ETA to restore power.
• Wind-up hand crank flashlights. These did not work. I always thought these would be useful because they don’t require batteries. But the lights don’t give off much light. Also if you had young kids – the cranks take a certain amount of manual dexterity to wind them correctly. I won’t use these again. Much better to have simple LED candles.
• Stored water containers: empty out some of the water. I have several 7 gallon jugs. If it was seriously cold, they might freeze, expand, and burst. I should drain some water to store them 90% full, or down to 6 gallons per container.
• Keep doing house improvements. Long term, I want to add more attic insulation. Short-term, we have one very leaky window that needs to be fixed or replaced. My next summer projects may include installing a better exhaust vent for our bathroom fan that doesn’t let in cold air; and putting spray foam behind (but not inside) electrical boxes.

Where we got lucky:

• It was warm! Two weeks ago was -35C (-31F). Last night was -5C (23F) instead. Big difference. Much easier to deal with. We were very lucky this outage happened after it warmed up.
• The whole family was safe at home when it happened, not out driving or doing anything.
• Data connections and text messages still worked. If they hadn’t I would have gone by foot to check on one of our closest neighbours, who is elderly.

Overall, pretty happy.
Now I need to budget for garden seeds.

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Ours was out for 24 hours a few days ago, I learned that I dont have enough candle lanterns or enough chem light sticks,  And its amazing how much wood a stove consumes in 24 hours.

 

Kudos Bill, that is a lot longer to hold out. How often does that happen? Other than the wood stove – did you have to do anything big or different to be ready for longer outages?

 

Short power cuts occur a few times each year, longer probably once a year.  Firewood consumption was a suprise,  Its not the power cuts  thats the issue for me it was the storm damage from Storm Arwen that exposed shortcomings, IE  Not enough shuttering timber if windows get broke, not enough tarps if the roof gets damaged .   We dont have a genny so anything longer than 24 hours without power will see two large freezers full of food ruined.

No issues with water or sewage though as they are gravity fed in this area, just boosted with electrical pumps, so if the power goes off its just the flow that slows down a bit.

Having no street lights during a power cut makes extrenal security an issue though.

 

Well done! I am envious of your natural gas fireplace. I’m embarrassed to admit that until I recently read a different post on this site, I didn’t realize that my natural gas furnace still needed electricity to operate (for the blower, etc.).

 

Don’t feel bad – that’s the feeling of learning and progress, which is always a good sign.

I am reminded of this comic – Statistically each day 10,000 people might be learning about any given fact for the first time – https://xkcd.com/1053/

You are correct – We did not run the blower fan, and in fact wouldn’t be able to – for exactly the reason you say. No electricity, no fan.
I believe some fireplace models may have a place for batteries to help light the spark, but I don’t have experience with those. Would love to hear from anyone who does.

Do you have other ways to stay warm?

 

Most Boilers (UK) and many Furnaces (US) are fully reliant on power not just for the fan, but for the circ pump and the Ignition.

 

I had a six-hour outage a few weeks ago and meant to write it up, so I’ll just piggyback on your thread.

What went well:

• Having a blackout kit with flashlights and lanterns in a convenient place
• Having all batteries in a Harbor Freight case
• Small Jackery for light and to power small appliances
• Having two small power banks charged up that kept our phones going
• Gas fireplace to warm the house (wasn’t needed)
• Having a C. Crane Skywave to monitor the weather (we were under a tornado watch and needed to know if it became a warning)
• Having 15 gallons of water stored on hand (even if we didn’t need it)
• Having a Berkey style water filter from St. Paul Mercantile
• Having a gas generator and firing it up to confirm it runs
• I tested my HF transceiver setup and it worked great off-grid. Even better since all the noisy electronics were powered off.
• We had internet for most of the blackout because I have the router and modem connected to a small UPS. When it died I was able to power the router and modem with the Jackery.
• Board games for the kiddos

What needs improvement:

• I have a gas generator, but it’s in a building 150 feet away. It’s extremely heavy, so moving it to the house would be a challenge. I had talked with my handyman about putting in an interlock and building a generator shed but got distracted with other projects. I need to get that done, as if the outage had been much longer it would have threatened our food stores.
• I could also do with better gas containers. I have a mishmash of plastic ones.
• The kids like to play with flashlights so some of them weren’t where they should have been. I need to get a lockbox for the blackout kit.
• I have a 100-watt solar panel and the cable to connect it to the Jackery, but the sun wasn’t out so it wouldn’t have helped. Plus it’s big and would be a pain to set up. I’d like a lighter folding panel to charge it.
• The water filter wasn’t full. I need to be better about cleaning it and keeping it full. I filled it from the tap but it took a long time to get water flowing out of it.
• Bigger UPS for the router and modem

Overall, I think we did alright.

 

Excellent, Josh. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you had things pretty well in hand.
How often do you get outages in your area?

 

Not too often. Maybe four times per year and most of them are pretty short or at least pre-scheduled. They were much more frequent when I was a kid.

 

Regarding a generator, I too have the same issue as far as its weight.  Mine is 7500 watts and is rather heavy & hard to pull a long distance.  For that reason I keep it in the garage now as opposed to the barn.  I do have a strap on it now for when I need to put it in my truck, as I did a few weeks back when my mother in law had a 48 hour outage.  I just loop the strap over the end of my tractor’s front end loader & let the tractor do all the hard work.

Secondly, one needs lots of good, heavy duty extension cords and splitters.  This is less needed in my house, where the generator plugs into a socket on the outside of the house and feeds a panel with an interlock.  The extension cords are very much so needed if you don’t have a connection or you take the generator to power a house without one… such as with my mother in law.  I had extension cords running all over her den, kitchen & living room.  Used the splitters to power multiple devices, such as a lamp, coffeemaker & microwave in the kitchen and multiple lights & heaters in the living room.  It is very important you have the nice thick, heavy duty cords that can handle the load.

 

Redneck, years ago when hurricane Ike hit Texas my family all stayed in one house after extensive damage, I think it was 9 people, with no electricity and only a geny. I remember their biggest challenge was needing more heavy duty cords.

 

Great recap! I appreciate you taking the time to write this out. I also really appreciate the tips you post on the news roundups each week. I’ve been trying to pick one item a week to work on. 

Two items I’d like to recommend is: plug in w/battery backup CO detector. We have a gas fireplace and range. I keep this plug in one near the fireplace. Second are plug in/rechargeable nightlights/emergency lights. We have one in each bedroom, one in the main hallway and one in the living room. You can have them set to always on, sensor on, or always off. Kids use them for night lights, hallway is on sensor and master bedroom is off, but right next to my nightstand. We lose power here often and these are amazing! Just unplug when you need an emergency flashlight and they are fully charged. I got a set of four at Costco for under $30 around this time last year, but I think you can order from any online merchants. 

 

In my area, the utility company will turn off power so as to not start wild fires due to collapsing power lines.  So far, our longest shut off has been for three days.  We usually have lots of sun, so solar power is feasible..

I have lots of solar lanterns and I am increasing battery storage.  Plenty of opportunity to put the camping gear to use…..

 

Excellent, I am glad this was useful. Thank you for the kind words. I am glad if the “what you can do about it” posts are useful also. My goal is to suggest some positive, possible steps for improvement, to help regain some control over life – even if just one small part of it. And this website has a broad, deep collection of wisdom that is quite often applicable.

Working on one item at a time, and regularly making progress seems like a great way to go. Great work.

>plug in w/battery backup CO detector

Yes, excellent point. Thank you for calling this out. I agree.
I’m not sure if there is a specific article here yet for power outages, but CO detectors and smoke detectors are at the top of my list to have and keep functioning.
We have two battery-backup CO detectors also.

Those lights sound useful; I will have to investigate. Thanks for the tip!

 

Your experience with the email alerts reminds me of the last time we lost power, and our power company wouldn’t talk to us without an account number, which was very hard to locate without working wifi since we are e-billed. I now keep all our utility account numbers stored  on my phone, with a paper backup in our go bag. 

 

Aha! Sounds like hard-won wisdom.

Kudos on collecting all of your information and getting organized. We have done the same – all emergency numbers and account numbers, on one page, printed and on the fridge. It is useful.

 

I’ve never been too impressed with hand crank flashlights. Getting some quality lights running off of 18650 batteries and charging them twice a year when you change your smoke detector batteries during daylight savings time is going to be so much a better option. The handcrank lights are good for a long term disaster if your batteries run out, or give as a fun gift to some kids to play with. 

 

I’ll tag on to this thread too, adding what I learned from a short power outage this week. 

• The outage was apparently caused by a neighbor up the street who cut the line with a borrowed backhoe.  It did not occur to me until this happened that there is only one way out, road-wise, from my neighborhood. So if the neighbor had also cut the gas line (which thank HEAVEN he did not), my only way out would be to trudge through the forest (it would NOT be smart to drive past a gas leak), and that involves crossing several creeks that are sometimes deep and fast during rainy season.  I need to think up several good escape routes and creek-crossing methods in case some genius who didn’t use the “call before you dig” number cuts a gas line.  
• My Jackery 500 was not strong enough for my fridge. This was plain inexperience on my part; I have a very energy-efficient fridge. So I assumed that the Jackery could keep it powered for at least a few hours. NOPE. I guess the power draw was too much and the Jackery would shut off after about 20 seconds.  This gives me a great excuse to buy a BIGGER Jackery, right?  🙂 
• As others have mentioned, not having account numbers was a problem. We set up our electric account decades ago, in the landline days, and it turned out our account was associated with our old home phone vs. our cell phones. So we couldn’t get automatic updates etc and couldn’t easily report the outage.  I’m definitely going to take that advice of having electric / gas / water / internet account numbers and phone numbers posted somewhere handy.  
• Should be obvious, but video calls sucked up all my battery. I kept working from home, and the power draw on my phone from the video calls was – shocking (I normally do video calls from my laptop, but the power outage made our router go out too so I worked off of cell data).  Luckily I have plenty of smaller Jackerys (I seem to have a bit of an obsession with them!) so all was well but in the future I’ll stick to audio calls during a power outage. 

Later this week I’ll write up what I’ve learned from the plumbing problems that are also happening this week.  Too tired and grumpy for that now!  

 

Thanks for sharing your update as well. I like to hear as many examples of people going through situations as possible so I know common areas where I can improve myself that I might not have thought of.

With your router going out, could you have powered it with the Jackery? Aren’t most internet connections still functional because they run off of telephone lines?

I do the same as you though and try and do as much from my lower powered phone when electricity is at a premium. ⚡ Running my phone’s hot spot instead of a whole router and being able to use my laptop again is good but being able to do the video calls directly from my phone is even better. 📱

 

I do think the lack of electricity to the wifi was the reason the router went out, which seems obvious NOW, but at the TIME? This is what is amazing about unexpected situations – even for those of us who consider ourselves “prepared”, certain obvious things – aren’t. The sudden shock of “what the heck happened to the power” seemed to shut off some of my brain functioning too!  This is one reason that, like you, I like hearing examples of others going through stuff, as those little reminders might burble up when the time comes. 

In future I can power the wifi with another Jackery (because I have so many – ha! Sad but true) and/or just hardwire my laptop into the internet connection.  And I was doing the video call directly from my phone, and it completely sucked the battery dry.  

 

Great analysis! Good luck especially with figuring out an alternate travel route or plan. Would love to hear what you decide.

Your note about working during a power outage is a useful one – is it feasible to have a pre-set agreement with your employer about when you would continue to work, or stop working if power is lost? This may depend on your field of work, role, critical need, et cetera.

 

Another hard lesson learned!

The power went out AGAIN yesterday. Because I had used the Jackerys just a few days before, and had not yet gotten around to recharging them, they were down to very little power. Showed my bias of “well an emergency just happened so it will be a while before another one happens”. HA. From now on I will recharge them AS SOON as the power comes back on.

I was able to power the router/wifi through the little power left on one of the Jackerys. However, I was pretty shocked at how much power that used. It sucked down 50% of a Jackery 240 in less than three hours. So this is one exercise I would recommend: When you still have power, try unplugging EVERYTHING in your house and then powering what you think you would REALLY need using the backup power sources you have, and measure how long that lasts. Make a record of it and then plan accordingly. For example, knowing that the router sucks up so much battery would encourage me to work offline for a few hours, then connect long enough to send/receive emails etc, disconnect, repeat vs. having the router going continually.  

Also, be constantly mindful of battery levels on a daily basis. I had been working in the living room so my laptop was down to ~20% when the power went out. My husband’s cell phone was down to 15%. I think I’ll start treating devices like the gas in my car and rarely let them go below 50%.  

Even though it was daytime when the power went out yesterday, it was dark and dreary and too late in the day to power up via solar. The LED camping lanterns were really nice to make things homey in one room where we hung out until things came back on.  And knowing that I had heat sources for the night if needed and delicious food options that required no electricity for cooking did a lot to help me see the extra situation as an adventure vs. a threat. 

As for working from home, I’m just about to start a new job. I’m pretty sure my employer will be understanding about what can and cannot get done in a power outage. It’s amazing how many options are available today that weren’t only a few years ago. 

 

That’s funny because naturally I like to keep my phone above 60% and when it drops to something like 30% I worry that some disaster would strike and I have to run out of the house and not have enough juice to do what I need to do. 

It’s not the best to always have your phone topped off because it puts extra strain on your battery, but that’s something that I do anyways because I don’t want to be caught with a dead battery.

 

I have that same paranoia about partially charged phones, flashlights etc , so I now include a 5000 ma USB power pack in my edc loadout.

 

Well the truth of the matter is, as you are now seeing, is that a 240 watt-hour battery simply won’t power a whole heck of a lot.  I’ve noticed a similar issue when I use my Humless solar generators… one being 640 watt-hours & the other 1300.  These devices have their place, for sure, but they will never replace the power you can get from a fueled generator.

But having a nice battery device certainly works well in concert with a regular generator.  In the last outage that lasted 2 days, I would run my generator most of the day & early evening.  I would let it rest overnight.  During the overnight hours the solar generator powered my cpap and a few lights.  Then the next morning, the generator would recharge the Humless.

Well that was the plan, and it worked the first night, but the second night was so cold I needed to run the generator nonstop.   So now I’ve come up with a solution for another such occurrence.  I now have a  Mr. Heater Vent-Free 30,000 BTU Liquid Propane Blue Flame Heater, which runs on the same LP gas tanks as my generator.  This way, if it is cold, I can shut off the generator & hook up the heater during the night.  My understanding is this heater could run around 28 hours on one of my 40 pound bottles.

 

Sounds like y’all did pretty great.

I keep a clip flashlight clipped to my right front front pants pocket.it uses 1 AA battery.i keep a pull up lantern on my coffee table 24/7.. flashlight, headlamp  lantern  and rechargable fans and a am/fm NOAA weather radio on a shelve in the living room.i keep good batteries in the one’s that need batteries.recharge the one’s that need recharging.

 

Great thoughts!

Some ideas on the technical building side – I’ve never found a bathroom fan that came with a damper I like, but Tamarack makes a decent one that can be installed inline with the a 4″ duct: https://www.amazon.com/Tamarack-Backdraft-Damper-Diameter-TTI-CBD4/dp/B0089XVWT8

For cold climate heat loss, attic air sealing is probably the largest improvement one can make (assuming you don’t have ducts somewhere dumb like an attic or vented crawlspace). See https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/guides-and-manuals/gm-attic-air-sealing-guide/view

Attic insulation should be added after the attic is air tight. Depending on where you are, insulating crawlspace and basement walls might be the 3rd item. In general windows don’t contributed much to building infiltration and their replacement tends to be unsuccessful at reducing infiltration (generally bldgs get a little bit more leaky after window replacement). People’s perception of leaky windows is partly a misinterpretation of cold surfaces as infiltration (I argue about this with clients for approximately 1000 hr/week in spite of having retrofit ~2k homes, all of which were tested 2x w a blower door). Don’t replace windows for energy efficiency. However, when you do replace windows for aesthetic or operational reasons, go with an energy efficient window. Sounds self-evident, but the dominant US window manufacturers have been producing garbage for decades. Consider upping to a triple glazed – Kohltech is good as a mid-budget window. For premium consider Intus from Germany. 

 

We are now on our THIRD power outage in roughly three weeks and I’m still learning more.

FIRST – it is a mystery to me why modern appliance manufacturers don’t sell an option to have emergency power backup. I live in hurricane country and would gladly pay serval hundred dollars extra to have a freezer/fridge with a built-in battery backup so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle when the power goes out of transferring everything to a cooler.  Because I’ve learned that my current Jackery supply does not have one that can power my fridge, I was toying with the idea of either buying a powerful enough Jackery (~$2000) or a new GoSun Chillest ($899).  I already have the “GoSun Chill” and am very happy with it.

So it occurred to me – why don’t I just use the Chillest all the time?  It has a built-in power bank.  It has an AC adapter.  Etc.

My insurance company will cover food loss in the fridge/freezer due to power loss, with no deductible.  I’m guessing right now I have ~$600 of food at risk, and I was only able to move ~$300 of it into the Chill to keep it safe (power company says we have ~6 more hours until restoration; it’s already been about 5 hours).

So I would think appliance makers should offer models that have built-in power backup good for up to 12 hours or so, where the fridge/freezer would just automatically switch over to the backup battery when the wall power fails. And then insurance companies can offer discounts to people who have those models.  It would be so much less of a hassle.

In fact – couldn’t that be a new business model for the prepared?  Offering product development advice to both manufacturers and underwriting advice to insurers?  Everyone wins.

(I know, I know, I know I can have a gas- or other fuel-powered generator. I don’t want one. I’m far more afraid of carbon monoxide than I am of spoiled food) 

Well the power just came back on so I’m off to reload my fridge and freezer.  I’m ashamed to admit that once again I had allowed my battery packs to sit around uncharged, so the battery pack for the Chill had no power and I had to use the Jackery.  #BadPrepper

 

I exprienced a three day (48 hour) power shutoff and two or three since then and the fridge was a major concern.  Fridge discipline is the answer.  Keep the door closed and make the most of it when you access the goods.  our food remained in good shape with no losses or ill effects

We now keep three water bottles, forzen solid, in the freezer compartment to indicate temperatures..  They also help keep temps down.

A power bank that would run your fridge would e ideal, but is very costly.  I hav some portable solar panels, so i canat least keep batteries charged….

 

Now that the power is back on, go charge your devices 😉

Start by checking your fridge and see how many watts it uses. I would think about 500. Lets say it turns on the compressor for 20 minutes every hour (no idea if that is excessive or minimal) That would use 167 watts an hour. The 2060Wh Jackery will last probably 12 hours if all the above was correct.

If you had a 200 watt solar panel you could be set and run it indefinitely if you had good weather. But if you are just relying on them as a power bank then you will need to figure out something after those 12 hours.

The GoSun Chillest draws 44-55 watts and you could power that for quite some time with even your smallest Jackery that you already have. The one downside to using this is you have to repack your fridge every power outage. That might be a good time to toss the mystery meat in the back though…

You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of each option and look at your previous power outages to know what is best for you.

 

(I know, I know, I know I can have a gas- or other fuel-powered generator. I don’t want one. I’m far more afraid of carbon monoxide than I am of spoiled food) 

You are smart to be afraid of carbon monoxide.  Generally the folks that die are the ones that don’t fear it.  But I suggest you don’t let your fear stop you from using the single best tool to handle power outages.  Used properly, a generator is not dangerous.  They key is doing the research and having the understanding of how to use one.

I have recently used mine for two multiple day outages, not at my house.  But I’m prepared to take the generator to help others or to power my own house.  In either case, the key is to keep the generator outside so that it has plenty of ventilation.  That means obviously not inside or in a garage.  To do so means being prepared to run the extension cords a relatively long distance.  I mentioned this in an earlier post.  I’m sure most folks that have been harmed ran the generator too close because of a lack of proper extension cords. 

When at my house, my generator runs in the backyard with one heavy duty cord, designed to take all the generator’s watts, running between the generator and a plug on the outside of the house.  This keeps the generator far from the house so that there is no danger from fire or gases.  In the picture below the generator is somewhat close to the house.  This was just a test of the plug & electric panel.  I obviously have plenty of extension cord length to get farther away from the house.

When using the generator at other locations, I have a similar cord, but this has a four-plex outlet on the end.  This allows me to have one single heavy duty cord that runs from the generator into the house.  It keeps the generator well away from the house & I use all my other extension cords inside the house.

Even with all the heavy duty extension cords that I have, my last outage showed me I could use more.  I got one more 50′ heavy duty cord and 3 of these 50′ lighter duty cords to run my new low wattage work lights.

 

That’s a lesson I learned during my last power outage, having enough extension cords. The ones you demonstrate here are ones I wish I had with the multiple female ports. Generators are the way to go for powering large appliances like fridge, freezer, washer, dryer, furnace. (not all at once though)

 

Keep in mind, the green cords above are light duty.  They are perfect for running lights or other low wattage items.  These would attach to the ends of my heavy duty cords.  When I say heavy duty, I’m referring to 12 gauge or heavier wire… not the 16 gauge of the green cords.

Generally, I will attach these short, heavy duty splitters, pictured below, at the end of my 50′ heavy duty extension cords.  I love these and have 5 or 6 of them.  During our last power outage, the main power cord from the generator with the 4 receptacles ran into the kitchen from outside.   I used one of these splitters in the kitchen where I was able to plug in a light, the microwave and the coffee maker.  I used a 10′ heavy duty cord to power the refrigerator.  I ran 2 additional 50′ heavy duty extension cords to other parts of the house.  Each one of those had one of these short, 3 way splitters at the end.  This is the place to run the green, lighter duty cords further into the house.

 

We actually bought two of those heavy duty splitters and will break out smaller indoor extension cords off of that. It’s important to have the proper gauge cabling to prevent fires.