Six Ways to be Propane Proactive and Prepare for a Power Outage
It is always important to hope for the best but prepare for the worst as safety in a top priority if your home experiences a power outage. Being prepared will help keep your family calm should an instance cause you to lose power. Here are five useful tips to ensure your family is ready in the event of an emergency:
- Prepare a Plan: Make sure everyone in your household knows what to do and where to go during a power outage. Designate a safe room to meet, post a list of emergency contacts (including your local Delta Liquid Energy office!), know how and where to shut off all electrical and propane power. Review your safety plan with your family often.
- Keep a Kit: Extra supplies such as water, non-perishable food, clothing, blankets, flashlights, and batteries should be kept in a place that is easily accessible to all family members.
- Make Sure Your Nose, Knows! All members of your family should be familiar with the smell of propane. It has a very distinct odor like that of a skunk’s spray or rotten eggs. Ensuring everyone in your home knows this smell will be helpful to detect any potential leaks.
- Detect Dangerous Gases: Install a carbon monoxide (CO) detector on each level of your home. CO is a dangerous, odorless, colorless gas that can be generated from defective appliances. A detector will sound an alarm if there are excessive amounts of CO in your home. Being proactive by installing a CO detector will keep your family safe.
- Remain Relaxed: Above all, remember to remain calm in any severe situation. Make sound judgement calls to ensure the safety of yourself and those around you. Use battery powered radios to stay informed and cell phones to stay connected by subscribing to text alerts from government agencies.
Implementing safety procedures for your family and household isn’t the only way to keep comfortable during a power outage. The sixth and final way to be proactive during a power outage is to install a propane powered standby generator. This equipment will keep your home running smoothly, even when the lights go out. Propane powered standby generators help maintain our creature comforts during a power outage. These generators are housed outside the home and run off our current propane supply. Comfortably quiet, they are connected to your home’s electrical system through a transfer switch and will turn on seamlessly within approximately 30 seconds of a power outage. Often, consumers will not even realize a power outage has occurred! Propane powered generators will maintain our home’s energy supply for days while professionals work to clean up and restore power.
Powering a standby generator with propane compared to gasoline or diesel has many benefits, both environmental and for our pocketbooks. Diesel and gasoline both have an expiration date – each will start to oxidize if not used and can varnish fuel-intake valves. Diesel is susceptible to condensation and when water mixes with the fuel it can create pollutants that will degrade the fuel, causing clogging that will eventually ruin the generator’s engine. Both fuels can also contaminate drinking water if spilled. Propane does not have a shelf life – it does not degrade over time nor does it produce pollutant that will damage the fuel. Due to the low temperature of propane in its liquid state (-44 degrees Fahrenheit), if it leaks it will dissipate into the air without contaminating our water supply.
Additional Resources:
Power Outage Tips From the Propane Education and Research Council
Propane Education and Research Council’s Power Outage Safety Brochure