A New Day, A New Dog and a bit of the elephant.....

I was up early as I had a 9:00 AM appointment with an electrician to give me an estimate on getting a transfer switch so I can just plug my generator into an outlet on the deck, throw a couple of breakers and switches and my whole house will be running until PECO gets things up and running.  Dave, from Reeltek Electric arrived on time and looked at my power box, the setup in the basement and the generator/location.  He suggested a manual transfer switch.  Essentially he would install a panel with a large lever.  The feed from PECO would go into this box.  Then, another feed wire would go from the new box into the breaker box.  When I am paying for the power from PECO the switch would be up, to turn the power off, the lever would be in the middle and to run stuff by generator, the switch would be down.  There is no selecting which circuit to run in an 6, 8 or 10 circuit box.  It will run everything, with the exception of the central air.  I might even get to have hot, running water... but the furnace will run, the well will run, fridge, stove, all lights and computers, internet and phone.... just like nothing was wrong.  I might even be able to sew!  My internet cameras will work, so folks can check in to see what I am up to.  Dave said it is one of the best ways to runa whole house and it is safe as there is no way to have PECO feeding wires AND the generator on at the same time.  Not cheap.. his bid was $1250.00 and he might be able to be here to do the work on Friday.

I had spoken to another electrician last night.  He will be coming by tomorrow or Wednesday to estimate the cost of a normal transfer switch that will run a limited number of circuits,  He also estimated close to $1200.00.  I know the boxes involved are very expensive.  I also saw another one mention an Interlock Switch which installs in the current box and will also run the whole house.  I will contact him to come down and give me an estimate.

After the electrician left, I began working on my elephant.  I brought up a big trash bag from the basement.  Cleaned up a light that had been in the garage from the Maryland house and took it to the basement.  I will connect it up to the motion detector as it had been in Maryland so it will come on as soon as someone walks into the room.  Then I got side-tracked to another elephant bite and began to sort through the stuff that piles up in the inside porch.  Tomorrow is trash day, so I usually do some kind of sorting, cleaning to fill up the garbage can.  I have a compactor and being just me... and now Winston... I do not always have a lot of garbage, so I usually find an area and clean it up to help fill the can.  The nice thing is that for now, I can walk around the inside porch.

Even better was that I have a whole, new dog today.  Winston has been a lovely little dog.  He properly barked at Dave when he came up on the porch and wiggled and welcomed him at the same time.  Dave must be a dog person as he really was not phased by Winston trying to help him investigate the generator.  He followed me everywhere today.  I was doing a lot of my sorting out on the deck and he seemed to be happy to have me out there when he was wandering around the yard.  At one point I came inside to get cooled down.  Winston hopped up on the recliner and, as much as he could (he is bigger than Molly so he is arm to arm in the recliner), he curled up and wanted to be petted for close to 45 minutes.  I left the bedroom door open today but he spent most of his time walking wherever I was, asleep under the foot rest of the recliner or under the computer table where I have put Molly's old, fake lambskin.  He has eaten everything thing in sight and been the perfect little companion that I had wanted when I drove to Kentucky.  I guess we were just going through another period of adjustment.  I am sure we are not done... poor Winston has been through quite a lot in the past few months.  I have to continue to work to gain his confidence.  But, otday, he was exactly the dog I was hoping he would become!  I love my little fella!!