It worked!
Naturally, I had to find this out at 3AM in a freezing ice / rain storm.
It's amazing how quickly the house cools down, when there's a freezing rain falling. hence, the generator that I bought last summer.
Though claimed to be "40% quieter" than the industry norm, it sure sounded loud in the pre-dawn darkness. Still, thanks to my regular operation of it, I was able to get it started promptly.
I then hooked it up directly to my furnace, and I had heat. It's nice when things worked as planned. (There's no interface with the house panel at all - just a fancy way to run a cord from the furnace to the generator).
Now, two hours later, power has returned. My thanks to the PoCo folks, who have to be out in this slop, working. Before the day is out, I expect I'll lose power again.
Under "lessons learned," I can see some changes I'll have to make to the generator area. For example, a little roof / awning to keep the weather off me as I work on the little (25 amp) generator. Or, greater allowance for the ice, ice that interfered with my uncovering the machine. It won't do to make an enclosure- then have it freeze shut!
At the time of the outage, the PoCo told me to expect to be without power at least 16 hours. In reality, the outage was less than two hours. This makes me question just how much gasoline to keep on hand - it's not like I'm going to drive anywhere in an ice storm. At present, 16 hours is about how long I can run. That's more fuel than I use all summer mowing grass. Do I really want to store more (even with a fuel stabilizer)?
Face it .... if a storm kills my power, it's also very possible I'd have a pretty long drive to get gas.
