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How do you deal with power outages?

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pizzapiratespp

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Over the past few months we have had a much higher than normal amount of electrical outages. Yesterday was the topper with our busiest store down for the entire afternoon, countless outraged customers and about 4k in lost revenue. We were able to do about 2K worth of the orders at another location but I can’t help but think that I need to do more. The Carl’s Jr next to us pulled up a mobile generator and plugged it into their store. They were only down about 4 hours. Do your guys have a backup plan for these things or do you do what I do and just hope for the best?

David
 
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I worked for a guy who had a permanent generator that kicked on when the power went out automatic. That thing, when the power went out it was the crazy we would have to run wires to the register, phones, cc machine, and refridgeration, bc only some outlets worked on it. Those days we would do triple our normal sales. Its defintly worth looking in to getting one
 
I have a natural gas powered generator that turn on automatically. We still need to restart our ordering screens a certain way though.
 
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Only option I had was to wait and see if it came right back on… Otherwise it was shut the doors…

If you go automatic standby you have 2 choices… Size for select loads such as refrigeration, cooking, hood, computers, phones and lighting and not pick up hvac… Or you go big and pick up the entire building… The bigger you go the more costly to buy and run… I’d definitely go natural gas over diesel though so you don’t have to worry about running out of fuel, although they are gas hogs, may have to make changes to your gas service but usually just a meter change and maybe a regulator change is all that’s necessary… For instance a 100kw Generac that will dole out 301 amps of 120/240v 3phase will suck down 1.1 million btu per hour nat gas at full load or 391,000 btu at 25% load (1 mcf is 1 mil btu)

pizza of the month makes a good point… Put all your computers and phone systems on battery backups… They’ll hold you over for the momentary outages and if you get a gen, they’ll carry you til the gen takes over… Some will even condition the power for you as well…
 
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Does not happen to us nearly often enough to justify spending thousands on a solution. Think about it… If you were to loose 2K in sales after variable expense savings your loss is 1K at the most. Considering that this has happened to us twice in 16 years I am not about to run out and spend a few thousand to be ready for it.
 
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Two things I would do, get a large generator that fires automatically with an Automatic transfer switch, and add an uninterruptible power supply just to power your POS system to use as a stop-gap for the short period that it takes the generator to start providing power. I hate needing to do restarts on 3 terminals when we see a burp in power.
As for generator type, I am a fan of natural gas or propane powered, way less hassle over diesel due to fuel not going bad and gummed up injectors from bad fuel/

I have not added a generator yet, The cost estimates for 3-phase units is astronomical, plus I can run our BBQ pit off a deep-cycle battery connected to a power inverter for up to 3 hours (its only an 8 amp draw)
My insurance policy has “Lost Business Income” coverage, I believe if I lost revenue due to a power outage, it may be covered.
 
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What I’m going to do for the time being is pick up one of those quiet Honda generators and have it ready to go at a central location. If the power is going to be out for a while we can then power up the the phones and computers and at least communicate with the customers. I did the battery backups for a while but wasn’t happy with them. Lots of beeping and replacing them and then when we really needed them they didn’t work. I know we can keep the customers somewhat happy as long as we can communicate with them.
 
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pizzapiratespp said:
What I’m going to do for the time being is pick up one of those quiet Honda generators and have it ready to go at a central location. If the power is going to be out for a while we can then power up the the phones and computers and at least communicate with the customers. I did the battery backups for a while but wasn’t happy with them. Lots of beeping and replacing them and then when we really needed them they didn’t work. I know we can keep the customers somewhat happy as long as we can communicate with them.
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You can also wire in a few phone jacks with old school $9 phones that don’t require power. You can then answer your phones. We have a $300 generator that can power our Edge ovens, our phones, our computers and some lights. We have been able to stay open several times when the power goes out. It involves 4 extension cords, and isn’t the ideal solution, but I hate to close for any reason. I don’t just look at it as losing revenue. I look at it as potentially losing customers. I think an automatic generator that can run our whole store minus the air conditioner is in our near future.
 
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pizzapiratespp said:
What I’m going to do for the time being is pick up one of those quiet Honda generators and have it ready to go at a central location. If the power is going to be out for a while we can then power up the the phones and computers and at least communicate with the customers. I did the battery backups for a while but wasn’t happy with them. Lots of beeping and replacing them and then when we really needed them they didn’t work. I know we can keep the customers somewhat happy as long as we can communicate with them.
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Be careful of what style generators you use, the older style will destroy sensitive electronics such as phones and computers.
I believe what you need is a generator that has “Phase Inversion” or an inverter generator to run electronics.
A standard generator is regulated by a mechanical governor system, and the power coming from them is very unstable, that signal needs to be cleaned up before using on sensitive equipment.
 
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Be Careful with this one. We had this issue do to the main power supply for a strip mall I used to work in. this was before computers in store our owner bought a small generator we ran the make line a light and a large fan we put the fan near the front door and opened the back door for ventilation . The issue before the fan was the gas ovens exhaust fan was not running and employees got sick . If you go with a back up generator make sure you have a plan to vent your ovens as part of it.
 
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How often is this happening to you guys? I guess I could see all this trouble if it were a regular thing… but I have never lived anywhere that the power went out nearly often enough for all this trouble and expense to make sense.
 
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The store i was referring to it was happening 3 to 4 times a year. But only to that plaza. There were multiple property owners and the city owened the parking lot. It was a real basket case. My understanding is they finally got together and got it fixed
 
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bodegahwy said:
How often is this happening to you guys? I guess I could see all this trouble if it were a regular thing… but I have never lived anywhere that the power went out nearly often enough for all this trouble and expense to make sense.
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With 4 locations we have lost power about 12 times in the last 6 months
Location 1 = no power outages.
Location 2 = 2 power outages. Very short no more than 15 minutes
Location 3 = 4 power outages. Any where from 15 minutes to 30 hours
Location 4 = 6 power outages. 15 minutes to 6 hours. ( all on Fridays )

My generator is coming in this week. I ordered 1 that is compatible with computer equipment. I don’t plan on opening the stores for business, I just want to be able to answer the phones and contact our customers that have placed deferred orders.
 
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Why would you buy a generator to do that? Get a backups power supply for $150 that provides 1 hr power to run your computer. and phone lines run off a separate system so they dont go down during an outage. if you have a big system that runs multiple lines go to the dmark and find the line that runs your main phone number. buy a $6 phone and splice in a jack for it When we were down that was how we ran our phones only had one line but it worked.
 
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Warren said:
Why would you buy a generator to do that? Get a backups power supply for $150 that provides 1 hr power to run your computer. and phone lines run off a separate system so they dont go down during an outage. if you have a big system that runs multiple lines go to the dmark and find the line that runs your main phone number. buy a $6 phone and splice in a jack for it When we were down that was how we ran our phones only had one line but it worked.
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I have probably spent 2K over the years on those backups and never even got 5 minutes of power off of them when the cards were down. I took them all out a few years ago. We were out for 18 hours last week.
 
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