Lost Power Last Night and the plan worked

Lost power last night and enacted my plan.

I found that it would be too dangerous to directly connect the jumper cables to the inverter so I had to make a short pigtail. Using that and jumper cables from the trunk of my car, I wired my 750 watt inverter to my car's battery. I than ran an extension cord from the inverter to the living room. Got my 'pap, turned the humidifier to zero (off I hope) and slept on the couch.

Worked like a charm. The power come back after 3 a.m. so that means I had around 4 hours using this set up. I'm not sure exactly how long this would last but I believe it will easily last a 7 hour night and still start the car in the morning.

About the only thing I had to make was the 'pig tail' connection. The jumper cables are too large to safely connect to the inverter so I had to make a 18", 12awg house wire secured at one end at the inverter and crushed the wire between washers on a 1/2" bolt-washer-washer-nut fastener. The bolt provided a place to connect the jumper cable. I'll make a proper cable next week to connect from the battery to inverter.

I had purchased the inverter a couple years ago for when power goes out. I did not want the cost and problems keeping another battery ready for an emergency when I have at least three perfectly good batteries (2 cars and the tractor) in the garage.

Congratulations, Dave! I'm currently giving serious thought to my backup power plan, since I live on the Gulf Coast & hurricane season is upon us. Glad to hear stories of success when the power's gone out.

My goal is to not spend a lot of money on this, I don't want to keep some expensive special battery healthy (sitting on a shelf for years waiting for that night when power go out), make it easy to connect, keep it safe and it must be reliable. If I use a different battery each night, I have 3 nights assuming I don't get to charge anything (2 cars and the tractor). I believe that the system would work longer by using the cars to charge the battery in the case of a long term outage.

I believe this to be at least 99.9% reliable. (I don't have the specs on the inverter but believe it to be at least 99.9% reliable). After I build a short (fused) cable to connect from the battery to inverter it would be a lot safer. Normally, you are dependent on a battery sitting on a shelf that may be no good. Since your car tests it's battery every day, you are almost guarantied that battery is good. Yes, you will shorten (shorten not kill) the life of a normal car battery with one discharge but that is less costly than buying and maintaining a special use deep discharge battery. My inverter (and most of them should) will cut out before they drain a battery too much.

Dave: I know we have difference of opinion but it's worth mentioning an inexpensive and simple alternative is here: viewtopic/t52774/viewtopic.php?p=469763#p469763

My Duracell has worked well in the pinch.

Dave, just a note of caution for you and others. If this happens only occasionally, then it should be fine. But if you loose power more than a few times per year this will damage your car battery. The problem is the design of the battery. Car batteries are design with a high AMP rating to start the car, but not with the idea that they will supply power for an extended period of time. Deep Cycle batteries are designed the other way around. They typically do not have large amperage they can supply, but they are designed to by discharged for quite some time and then recharged.