ELECTRICITY

 

Most natural gas appliances have automatic cutoff systems in place when ever the gas goes out or the appliance stops working for some reason, the gas automatically stops flowing to the appliance. We have central heat and air, but the heat part runs off natural gas, if something goes wrong with the heating system the pilot light automatically shuts itself off, the gas stops flowing when it cuts itself off.  Our hot water heater is the same way, when our hot water heater went bad and had to be replaced, the pilot automatically cut itself off.  The gas wall heater we bought for backup heat is also the same way, anything wrong with the heater the gas automatically cuts itself off, they have some type of sensors in them nowadays. The gas doesn't just free flow to pilot lights, you have to actually turn knobs to turn the gas flow on to light the pilots.  Now maybe if you had a REALLY old appliance it would keep flowing, like our bathroom wall heater does not cutoff automatically (house built in 1930) but we only use that in an emergency and I actually remove the handle and keep it in a drawer so it can't be turned on unless it is an emergency.

 

Another idea I had is this - we have a propane tank outside - don't they make propane generators?  How do you get the propane to the generator.   I know there are relatively inexpensive standby systems out there but require installation which is costly.  Any thoughts?

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I have no idea what BF outages may be - I'm just guessing and preparing as best I can like every one else on here.