Generator power trip
Homeowners pile on the watts in preparation for hurricane outages.
By Maya Bell
Miami Bureau
July 30, 2006
Forget the Lexus in the driveway, the tractor mower in the garage, or the grotto pool with cascading waterfall in the backyard.
In today's hurricane-wary Florida, keeping up with the Joneses means having a personal power source -- say, a 1,500-pound, 40,000-watt, water-cooled Chrysler V-6 that automatically kicks on and runs your entire house whenever the electricity flickers off.
Andre Biewend has one. So does his neighbor Chris Dumas. And his neighbor Robert Walton. And two more of their neighbors on Sterling Ridge Court in Longwood, a town just north of Orlando.
Investing a cool $15,000 each so they won't be hot or otherwise bothered the next time a hurricane leaves their 5,000-square-foot homes in the dark, the Sterling Ridge Generator Gang is riding a personal-comfort wave sweeping the state.
From South Florida to Seminole County, from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast, Floridians of considerable wealth and modest means alike are buying the ultimate in comfort insurance. They're investing big bucks in whole-house generators to ensure their lives won't miss a beat in this new cycle of increased hurricane activity that scientists say could last another 20 years.
"It's an epidemic," said Oriol Torres Haage, Miami-Dade County's chief of electrical compliance. "People are panicking, and they're installing generators. Big generators. Full-size, permanent generators."
Indeed, Haage is not referring to those puny 5-kilowatt portables on wheels that legions of Floridians rushed to buy after eight hurricanes that bruised the state over the past two years left them sweltering in the heat and scavenging for ice and food.
Now, an increasing number of Floridians are spending thousands of dollars on generators and hundreds more on fees to link to natural-gas lines. Homeowners who don't live near a natural-gas source usually resort to burying a 500- or 1,000-gallon liquid-propane tank in their yards to fuel their machines.
Until last year, stand-alone generators were rare in Florida. Today, many building officials, especially in coastal areas, say they are overwhelmed by them.
In Miami-Dade, Haage said, electrical inspectors had been issuing one or two whole-house generator permits a year. Now, he said, they're issuing one or two a day, even in low-income neighborhoods like Miami's Liberty City.
"They're not just for rich people," Haage said. "Everybody's doing it."
The numbers, though, are higher in more affluent areas. Take Pinecrest, a 10-year-old city in south Miami-Dade, where chief electrical inspector Tom Flingos recently inspected eight whole-house generators in a single day. That's more than the city approved in its entire first decade of existence. He cites two reasons.
First, Pinecrest homeowners can afford it. Most live in very large houses on very large tracts. Second, most Pinecresters depend on well water, so when their electricity goes out, so do their water pumps.
That's the main reason Tom Schaefer and his wife, Lynne, decided to spend $31,000 to install a 45-kilowatt generator and 1,000-gallon liquid-propane tank to power their 6,100-square-foot house, including pool and water pump.
A retired car dealer, Schaefer calls the huge, black tank his "submarine," but he could call it his black hole. He figures it will cost him $3,500 to fill and about $300 a day to operate.
"But I'll never lose sleep over another hurricane," he said.
Hiram "HJ" Frank, founder and vice president of Personalized Power Systems, thinks having such peace of mind will one day make stand-alone generators as common as air-conditioning in Florida.
Until the summer of 2004, he had all but given up on the generator business he started as a sideline to the Boca Raton air-conditioning company he bought in 1995. After investing six years and almost $2 million in advertising, trucks and inventory, the former chicken farmer was selling only one or two generators a week.
Then, Hurricane Frances made a beeline for South Florida, and Frank's phone started ringing. It hasn't stopped since. Today, he says his company is on track to sell more than 800 automatic generators in South Florida this year alone.
His typical customer, he said, is a couple intent on keeping their family comfortable and their assets -- from wine collections to exotic aquariums to expensive antiques -- safe from mold and other ravages of life without air-conditioning.
"I never knew there were so many koi fish ponds here," he said.
Developers are beginning to ride the wave, too, especially in the high-end condo and custom-home markets. At Dave Brewer Inc., a Sanford-based custom builder, Todd Ross estimates that three of every 10 new customers are including mega generators in their plans.
One of those houses is rising on Sterling Ridge Court in Longwood, where, after their third power loss in seven weeks, Biewend, 40, persuaded four of his neighbors to join his generator revolution in 2004. Today, the real-estate developer figures they saved thousands by ordering their generators in bulk.
Still, he's not eager to test his.
"I hope we have to use it just once," Biewend said. "For four or five days, so when it's 90 degrees out, and everybody is scrambling for food and dry ice and milk for the kids, we can gloat to our wives."
Maya Bell can be reached at 305-810-5003 or mbell@orlandosentinel.com.
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