Paulr,

The Auragens can be powered four basic ways, through an adapter attached to the front of the vehicle’s engine and powered by a belt, through a power-take-off or hydraulic pump attached to the vehicle, or from a stationary engine of at least 9 HP for the 5 KW version or a 15 HP for the 8.5 KW version. As long as the engine is adapted to be throttled by the Auragen’s computer control, any engine of sufficient HP can run the Auragen. All engines can be adapted. And as you can see, most vehicles have enough power to run the Auragens. The Auragen generator is not very big so most vehicle’s engine compartments have room for it. The generator weights 65 pounds.

When I was still slaving for a living, one of my coworkers decided to build a retirement home on the Southeast Slopes of Mount Adams in Washington State. I have owned land there since the ‘70s. It is a private ranchers association and the association owns and maintains the roads. I was trying to convince my coworker to plan for power outages in the design of his proposed home. The nearest power at that time was one half a mile away. We would have to build a power line to him the next spring.

We built the barn / work shop first. The snow load there is 80 pounds per square foot and on occasion can be ten feet in depth. So, it is a well built barn. We were finishing the barn on alternate weekends during the winter since the house was to be started the following spring. A large snow storm came through. We, being busy in Portland, Oregon, the swamp, did not pay much attention to the weather reports. With both our trucks full of supplies and tools, we headed up there. Everything was going fine, the association had cleared all the roads. All the roads until we got to the infamous “Hell Hill.” That was the next to the last leg for us. It was just too steep for the normal snow plow. It was so steep that when I was hauling up the power utility poles on a long trailer the following spring, I had to place a heavy boulder on the tongue of the trailer to keep the weight of the poles from lifting my truck’s back wheels and losing traction. We “procured” a front end loader and a cat. We pushed and hauled snow for half the day. When we finally finished at the top of the hill, there was a long line of vehicles waiting to go down. We went on an did our work. We did not find out until the next trip that these people had been without power and telephone for seven days. There was no cell service up there.

These people were newcomers and had never experienced a harsh winter up there. The prior winters had been unusually mild. When they had their homes built, they went all electric. They had no heat, hot water, cooking facilities, or water from their wells. Some families contained three generations, from very young to elderly. The local old timers were unaware of their plight since power outages were a common occurrence and it had always been a part of their normal life. A few people had barbecued in their out buildings but were running out of fuel. It was a very cold week! Even though frozen food was fine they had no way to cook it. Their can goods burst. They were in a panicked rush when we cleared Hell Hill. Some never came back. One family abandon their home forever and it went back to the bank. No one suffered injury however many homes were for sale the following spring.

I had no problem convincing my coworker to”Be Prepared” and build his home for his family to survive in that environment. He has lived up there for close to ten years now and has been through many storms and power outages and loves it.