Ice Storm 2025

I just got back a few days ago from Bracebridge where my sister bought a house and moved in in mid February....we talked lots and I strongly advised them to get a generator, but nope...So when the storm hit...........yep they lost power and had no backups....they are not on city sewage so have a sump pump which was not operating.


my wife and I loaded up our generator and drove up Monday morning along with 8 jerry cans of gas and by 1 bpm we had partial power to the sump pumps and space heaters which we also brought up


power came back on for the on Wednesday...the last 4 houses in the area and I don't know why as others were restored from Sunday to Tuesday morning


WE had some intensive talks about being self sufficient when living outside of the GTA and they have made arrangements to have a generac system installed this summer along with some passive solar. the latter which I have down my way in ST. Catharines which hooks into a battery bank and my sump pump, so we never have to worry about power outages while up at the cottage for example


It was a brutal storm and there will be more again. I am a big believer in at least having temporary back up systems of any kind. this was a big one for sure, but ice storms are fairly common in the spring months



I hope all of the people without power still finally get it back soon and are faring as well as possible

Definitely good info Werner. I've got a couple Honda inverter gennie's and as long as I have gas, I'm ok. My little Honda 2K did yoeman's duty for 17 hours straight, it sips gas, ran fridge freezer and sump pump as required. Runs coffee, toaster, microwave and small heater that kept the house at 18C the whole time. A number of years ago I almost thought of selling them but my wife convinced me otherwise, good wife idea.

Definitely good info Werner. I've got a couple Honda inverter gennie's and as long as I have gas, I'm ok. My little Honda 2K did yoeman's duty for 17 hours straight, it sips gas, ran fridge freezer and sump pump as required. Runs coffee, toaster, microwave and small heater that kept the house at 18C the whole time. A number of years ago I almost thought of selling them but my wife convinced me otherwise, good wife idea.

Every once in a while you gotta listen to the wife.

When we moved up here, the first thing we were told for our neighbourhood was to get a generator. It was the best advice ever. The only consideration was which generator. Of course we looked at a Generac but they are pricier and have some "interesting" requirements to keep the warranty valid. We ended up with a whole house Champion generator that runs on propane (two tanks that will keep the house running for 3-4 days on 100% and almost double that if it's running at 50%). It came with an auto transfer switch and a 10 year warranty, which we were told Champion was very good with (supposedly because the generators almost never breakdown). I was considering going with a smaller Champion that could use three kinds of fuel and can be turned on using a remote from inside the house instead of having to go outside to start the generator up. But because the wife did not like the idea of needing to decide when to turn it on and wanted as fail-proof system as possible, we went with the auto transfer switch and it has worked like a charm (we've had 20+ power outages since we moved up here and the generator has been flawless....still have half the propane that we got on day one). No worries at all and we are on electric (heat pump/electric aux) heating too (we do have a back-up wood pellet stove if the generator fails or if the grid goes down and the generator can't keep up with our electric heating during really cold nights. The only thing that needs to be done with this generator is changing the oil. One thing that I was surprised with getting this (and I am sure with Generacs as well) installed and up and running was how expensive it was to get the propane hooked up. We are looking at solar as well but still waiting for some gov't subsidies as well as seeing when new gen. solar panels will be available where the panels will be able to generate electricity even at night (supposedly able to use the infrared spectrum)...which would eliminate the need for storage batteries. Having solar/infrared panels would for sure extend our abilities to be self-sufficient for more days. No sump pump to worry about here as there is no water into the basement but I did find a slight leak this year (with so much snow on the ground and melting during some heavy rains a couple of weeks back) so one summer project is some water-proofing of the basement/foundation and then even less to worry about.

Anyway, getting our home's vitals set up was not cheap but we made the decision that it was going to be much less stressful to buy a less expensive house so that we had the resources to get the vitals that we believed we needed without going bankrupt...and much lower property taxes each year was nice too.

I would recommend that they also look into Champion generators....there is now one that could easily run our entire house even with the full aux. electric heating on on the coldest nights (but we are happy with the size and cost of ours because it fits our needs perfectly without the extra cost of overkill (would also be nice but much pricier and probably need larger propane tanks to give us the same run time before refill).

just got power back yesterday at supper time.


What a glorious shower.


But, damn, the laundry piled up!

I’ve seen NB hydro trucks in Huntsville last few days

I also saw some Hydro trucks that were not Hydro One in Orillia today...wow, the amount of tree damage in Orillia was petty amazing. Glad things are starting to get back to some normalcy for most people but for sure some people are still without power....I can't imagine being without power for that long.

The ladies of the house were reaching their limit, for sure.

Me? like a week in a fish camp, no biggie.

Many people out on the water fishing already. Maybe throw and old lure to check for debris in your favourite fishing spots. No need to lose that brand new lure you just bought or got for Christmas. A lot of floating branches and limbs just under the surface that can steal your lure, or damage your boat. Spring run off and the ice storm has left a lot of hazards out on many waterways. Still many people with no power in some areas. It's never too late to give someone a hand with the clean up.