Posted: 5/4/2007 7:22:56 AM EDT
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Back in Jan we had a real bad ice storm. The dopehead thieves in my area were out stealing generators from people. They all carried bolt cutters and simply cut through the locks and chains on the generators. Anyone have a good idea on how to make a generator more secure without chains and locks? I thought of a way to insert a rod into concrete and then place the generator over it and lock it on the inside. Still haven't worked out the specifics. Wonder if someone here has come up with a good idea. Of course, quiet generators and guarding them are a good way to keep them from the thieves and a good privacy fence would work too but some people need to leave their generator running while they are away or don't have a place to put it inside and out of sight. Any thoughts? |
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I run mine in my backyard, behind my locked fence. If they want it, they have to lift it over a 6 foot fence and get past my dogs. Or, cut the lock and throw a steak to my dogs I guess. You can only do so much to protect it and still have it convenient to use. So I try to make sure that my neighbors stuff looks like an easier target than mine. |
| embed it in concrete! or.... place some metal imbedds into the slab you have it sitting on. Then weld some tabs onto the bottom of the frame..... run some bolts through the tabs and down into the imbeds. once the bolts are tightened down..... tack weld the bolt to the tab its passing through. Thats what I would do. Then theres no way to steal it without grinding out the tack welds and untreading the bolts holding it to the slab |
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I dont see a need to run mine when I am not home. Even in the middle of winter a few hours in the morning and evening are all thats needed. Same with the middle of summer to keep the freezer and fridge going. When its not being run it is in the barn locked up out of sight. One year I had a nice 8 pt buck stolen from the tree in my front yard. The next year I hung one there, hid my truck, and waited all day. Sure enough around 11:30 a guy up the road gets dropped off in front of the house.... while he is running over to the deer his buddy is turning the truck around. They wont be doing that again!!!!!!!!  Out of sight is the only safe way unless you can babysit it all day long. |
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I run mine inside my garage with the exaust up against an iron grate secruity door. The CO2 monitor has never gone off even if I leave the large door open just a couple of inches. I live in a pretty tight circle of neighbors and will be running power cables out to their freezers to help them out. I'll get the gas from their lawn mower can and possibly siphon out some from the third and fourth cars most of them have. We watch out for each other - I even plan on arming some of them with my spare rifles and pistols. Good folk live here. |
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So how do you secure your generator from "neighbors" who think it is in the community's best interest you donate your generator to help out the local hospital, fire department, or red cross, etc? I got asked this question during our last weather event. I refused and got a talking to by our local LEO about my "attitude." He seemed to forget that I'm using my generator to run his communication gear during the weather event and the fact that I recommended a generator for EOC/dispatch center during a EOC meeting. |
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People get funny about things when there is a major disaster. If they see you with a generator some people will complain that you aren't "sharing". This has been discussed at length. I guess I was more refering to a localized SHTF situation not a large scale disaster. Last winter, we were without power for about 7 days at my house and we got by with a small, quiet generator. I loaned it to my in laws and they used it some and then left it at my house to run the furnace and cool the refrigerator. It certainly would be a possibility that neighbors would sabotage your generator if they saw that you weren't going to "share". I guess I was more interested in how one might temporarily secure a generator to a slab. I'm going to look into the cable that the poster mentioned. Sounds like a good idea. |
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During the same storm he is referring to I know some people that had their generators stolen by the thieves cutting the frame to get the chain loose. Spot weld a nut on the top of a rod. Or use a cut proof cable. But like everyone else said, inside is the most secure. Whit |
+1 for the cable, and if that fails, since we live in Texas, the law allows us to use deadly force to protect/recover property as long as it is "in the nighttime." In other words, if you catch somone stealing from you at night, you can choose retribution over rehabilitation . . . 
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Well you could remind them that hospitals, fire stations, and blood banks have backup power systems of their own. |
| I know this may be a little expensive but this is what i did to protect my investment. i poured a concrete pad 5ft.x3ft. with 4 hooks into the concrete while it was still wet the hooks had large washers and a nut on it down about 6 in. down into the pad , i built a box around it with 3/4 thick plywood braced on the inside . put a vent on each side to get rid of exhaust and the heat. put locks on all 4 corners of the gen. . the box is 4ft. high with a top that also has a lock on it so if they got into the box they would have a hard time getting down to the locks to cut them. i ran my power from my outside breaker box to this box and installed a disconnect inside ive had this for about 4 years with no problems yet . just a an idea maybe for you or maybe not |
I run mine too inside the garage. I have two CO detectors and a floor fan to induce fresh air and push exhaust outside. The security door is a great idea. |
| What I have seen done around here it to make a box, but open-ended with cinder block and to slide a small slab of prestressed concrete into the notch at the end when you have loaded the generator onto the slab. You have to pull the concrete slab up with a crane. |
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This is one reason I'm looking at the super-quiet Honda generators. I still plan on securing it but I figure if it's out of sight and barely audible from the street it'll theoretically be safer. My idea was to dig about a 3' hole filled with concrete and a padlock buried to the shackle. Then I'd use a cable as mentioned earlier that just flattens instead of being cut. And I'd tell anyone that told me I should be donating my generator to anyone else to pack sand and to try and take it from me. |
| pour a concrete pad and have bolts set into it. when you need to use the genny, slip it over the bolts and tighten it down, you could have a hinged steel box over one or two of the bolt heads that has a key type (flush) lock to open the box to gain access to the bolt heads. |
| The name of the cable is Kryptonite. Excellent cables for real cheap. I use them on my ladders. My buddy had a rash of generator thefts in his neighborhood and he used 2 of the cables. He also staked a sign next to his generator. If you try to steal this generator I will SHOOT YOU DEAD. Coincidence or not he was one of the few that didn't get his stolen. |
| My security strategy involves not running the generator long enough to attract thieves: Roll it out of a locked garage, run it for 60-90 minutes (padlocked to a tree and closely supervised), and then roll it back inside. Repeat once or twice during the day, and that's it. The rest of the time, it's inverters, flashlights and lanterns only! |
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Our current primary generator weighs in at around 700lbs, and its soon to be replacement weighs in at just over 1,000lbs. If they want to steal even one of the two, its going to take a lot of work just moving them. c0 98% of the population is asleep. The other 2% are staring around in complete amazement, abject terror, or both. falloutshelter653.org |
My folks have theirs bolted to a concrete pad. It's also a 1000+ pound Generac  The generator we use for the farm is much smaller and mounted in a little utility trailor from John Deere. If worse really came to worse, we could take the wheels off and chain the tongue to something big and stable (IE, a car or a nice tree) and then use the normal defense mesaures to protect it.... GSDs and AR15s |
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When I worked for the railroad, every switch controller in a remote spot had a generator, one of the nat gas/propane powered ones you see at the home depot. To deter theft they were bolted to a slab of concrete 4" thick. The slab had eyes in it so we could swing it into place with a crane. I would go one further and tack weld the nuts into place. Seems like it would be easy enough to set up an alarm that would go off when the power was shut off or when the generator was moved. |
Same here, although my fence isnt locked. Come shtf time my dogs will start to earn their keep. |
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last hurricane i used mine for a week and a half. i ran it for a few hours at a time in the back yard which had a 5ft chain link fence. We slept in shifts and kept and and eye and ear on it 24 hours. We had a lot of traffic in our area with ATVs so it didn't spend a lot of time alone in the back yard. This year i'm in a new location in a more populated area. I'm assuming there will be more foot traffic. The yard is fence with 4ft chain link and the dog always works as warning to me someone is in the back yard. When not in use it will roll right back inside. hurricane season starts in less than a month so we'll see. J |
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I posed this same question several months ago after coming to the conclusion that having the only generator in the neighborhood is not a good thing. The way I do it now is with a battery / inverter set-up for night time and just run the gen during the day for charging. I got tired of guarding the generator. Ideal would be one of those really quiet Hondas, but there's enough background noise during the day to somewhat mask even my loud unit. |
A large box fan from Grainger can vent a large plywood box with 3" of urethane foam on it very nicely, even through a few internal baffles to cut down on the noise. Genset goes on, fan starts. I know someone with that setup at their country place. You really can't hear much at all other than the fan. As to normal noise, have you ever heard how quiet things are with the power off? |
I suppose an M18A1 Claymore would be overKILL? Well, at least you'd discover who the thieving bastards were the next morning (assuming you're good at jigsaw puzzles).  I've used a heavy gage wire cable with a shackle-protected heavy lock on my generator. But if I was in an area where I expected to use my genny on a regular (seasonal) basis I would definitely look in to the concrete pad / anchored frame way of securing it. Damn Zombies, they want all our good stuff! |
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I use 2 5-gal buckets each filled with 100lbs of Quikrete and 4 rebar corner loops embedded in the concrete. I then run hi-test chain (something like 6500 lbs tensile strength) through the frame of the generator and through the embedded loops. While this doesn't make them theft-proof, given that they're behind a 6" locked fence and in the back of the house next to my bedroom I think this makes them attractive. I want to make mine hard enough to get so that any thieves will just move on to the next |
Also a good plan. It's not about making your stuff un stealable. It's about making it harder to get than your neighbors' stuff. |
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Glad I don't live where you guys are. My dogs let me know about "visiters" way before they get into my yard and way before they could do anything but shoot my dogs. Either way, they're gonna decide real quick that nothing I have is worth what it's gonna cost them.  Besides, if I'm running the genny then the lights or somthing is on, if it quits or the motor shuts down I think I'd notice. Then it gets back to their "cost vs. benifit" problem.. 
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