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It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most

musicman

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It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« on: February 17, 2021, 02:29:24 AM »
I am one of the few that has not lost power ...... yet.   But I have had no water.   Since I live alone, it is not too bad.   I stockpiled the water before I turned it off and drained the pipes.    I called my plumber Saturday and he said, do what you want, but I'm draining mine.   So I did too.   I guess we will see if I got enough out of the pipes.   My Son is hopefully going to build a house in the next year or two, and he is going to have a main drain for the entire house water system at slab level, for when this happens again, maybe in thirty years.    At his current house, the central heat went out a few weeks ago, and he figured he would just "wing it" for the last month of winter without it, just use camp stoves.    Then this happened.   He was really busy with work and when he finally went to get extra propane canisters and kerosene, EVERYTHING was already sold out.   A kind young man from his Church brought him a pickup load of firewood.   Erich offered him $100 and he wouldn't take it, just said, "Try to stay warm."    My heater downstairs is wounded from the flood, but my heater upstairs works fine.    I live mainly downstairs though.   Both of my units are on their last year or two of life.   It would cost about $1000 to fix the downstairs unit, the heating part, but then the air part may die this summer, and the entire thing will have to be replaced.   So I too thought that I would "wing" it through the Winter, and I did fine.  But now this Arctic blast comes rolling in.   Me, Reeses, and the cat toughed out the first couple of nights of this Arctic blast, but last night, it was forty-five downstairs and I finally headed upstairs and cleared out some room on an old bed.    Reeses looked at me with that look on his face that said, "Thank God we're going upstairs."   The cat followed us up too.   The cat is a porch cat, but I bring it in whenever temps get under forty-five or so outside.    He snuck out the other morning, went about eight feet in the snow, and then trotted back inside.   This was as Reeses was taking me for my walk and exiting the front door.    We are supposed to have two milder days, then one more blast, but this next blast is only supposed to go down to the mid teens.  It has been eight degrees outside for the last two nights.   I just hope that when I turn on the water, I will have no leaks.    Most people let their faucets drip, but then ERCOT, Electric RELIABILITY Council Of Texas, started doing rolling blackouts, and water pressure subsided, the dripping ceased, and then their pipes froze.   It is going to be one big mess about Saturday.      Usually, weather like this causes outages from downed lines.      That is not what is causing the outages.    It is because of mismanagement of the power grid because of failing "Green Energy Generators".  All of this is courtesy of greenie weenies from out of state, telling the ERCOT agency that runs the Texas Power Grid, that we need more renewable wind and solar generators.     Texas now has 10,800 wind turbines supplying about 17% of the State's power.   But almost half of them froze up.   And snow is covering solar panels.    That is why we are having the rolling blackouts.    NONE of this had to happen, but they had mothballed the gas and coal power plants.   As one person put it, "It takes a certain kind of stupidity to run out of energy in Texas."    Five members of the board of directors for ERCOT are greenie weenies from out of state.      Of these board members, one from Toronto, one from Maine, one from Michigan, one from California, and I forget the last.   What in the hell do they know about anything in Texas, let alone the weather.   Fifteen people have died so far, and almost everyone in the State is suffering in some manner.    There is going to be a big stink when we finally get out of it.  My cousin and her partner in Dallas have not had electricity or water for several days.   They are surviving with a little generator on the porch that a neighbor is tending, and they are living in one room in their house with three dogs and a chicken.   It has been around zero there.    MM

Grouchy

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Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2021, 02:42:26 AM »
Glad to hear you are OK!   :)

PARA45

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Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2021, 06:18:06 AM »
Oh man, what a mess.  Glad to hear you and Reeses are ok.
Senator John Kennedy  " If you support defunding the police, you've tested positive for stupid".

Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2021, 06:55:21 AM »
Happy to here you are OK.

My daughter was reading that Saskatchewan was sending power into the North American Grid.
We have had cold temps with wind chill to the -50 mark but still generated enough power to send some south. There are a few solar installations up here but I think most are private ones with agreements to put power back into the grid and they have some turbines up and more going up but we also has 3 coal fired generating stations here in the south of the province. They are to be fazed out but this may make them think twice. A new LNG station is going up to replace one of the coal stations.
I can't tame wild women
But I can make tame women wild

Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2021, 08:06:27 AM »
Happy to here you are OK.

My daughter was reading that Saskatchewan was sending power into the North American Grid.
We have had cold temps with wind chill to the -50 mark but still generated enough power to send some south. There are a few solar installations up here but I think most are private ones with agreements to put power back into the grid and they have some turbines up and more going up but we also has 3 coal fired generating stations here in the south of the province. They are to be fazed out but this may make them think twice. A new LNG station is going up to replace one of the coal stations.

Big Muddy, do you ever recall being a long term rolling black out's up here from the cold?? I don't, odd short term time when wind, tree, or a driver damaged a power line, but nothing really big. We loss more power here in the summer time from storms.

The green crowd never mention in their sales pitch, about how snow can cover the panels  ::)

Rob

Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2021, 12:27:50 PM »
Happy to here you are OK.

My daughter was reading that Saskatchewan was sending power into the North American Grid.
We have had cold temps with wind chill to the -50 mark but still generated enough power to send some south. There are a few solar installations up here but I think most are private ones with agreements to put power back into the grid and they have some turbines up and more going up but we also has 3 coal fired generating stations here in the south of the province. They are to be fazed out but this may make them think twice. A new LNG station is going up to replace one of the coal stations.

Big Muddy, do you ever recall being a long term rolling black out's up here from the cold?? I don't, odd short term time when wind, tree, or a driver damaged a power line, but nothing really big. We loss more power here in the summer time from storms.

The green crowd never mention in their sales pitch, about how snow can cover the panels  ::)

Rob

 The longest I remember was 4 days without power. A blizzard rolled in and we were the first out and the last to be fixed but we are the end of the line. Since then they rebuilt the line along the highway and not through the hills where it was hard to get to. Had the Standby on the tractor running. Had to haul fuel with a Gerry Can as I had to leave tractor on genset to pump fuel.
Amazingly during the storm they turned on the cell tower that before the storm they didn't know when we would ever get cell service.
I can't tame wild women
But I can make tame women wild

zonie

Re: It Is Cold, But I Have Been Luckier Than Most
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2021, 05:23:06 PM »
We always get freezing weather in winter here in the Arizona Mtns.   Most of the houses on the Mtn are not built on slabs but rather block stem wall's a few miles away where the elevation's are lower houses are built on slabs.  Where we run into problems with freezing pipes is ,  any Pee trap,  outside water spigots that aren't installed correctly at a drain angle and water get's trapped,  any water lines that are on an outside wall where snow can pile up,  people that install evap coolers on the roof and don't drain the water line,  we heat tape our pipes from the well  and a short section where it comes into the house,  we have to run block heaters on all the diesel trucks,  both my son and I have larger construction type generators that can back feed into the house if needed or just run extension cords to essential equipment,  I do have a 80,000 btu propane construction heater for the garage if needed (but it needs ventilation to be safe).   We use a lot of electric space heaters that are run off the generator,  if it get's bad enough run RV anti freeze in all Pee traps.  I don't know of anyone using copper water pipe in our area anymore most everything is of a Wirsbo  type tubing which is suppose to expand slightly when freezing.  Good idea to run a drain to the lowest pipe section.    Same thing with any RV trailer, boat, motor homes,  etc.  we drain the water out of our day cruiser boat and re fill with RV anti-freeze in the  engine, tranny cooler and gearbox cooling lines each year and we still run a space heater in the boat because it's in the barn.  We have a larger house and it's very open and just running  oil filled radiator type space heaters with the generators we can keep the house around 55 to 60 degrees inside and we get a lot of power outages in our area generally for a few hours only,  sometimes  more. We always keep extra extra gasoline in cans for emergencies.  Our power outages are usually weather related someone ran off the road hit a power pole,  trees came down on the power lines, etc.  A good friend went out of town  we have the keys to his house and he asked me to shut off the water at the property ,  too late toilets were froze solid.  We always keep propane and butane stoves in the garage for emergencies.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2021, 06:01:05 PM by zonie »