BRKG Rolling power outages underway in TX...

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Red Baron

Red Baron

Paleo-Conservative
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EMICT said:
It looks like the Texas power grid has not kept up with the population growth in Texas.
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Overall, the current Texas problem is simply not enough energy reserves. That is a significant fundamental problem that can only be addressed by adequate infrastructure.

People will talk about "severe weather" but that is generally a cop out to the climate change narrative infesting politics and the MSM. "Severe" weather happens and needs to be planned for. Period.

Two major failure points, environmentalism and corporate reluctance to invest in infrastructure.

No new nuke plants have been built in decades. Coal and oil fired plants have been taken off line. Wind and solar energy sources are hopelessly unreliable. The wind turbines are frozen and the solar is unavailable in storm conditions. Natural gas is a remarkably inefficient way to produce distribute electric energy for other than very short timelines. It also offers a single point failure source if supplies are compromised as they are now.

One reaps what they sow.
 
psychgirl

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
night driver said:
Yeh and my nurse friend in Austin has a husband in a memory care facility which is "all electric" which has been out for about 3 hours so far. NO heat/Light, no hot food (electric stove) and fragile patients.

Bob's issue is Parkinson's as well as dementia so he's pretty fragile.
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On going they don’t have ANY BACKUPS??

Wow, now that’s scary. Elderly are asvwas said, so fragile! At least get them some hot soup!

Johnson county here in Indiana is asking for help from private citizens who own snowmobiles, to help them get to people with medical issues.
 
Hfcomms

Hfcomms

EN66iq
Red Baron said:
Here in SE WI I am running the gas furnace at 66F during the day and 62F overnight. In my small (8X10) computer room/office I run an electric space heater set at 68F. It cycles on and off briefly about every 10 minutes. That is with temps hovering around 0F. We have not been above 32F in the last 3 weeks or so, which is exceptional BTW for our area this time of year. Usually these mid-winter cold snaps last only a week or so.

So on an hourly basis I'm running probably 10-15 amps per hour in a four bedroom ranch.

Folks with their heat pumps are running 50 amps+?

That would explain a -lot- of the stress on the electric grid.
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Sitting here by the woodstove it’s 88 degrees right now and still below zero outside.:p

There are drawbacks to heating with wood of course, the mess and hauling the wood in along with the splitting, stacking and fire danger but OTOH you don’t have to depend on a utility or a propane truck for heat not to mention the sticker shock coming with the Feb bills.
 
N

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
ANd now I shall step down stairs and pat the pile of FIRE-BLOX [pressed sawdust and splinters]. Hey, they MAKE 'em in Orrville, right next to Smuckers....
 
Henry Bowman

Henry Bowman

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
How many did you actually work on? The thermistors and reversing valves are main failure points.
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Actually, the majority of issues have been coils leaking. A few reversing valves and the odd thermistor from time to time.

All in all they have been very reliable, they are NOT cheap for sure but they do have a 12 year warranty ( Diamond Dealer) so never really a worry.
 
R

raven

TB Fanatic
News Flash - Breaking News
LOL
Daughter is in Plano, TX. Her apartment complex has been without power for 12 hours.
It is 49 degrees in her apartment.

Thank the Democrats for saving us from global warming with all their social science
 
coalcracker

coalcracker

Veteran Member
Like many of you, I have back-up heat sources ready to go; however, I must admit that one of my favorite prep items are the winter sleeping bags rated for minus 20. If fuel supplies should become unobtanium, those sleeping bags will still work.

Ice storm hitting the Northeast tonight and Tuesday. Prayers for you guys in Texas. Glad you’re preppers now, huh?
 
Jackpine Savage

Jackpine Savage

Veteran Member
Red Baron said:
Overall, the current Texas problem is simply not enough energy reserves. That is a significant fundamental problem that can only be addressed by adequate infrastructure.

People will talk about "severe weather" but that is generally a cop out to the climate change narrative infesting politics and the MSM. "Severe" weather happens and needs to be planned for. Period.

Two major failure points, environmentalism and corporate reluctance to invest in infrastructure.

No new nuke plants have been built in decades. Coal and oil fired plants have been taken off line. Wind and solar energy sources are hopelessly unreliable. The wind turbines are frozen and the solar is unavailable in storm conditions. Natural gas is a remarkably inefficient way to produce distribute electric energy for other than very short timelines. It also offers a single point failure source if supplies are compromised as they are now.

One reaps what they sow.
Click to expand...

Power companies are being forced to supply a certain percentage of 'renewable' energy in many places. Capital is being directed to developing those sources rather than maintenance and traditional sources of power. It's going to get a lot worse.
 
Txkstew

Txkstew

Veteran Member
I have a fireplace, but no cut and stacked firewood. I do have an oak tree that fell during one of our hurricanes. It's burnable, as I've been cutting some of it up for my fire pit out by the (former) garden. It burns ok. I just went out and cut some big limbs up into manageable size to where I can carry it out to my splitting area, and then into the house if needed. That's a lot of work for a fire.
 
Blacknarwhal

Blacknarwhal

Let's Go Brandon!
Red Baron said:
Winter Pro Tip

Do -not- let snow drift over your outside natural gas meter.

The meter has a vent that must be clear.
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Or your outdoor vent pipes for your furnace, if you have them. One year a snowdrift took out my furnace for a while until I thought to check those vents. A few seconds with a shovel and a restarted thermostat later, all was well again, but now I put up snow fence around them every year. It mostly fixes things. Mostly.
 
Henry Bowman

Henry Bowman

Veteran Member
Blacknarwhal said:
Or your outdoor vent pipes for your furnace, if you have them. One year a snowdrift took out my furnace for a while until I thought to check those vents. A few seconds with a shovel and a restarted thermostat later, all was well again, but now I put up snow fence around them every year. It mostly fixes things. Mostly.
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Good advice.

The vent is just warm enough to melt snow but the intake pipe gets clogged you are done.

Some are concentric so it always a good idea to try and divert snow/ice if possible
 
W

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
night driver said:
Yeh and my nurse friend in Austin has a husband in a memory care facility which is "all electric" which has been out for about 3 hours so far. NO heat/Light, no hot food (electric stove) and fragile patients.

Bob's issue is Parkinson's as well as dementia so he's pretty fragile.
Click to expand...

When my mom was in Alzheimer's assisted living and dad was in hospice, I took notice that all of the care facilities around here had MASSIVE gas fireplaces in their central great rooms. Usually the natural gas keeps flowing in urban/suburban areas, and they could at least bring everyone into the main community room to keep warm if the power went out.
 
P

Profit of Doom

Dismember
Txkstew said:
I have a fireplace, but no cut and stacked firewood. I do have an oak tree that fell during one of our hurricanes. It's burnable, as I've been cutting some of it up for my fire pit out by the (former) garden. It burns ok. I just went out and cut some big limbs up into manageable size to where I can carry it out to my splitting area, and then into the house if needed. That's a lot of work for a fire.
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Warms you twice...
 
Tex88

Tex88

Veteran Member
6N0qKFf.jpg


I’m eyeballing that dead tree outside. Leatherman SuperTool should do it, right?
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
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Interesting thing...

If you look at the Texas outage map, almost every county at the Oklahoma border is showing outages.

Cross the Red river, there aren't any.

Amazing how a river stops all that mess?
 
P

parsonswife

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
If you have an air compressor, fill it up.

Should you lose power and water for any length of time, in these temps, blowing down your water lines is the only way to be sure you don't have trapped water.

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but so is tearing out walls and ceilings to fix freeze breaks.
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How do you do this? from the street connection? somewhere in the house?
 
Txkstew

Txkstew

Veteran Member
In my case, it's 6 times. Once cutting it up, two moving it to splitting area, three splitting it, four taking it to the house and stacking it on the porch, five bringing it inside and building a fire, six sitting back and "chilling".
 
X

xtreme_right

Veteran Member
We lost water overnight. Not from freezing pipes, but a water main break two days ago. I got a heads up from Nextdoor what was happening. Some have been without water for two days. I filled up both tubs yesterday before we lost ours.

It got down to 10 last night. Since I left the furthest most faucet dribbling last night, wouldn’t that have cleared the lines of water so they won’t freeze now that no water is moving?
 
Macgyver

Macgyver

Has No Life - Lives on TB
xtreme_right said:
We lost water overnight. Not from freezing pipes, but a water main break two days ago. I got a heads up from Nextdoor what was happening. Some have been without water for two days. I filled up both tubs yesterday before we lost ours.

It got down to 10 last night. Since I left the furthest most faucet dribbling last night, wouldn’t that have cleared the lines of water so they won’t freeze now that no water is moving?
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No, not unless you opened a valve at the lowest point. Even then that's not guaranteed because water lines aren't like the poop pipes they don't have to be sloped.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
auxman said:
Power off again... damn. There's nothing like sucking rubber when you need a CPAP machine to sleep...
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My brother lives in the San Antonio and I've been nagging him for the longest time to get a small solar powered generator to run his cpap. His excuse has been they are made in cyna. He can certainly afford one. I have not clue it his power has gone out, yet.

God is good all the time

Judy
 
Tortie

Tortie

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
Interesting thing...

If you look at the Texas outage map, almost every county at the Oklahoma border is showing outages.

Cross the Red river, there aren't any.

Amazing how a river stops all that mess?
Click to expand...
It is not that there aren't any outages. Centerpoint energy, who owns most of the infrastructure, has their power outage map, out, broke, not working. So not reporting.
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
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parsonswife said:
How do you do this? from the street connection? somewhere in the house?
Click to expand...

Open all the faucets and see if the water heater is siphoning down. Are you getting hot water anywhere? If so, turn it off so the elements don't fry.

I would undo a faucet supplies farthest from the water inlet.

Open all the other faucets and hose bibs.

Blow back through those valves until you aren't getting any water.



An air blower like this should work ok on the angle stops at a sink.

th


If you have some trapped areas in your water lines, hopefully it will get a little air space in them.
 
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