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Eastwood

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Eastwood

  1. I wouldn't go that far. Their meeting the week leading into the storm is pretty damning, from the reports I read. The spent very, very little time in that meeting planning for the coming winter storm. I would like to see the meeting minutes and transcript before declaring final judgment, though.
  2. Pieces are being written before the dust has even settled because people are running to the press with their side of the story. A highly credible source with impressive credentials in the energy field gives a breakdown of a failure that occurred in the grid. Of course the press is going to run the story. Problem is that it was a system wide failure. Everyone is blaming everyone else because everyone failed. That's what is so wild. Nobody is really wrong when they point out another company or organization's failure in all this. Some are saying that they failed only because someone else failed first, but in reality, everyone would have failed anyway. Nobody winterized, the infrastructure of the grid was weak, ERCOT didn't plan for the storm, and PUC kept things deregulated for decades. A cascade failure of the grid was happening regardless of which producer went down first. ERCOT didn't plan for the storm, but even if they planned, things got so bad that even nuclear plants had to shut down. But plants had to shut down because they didn't winterize. They didn't winterize because PUC didn't make them. If I would call this situation anything, it would be a feedback loop of failure.
  3. This storm has been horrible on peace of mind. As we thaw out, the house is making all kinds of pops and creaks. To ease some of the minds out there, I had a knocking sound in the floor every time I ran the hot water in a specific sink this morning and yesterday morning. Run the cold in the same sink, nothing. Check the meter, no spin, so no leaks, even after the thaw yesterday. Asked my plumber buddy about it. Thermal expansion. Those drain pipes are along the outside wall and cold as hell. When the hot water runs through them, they undergo thermal expansion and make the knocking sound that echos all the way up the pipe. So anyone out there that hears the knocking sound only when they run hot water at a specific sink, keep monitoring it, but it could be thermal expansion and nothing more. It will go away when the temps normalize.
  4. They were begging people to switch. Griddy is holding the bag until their customers pay. Since this has become the electric bill thread, CPS Energy CEO said they are crunching the numbers non-stop and looking to spread the cost over 10 years or longer. That's one solution, but in all honesty, some kind of compromise needs to be made across the board. This isn't the consumer's mess. This is a shared failure of the Texas government, ERCOT, PUC, and the energy producers. It was a failure from the top down that had nothing to do with the consumer. If I had entered into a transaction for a commodity and found out that the company selling me the commodity committed negligence and that negligence caused them to charge me 10,000% more than anywhere else, you bet your ass we're going to court. This is going to be a multi-billion dollar battle before this is all said and done.
  5. Don't worry, it will happen a lot more than you think. I had my 3 year old out front with me. I was sweeping the garage, she was playing in the drive way. I turn around to sweep a corner for less than 30 seconds, look up, and she's gone. She had already made it around the corner and to the mailbox. That was a heart stopping moment. Once they are mobile, they are deceptively fast.
  6. Well, my usage the last week has been 800 kwh. That's with keeping the thermostat at 65 on a heat pump system, using the washer and dryer only twice, running the rinse cycle on the dishwasher once to make sure the pipes were moving there. For context, last February my total usage was 1,200 kwh. The weather pushed my heater that much. At $9 per, that would be $7,200 for just that week. There's no way middle class families can eat that cost. And what of the towers running their lights full blast to keep the city skylines pretty. Their bill will be in the millions. They'll certainly get bailed out. The state will need a huge bailout for the energy costs alone.
  7. https://www.saws.org/water-outage-map/ Your friend's friend needs better sources.
  8. Looks like we're up over 60k MWs in capacity, per ERCOT's site. Demand seems to be level at around 55k. http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html
  9. "No one could have foreseen this coming." - Gabe Plotkin, CEO of Melvin Capital
  10. Either way, I'm happy to see the RRC slinging rocks at ERCOT. That's a good political ally to have when we all start fighting over our electric bills at the end of the month and looking for someone to blame for them.
  11. So what's up with this energy spot price? I am on CPS, so it looks like they have some kind of variable model, but there is no way they expect middle class families to manage a several thousand dollar electric bill, right? This appears to be ERCOT's massive mistake, so no way should Texas citizens have to pay the bulk of it out of their pocket directly.
  12. When we start getting water back and are thawed out, open your mainline, close all your spigots, then go back out to the meter. If the dial is still spinning after a couple of minutes, you likely have a leak somewhere.
  13. I was told by a friend who is a highly qualified plumber (he is the lead engineer for all fountains and pools at a major Vegas casino) to go ahead and shut the main, unplug the water heater, drain it, open all spigots, and hope for the best. Without any pressure to push water through the pipes, all we can do is drain as much as we can, allow pressure to vent, and hope for the best.
  14. SAWS says to boil water as a precautionary measure, but it doesn't make a difference for me now because I am #teammainlineoff. I'm going to have to melt tomorrow's snow for coffee. I guess the North Koreans were right all along...
  15. https://twitter.com/MySAWS/status/1361773186795270146?s=20
  16. Another big blessing for tonight is that it looks like there will be minimal wind, according to Wunderground. Last night the wind was absolutely battering the back of my house and I used every towel available to plug as many drafts as I could. I think as long as it is a calm cold, the grid won't be as stressed as last night. I hope.
  17. Flow Inside/No Flow Outside Gang reporting: all faucets, tubs, and toilets never lost hot or cold water. Front in-wall spigot never froze, outdoor pipe back yard spigot that I threw two layers of insulation on was frozen this morning, but is flowing now. One hard freeze night down, one hard freeze night to go.
  18. I'm expecting around $500 to $600, maybe. I heated my hope for 86 hours in December. I've accumulated around 18 hours in the last two days alone, so far. But there's no way they'll charge people that. They would have to use disaster relief funds to make up the difference.
  19. Same. We have one window that faces east and sunlight blasts directly into the downstairs. During winter, the southern windows get a huge amount of light, as well. I opened those blinds up and a little while later, our heater kicked off for the first time in over 12 hours. If you're getting direct sunlight in a room, I say open up the blinds and let the heat energy in. But close them as soon as you no longer get direct sunlight.
  20. Not non-stop in the summer, but our house does face perfectly NNE-SSW, so when something blows in through the North, it hits all back windows and the back door square on. I insulated the sockets and light switches on that side of the house because when a cold front blew through, you could feel a slight breeze coming out of them. This house gets kicked in the teeth every cold front, but this is going to be 3 straight days of cold fronts.
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