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2020-21 Winter weather; bring it on

Parliament

By Parliament
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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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Well, since we're all throwing in:  my pipe prep - 

- 4 outdoor hose bibs, each side of the house.  1) Foam pipe insulation 2) rag wrap 3) crammed into Styrofoam insulation cap, pressing as tight to the brick as possible.

- My well pipes, ugh!  I tarp 'em and put two bulbs - 60 and 150 watters for typical hard freezes (25° or above).  Anything colder I also put in a space heater (elec.).  All exposed pipes with foam insulation wrap.  The idea is to use the light heat to build up and the space heater to gradually increase it, building up the temp inside the tarp to > freezing. It works - as long as I completely seal off the tarp.  Any outside air in will dampen the effect of course.

- Drip every cold water faucet just a bit - the logic is to make sure the farthest faucet away from where water enters the house is dripped so moving water goes the entire length of pipe  - if I just open up a faucet 1/2 way thru house, water could not move past that - and burst a pipe.  But I also open the other faucets so all cold water moves thru all pipes.  Note that this isn't a guarantee against burst pipes, but it sure helps.

- crack open (don't need wide open) cabinet doors where pipes are in outside walls.

- Shut garage door and keep it shut 24/7.  I'll use the back door and go around the garage to the 1 car I have outside, an old '96 Explorer, my hauling car, I'll get around in that for 3 days and leave the good cars to sit in warm garage.  Even with no heating in garage, heat of house will warm it up well above freezing as long as the door stays shut.

Edited by phdhorn
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SubliminalHorn
SubliminalHorn

Power back on. 109 hours. I almost want to cry a little 

Machinator
Machinator
BradInATX
BradInATX

I've actually been turning my heat up a degree every time a new Surly member loses power on this thread. It's a nice balmy 94 in here.

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Homercles

Homercles 10205

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Well I bought (or hope I did...Walmart lied to me on their website and HD/Lowe’s are out) some hand warmers.  I’m going to wrap them in a sock and throw them under the foam faucet covers, rotate them every 8-10 hours during the worst of it from Saturday night through Tuesday.  May see if I can rig a handful for the water lines in the outdoor kitchen too.  

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Lerka Lerka

Lerka Lerka 1086

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17 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I’ve never lived north of SA in my entire life. This talk of temps in the teens and power outages and bursting pipes is stressing me the fuck out. I can’t imagine living somewhere where this occurs more than once in a lifetime. 
 

I’ve lived north of SA most of my life. And I’ve lived in SA for a few years of my life. I can’t imagine doing that more than once in a lifetime. 

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Homercles

Homercles 10205

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23 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I’ve never lived north of SA in my entire life. This talk of temps in the teens and power outages and bursting pipes is stressing me the fuck out. I can’t imagine living somewhere where this occurs more than once in a lifetime. 
 

Don’t read the Austin subreddit right now.  Local weatherman has a post telling people that it’s unprecedented for most of us and they’re not taking it seriously enough.  He says we will repeat today again on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and Sunday night - Monday morning will cap it off with the ground cold enough to shut down all the roads + overwhelming electrical demand possibly causing rolling blackouts.  
 

Im wishing I had paid closer attention to this earlier in the week to be better prepared.  Already have some of my trees falling apart and it’s only round 1 / 4.  

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Al_4_ISU

Al_4_ISU 12458

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I’ve lived north of SA most of my life. And I’ve lived in SA for a few years of my life. I can’t imagine doing that more than once in a lifetime. 

The Sioux called winter the time of cleansing. I think that was a tactful way of saying it keeps the bitches out.

The non snark answer is that there are very simple construction techniques that provide protection from the cold. Someone decided that it makes sense in southern climates to not protect against this, even though the “once every 20 years cold snap” seems to wreak much more ruin than the extra $1,000 of construction would cost.
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Al_4_ISU

Al_4_ISU 12458

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This faucet dripping thing... is it supposed to be every faucet in the house? The showers too? 

We’ve been cold enough long enough that the city told us to start running faucets today.

We just trickle the guest bathroom sink because the main shower and kitchen will see enough action to keep running.
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105097

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What should we be looking forward to in Houston?
giphy.gif

Can purple drank freeze?

Also, my parents power had been out for 7 hours. But man, is their house well-insulated: they have two gas fireplaces, and running them full blast got the house up to 85. They actually had to crack a window to cool off.

I’m going to finish my pipe prep on Saturday. We were supposed to go to San Antonio for dinner with friends....I ordered $300 worth of Franklin BBQ...Furk. We’re either having a big bbq with our neighbors, or I’ll chill the hell out of it for a week, and do it the next weekend. Maybe. Precip on Saturday is obviously the concern.
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clapclapclap

clapclapclap 9000

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11 hours ago, HouTex said:

Many here are suggesting to keep your water dripping all day/night to prevent your pipes from freezing. The “experts” used to tell us that would impair water pressure all over the city and instead to turn your water off and drain as much water as possible. Has something changed with the water system over the last 10-15 years?

Drip faucets, but save water by peeing in the shower.

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MissingInAction

MissingInAction 25042

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2 hours ago, Skipper said:

This is where I'm at.  Clearly never been a home owner with something like this.  I have a slab foundation and don't know of any exposed pipes other than outdoor faucets.  Wrapped those with foam cover but before real stuff hits I guess will probably wrap towels around as well and maybe do the hot towel inside thing someone mentioned.  I mean is there anything to do other than keep water moving nonstop?

Run it. Otherwise your slab will crack, your house will be fucked forever, ????, no profit.

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Guest

Guest

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13 minutes ago, ballrific said:

Rolling blackouts? I'd take that Austin energy can go fuck themselves, we've been without power for 10 hrs and this is just getting the tip the first day. What's going to happen when it gets much worse next couple days? Amateur hour

California experience.  LOLz.

 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89655

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Fuck me, we just lost  power in '56 here in Central Austin.

I like to think that being surrounded by hospitals, our outages won't last too long.

I bought a NAS recently, and got a UPS for it.  Made sure my Grande fiber modem/router/etc. was plugged into it.   Powered the NAS off, so now I have internet for quite a few hours.

I have internet on my iPad and laptop, just no power for the place.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89655

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Helobious said:

I’ve never lived north of SA in my entire life. This talk of temps in the teens and power outages and bursting pipes is stressing me the fuck out. I can’t imagine living somewhere where this occurs more than once in a lifetime. 

In those places, they build for it.  Decent houses are better built/insulated for it, water lines are built for it, a lot more stuff is buried underground, so trees don't take out power lines, etc.

We are fucked proper here in Central and Southern Texas.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89655

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That large red area should be a lot larger and a lot farther north, as I'm pretty sure we are a part of that outage.  At least there are multiple hospitals included in it, and even though they have their own generators and probably redundant or alternate power lines or whatever, it should light a fire under somebody's ass.  /firstworldproblems

And Austin Energy is no longer giving estimates on repairs.

And those motherfuckers in Tarrytown are probably getting repairs before we do.

We will need to raid Tarrytown if this outage and outrage continues.

out2.thumb.jpg.28756d46e5fe432b23ef006cdb297a3a.jpg

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dcar00

dcar00 14181

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11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

That large red area should be a lot larger and a lot farther north, as I'm pretty sure we are a part of that outage.  At least there are multiple hospitals included in it, and even though they have their own generators and probably redundant or alternate power lines or whatever, it should light a fire under somebody's ass.  /firstworldproblems

And Austin Energy is no longer giving estimates on repairs.

And those motherfuckers in Tarrytown are probably getting repairs before we do.

We will need to raid Tarrytown if this outage and outrage continues.

out2.thumb.jpg.28756d46e5fe432b23ef006cdb297a3a.jpg

always remember the 2021 Central Austin Power Wars.  never forget.

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Trey3216

Trey3216 15346

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6 minutes ago, burntorangebongos said:

I'm going on 7 hours of outage in 10 minutes. I guess I'll go to bed before they fix it. I have the bedroom light turned on so I know when this is back. I hope it happens soon. I bought pinion wood for a day hang out with pals but I might need it this weekend to heat the house.

I went and bought a cord on Wednesday because I was looking at the GFS temp and precip models and know that CenTex is fucked in the neck if that were to take place.  Well, it’s happening.   The 39 it was supposed to be in Waco today made it up to a sweltering 29 with about 7 hours of nasty freezing rain/sleet.  If we get the GFS model snowfall Sunday/Monday, and it’s fucking zero degrees here, there’s gonna be power out everywhere.  I’ve got enough wood to both heat my house and cook with on the smoker.   2 full propane tanks for my grill and my fish/turkey fryer.  Enough food to last 3 weeks (minus some veggies and bread).  
 

Got the fireplace setup and ready to light at a moment’s notice, can’t have my 4 month old getting cold if the power goes out 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89655

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14 minutes ago, smokebomb said:

Is shutting off the water to my house at the street Sunday night a good or bad idea? 

It's a good idea to know how to shut it off in a hurry if shit goes haywire.

But make sure and shut it off on your side of the meter, as the city will get pissy if you fuck with their side, plus their side is probably a bitch to shut off.

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CHIEF

CHIEF 5080

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27 minutes ago, burntorangebongos said:

I'm going on 7 hours of outage in 10 minutes. I guess I'll go to bed before they fix it. I have the bedroom light turned on so I know when this is back. I hope it happens soon. I bought pinion wood for a day hang out with pals but I might need it this weekend to heat the house.

I just love piñon. Nothing like it you 1%er you. Reminds me of Taos and Santa Fe in the winter. 

CHIEF

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89655

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Our little chunk of Austin has 3,500+ out - people below and above 35th street between North Lamar and Shoal Creek all lost power at the same time.   That’s not a few tree branches, but hopefully it’s all related and they can get shit back up and running quickly.  I joke about the hospitals being affected, but those people have dealt with enough shit with COVID.  

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burntorangebongos

burntorangebongos 10710

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Holy crap! I turned off all the candles except the one in the hurricane lantern so I could find the bathroom and fell asleep.. I guess it burned too smokey and it set my fire alarms off. Talk about waking up scared. I ran around checking all the candles and stove with my flashlight and flung open the back door. I figured out it was the hurricane lamp candle and set it outside but it took about 5 minutes for the alarm to stop. My chihuahua was whining and my quiet dog started howling and I was fixing to join her when I finally got it to stop by fanning the outside back door. Now it is chilly in my bedroom, I'm wide awake and I still have no power. Fucking come on, Austin Energy.

 

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