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2020-21 Winter weather; bring it on

Parliament

By Parliament
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Mrs Whiggins

Mrs Whiggins 13049

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We have food and occasional power and as the house temp has not dropped into the forties we are going to ride this out; I’m a little concerned about Wednesday though. Are we talking straight snow, wintry mix, snow cats and thunderdogs? We are considering throwing more bags of assorted garden product against the north foundation as an insulator while the weather has a break. Worth it?

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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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utexas8

utexas8 1433

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Anybody in west Texas? Midland here and on hour 30 something. Luckily parents have power. One of them just got it back after 6pm last night. The other one never lost it. Got down to 40 last night in the house. We have been house jumping. So tired. We were in a RV. Was pretty good since the propane never went out but lost water. Then grey tank froze. It’s been rough. I’m exhausted. We have 4wd. Thinking about heading to El Paso. Have a friend who is stuck up there and they have never lost power.

Also broke into my friends house in midland who is stuck in El Paso. They gave us consent because their neighborhood never lost power. Surprisingly easy.

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tokamak

tokamak 6351

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18 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

 

Yeah this ain't have shit to do with wind energy. ERCOT tweeted this morning that they have some wind and solar coming back, but nothing but empty promises regarding thermal generation. Of course my in-laws didn't miss the opportunity to call my wife from their nicely heated home in Colorado to rant about gReEN eNErGY!! Every. Fucking. Thing. just has to be politicized nowadays.

 

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Captainant

Captainant 27442

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I'm glad power held out as long as it did for us, our 3 story townhome has been dropping temp like a rock. I measured floor and ceiling temps in the low 60s this morning and we're already at low 50s and can see our breath indoors.

The inlaws out in Rosenberg have power, well water, and a generator to keep things going. We may make a break for it at 3 or 4 and take my 4wd jeep out to their place with the dogs

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Guest

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Posted
Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

@slorch

So 23% of power production is shut off with the turbines. The other part of the power grid should be able to maintain through a weather event on a scale that basically none of us have ever seen in our lifetime. Right?
LO freaking L at Bloomberg approaching objectivity.

Edited by slorch
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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10398

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What's the word on downtown, stripmalls, dealerships, etc blasting through electricity? I know the Dallas skyline went dark, but has anybody else done so? Shutting down all that shit would do an enormous amount of good. If the gubmint ain't gonna do anything about it, property management companies could be a real game changer if they can get their maintenance folks on site. Anybody work high up at companies like that? It'd also be pretty damn good PR for any company managing a lot of commercial property. 

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23393

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29 minutes ago, vicerous said:

Wife works for IBM and they're gonna comp a few nights of hotel. Question - if I'm leaving for a few days and want to kill water supply & drain, will pilot mode on the water heaters be enough? Should I just turn them off entirely?

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
 

Just turn them off and relight when you get home imo. 

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Newdoc

Newdoc 3429

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4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

According to the ercot graph, demand starts to peak in early afternoon. When it's still daylight and temp should be peaking. 

Any ideas what's up with that? 

Trying to heat the pool up to 75 so I can swim this afternoon. Sorry for partying.

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GhostOfTomJoad

GhostOfTomJoad 9307

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How bad do you suck at math and/or reading,@slorch? Wind is operating at about 2/3rds of its planned output. The impact to the outage per ERCOT is 2,000 MW.

Thermal plants (NG, coal, nuke) are producing 35,000 - 40,000 of the 70,000 MWs ERCOT plans on.

Which failure is having a bigger impact?

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boilerhorn

boilerhorn 1335

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ERCOT needs to be massively reviewed/restructured/dismantled after this.  When you are less reliable than Spectrum, Comcast, Suddenlink, ATT, Sprint, and Verizon you have failed.

As has been said here already, we knew this was coming.  ERCOT knew demand would rise.  It takes about 3x the energy to run an electric heater over an AC and 50% of Texas homes have electric heat.  Simple math says, "Hey we might have demand higher than peak summer."  Let's fire up the reserves...

The whole "Demand exceeds supply.  It's your fault, consumers" mantra is a load of inexcusable crap.

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crimsonlonghorn

crimsonlonghorn 2306

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43 minutes ago, utexas8 said:

Anybody in west Texas? Midland here and on hour 30 something. Luckily parents have power. One of them just got it back after 6pm last night. The other one never lost it. Got down to 40 last night in the house. We have been house jumping. So tired. We were in a RV. Was pretty good since the propane never went out but lost water. Then grey tank froze. It’s been rough. I’m exhausted. We have 4wd. Thinking about heading to El Paso. Have a friend who is stuck up there and they have never lost power.

Also broke into my friends house in midland who is stuck in El Paso. They gave us consent because their neighborhood never lost power. Surprisingly easy.

My dad in Snyder says they haven’t lost power. Same with brother in Lubbock, who happens to work for the electric coop and was sending “oh shit” texts early yesterday morning before it became obvious to normal people what was about to happen. 

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Orange&White

Orange&White 5516

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1 hour ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

Our friend is the executive chef at the Driskill. He's stayed on site the last 2 nights because it was too risky for him to drive back up to CP. It's just him and one other cook in the kitchen. They had a borderline record day for breakfast yesterday. Last night they had 400 rooms filled, the most since COVID hit. They're running out of supplies at a rapid pace.

Those poor folks staying at the Driskill. I hope they are able to eat. T&Ps.

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BradInATX

BradInATX 9208

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12 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

How bad do you suck at math and/or reading,@slorch? Wind is operating at about 2/3rds of its planned output. The impact to the outage per ERCOT is 2,000 MW.

Thermal plants (NG, coal, nuke) are producing 35,000 - 40,000 of the 70,000 MWs ERCOT plans on.

Which failure is having a bigger impact?

 

I'm not sure where he got those numbers either. Wind running at 4,000 MW out of 6,000 is 23% of a 30,000+ MW shortage?

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tokamak

tokamak 6351

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12 minutes ago, boilerhorn said:

ERCOT needs to be massively reviewed/restructured/dismantled after this.  When you are less reliable than Spectrum, Comcast, Suddenlink, ATT, Sprint, and Verizon you have failed.

As has been said here already, we knew this was coming.  ERCOT knew demand would rise.  It takes about 3x the energy to run an electric heater over an AC and 50% of Texas homes have electric heat.  Simple math says, "Hey we might have demand higher than peak summer."  Let's fire up the reserves...

The whole "Demand exceeds supply.  It's your fault, consumers" mantra is a load of inexcusable crap.

Not so fast my friend. My Comcast internet has been down all day. They would never miss out on an opportunity like this.

10 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

Would.

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crimsonlonghorn

crimsonlonghorn 2306

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Goddamit.
 

I turned off and drained the water at the farm and barndo on Sunday. We were looking forward to turning it back on this afternoon and having hot showers and flushing toilets... walked outside a few minutes ago and saw water on the ground under the sediment filter. I didn’t think to take that off Sunday and now the saturated filter froze and cracked the housing. No water today because now I gotta heat it up and get it off and then find a new housing before we can turn it back on
 

in the grand scheme of things it’s minor and there’s no ancillary damage and it will be easy to fix, but in the grand scheme of things it’s extremely annoying. 
 

 

C02289FC-C7B3-407F-8BC5-F216366DA875.jpeg

Edited by crimsonlonghorn
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Shoxthemonkey

Shoxthemonkey 1976

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1 hour ago, Zepol87 said:

Mom is still without power in Decatur. She was using the car to warm up and charge things but then the garage door froze shut. We were getting worried about her doing something dumb like running the car with it closed but she got it open somehow. This shit sucks

Just as a PSA, there should be a red cord that hangs from the garage door opening system whether it's chain or track. You can pull that cord to release the door from the powered track. The door can then be manually operated. When it is ready to be returned to auto service you can close the door and use a short push stick or flat ended tool to re-engage the mechanism to the track or chain. No reason to be trapped because the power is out.

One other thing, Do this when the door is closed. If you pull the cord while the door is open it could fall to the closed position and kill or injure a pet or child standing in the way. Don't do that.

Edited by Shoxthemonkey
safety and shit
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crimsonlonghorn

crimsonlonghorn 2306

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2 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

20 hours, not expecting coming back today. Trickling inside pipes, wrapped (foam, towel, covered in bucket or tub). Thinking i will cut water today. Anything I need to do with gas water heater (garage) after I run faucets dry?

Turn it down to the lowest setting and let your hot water trickle. Some would advise to turn it completely off and relight later, which isn’t a bad option either. 

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washparkhorn

washparkhorn 9935

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37 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

According to the ercot graph, demand starts to peak in early afternoon. When it's still daylight and temp should be peaking. 

Any ideas what's up with that? 

People preparing for the cold night ahead - from warming their own bones to warming pipes with hairdryers - would be my guess.  It is what I would be doing. 

good luck all of you in harm's way.  Pulling out tents to create small heat envelopes within your space is wise.

Apollo 13 situation right now - it will end, but this is extreme.  Help each other when you are able.

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texhorn

texhorn 351

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Posted
What is the verdict on vehicles - I've got a 2013 F150 sitting in the street and i'm curious if i should fire it up and run around the block, or wait for it to warm up on friday.  Anything to look out for?

Dead battery is probably the biggest concern if it’s old... otherwise cars can handle the cold.
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washparkhorn

washparkhorn 9935

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25 minutes ago, Shoxthemonkey said:

Just as a PSA, there should be a red cord that hangs from the garage door opening system whether it's chain or track. You can pull that cord to release the door from the powered track. The door can then be manually operated. When it is ready to be returned to auto service you can close the door and use a short push stick or flat ended tool to re-engage the mechanism to the track or chain. No reason to be trapped because the power is out.

Also, the flexible seal at the bottom of garage door will freeze to the floor with wintry weather. I had a flexible ruler to run along the bottom of the door to free up the garage door. 

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wildcat09

wildcat09 29226

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28 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Centerpoint outage numbers in Houston finally trending ever so slightly in the right direction. After dropping to 39% of customers with power (1.46M without) as of 10 AM, now back up to 44% (1.34M) Was in the mid-50's when I fell asleep shivering under a mountain of blankets last night.

Rumor has it their new plan is to just have half the city alternate days.

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fuggled

fuggled 576

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

According to the ercot graph, demand starts to peak in early afternoon. When it's still daylight and temp should be peaking. 

Any ideas what's up with that? 

Yeah, those aren't real projections.  I watched it yesterday and they kept pushing that peak further and further out over the course of the day.  I think that demand is based on turning everyone back on.

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captcha

captcha 50

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I just typed up my scenario and some dumb questions asking for advice, but decided to go do some research before posting. I have been following this thread off and on and haven't seen a lot of chatter about what actually causes a pipe to burst. Maybe I just missed it. I was assuming it was ice expanding beyond what the pipe could handle, like a beer in the freezer, but come to find out that isn't what usually causes them to burst. Although it can. Most often it is the pressure build up in the pipe caused by the ice and not the ice itself.

 

This leads me to believe that my outdoor faucet that's not turning on isn't as dire a situation as I had thought because that faucet is likely a dead end to my plumbing. At least, I think it is. If the frozen pipe is at the end, it seems the pressure shouldn't be a problem as long as I have an upstream sink partially open to relieve that pressure. I don't know what I'm talking about, so this could be total bullshit. Seems to make sense though.

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