Texas Cold Weather Discussion
- Thread starter jackieschmidt
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jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
I just talked to the plumber. He will be here Saturday.
He said he would do a controlled off and on with the water To find the leaks. The main thing is to get things fixed with minimum damage.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
Smart move jackie
rwj
Gold $$ Contributor
If you have an instant hot water heater, you might want to check if the hot water pressure relief valve opened and is not fully reseated... mine is vented/drained outside
I am going to try and get my small tractor unfroze tomorrow... I need to get to Terry's corner.... I can't get up and out of my driveway to get to the highway... Hopefully I can get the snow and ice out of the driveway and get my truck out.... It doesn't have limited slip so it spins easy...
I don't believe most those news sources. Most are owned and ran by liberals. I saw lots of videos showing the windmills froze up. They were using helicopters spraying some kind of petroleum products on them to thaw. MattFigures never lie, but liars always figure. Most of those wind fields were up and running. ERCOTS planning overstated the reduction in wind field power during the freeze, and UNDERSTATED the reduction in Gas power plant reliability. Wind fields continued to produce 13% of the power that was available.
The Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.
As Texas on Tuesday entered its third night with sub-freezing temperatures and 3.3 million customers without electricity, the operator of the state's unique power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), urged Texans who still have electricity to turn off lights, unplug...www.yahoo.com
“Never let a crises go to waste”
I have to admit, when I was looking at some new houses in the southwest, I was a bit taken aback when I saw that the plumbing was run into the attic. In my lifetime, it has not been a question of if the water would freeze but when and I just couldn't imagine that being a good idea. In one place, the furnace would hum along smoothly unless we left home for a couple of days; whereupon it could be counted on to quit and the damn place would freeze up. Because I was young, innocent (read, stupid), and of an independent nature, it never occurred to me, that was what my insurance was for and I spent a lot of time and money repairing plumbing. WH
FNSafari
Gold $$ Contributor
Thinking about living in Texas, the current mess they are in and the possibility of future repeats(probably small) this is what I would do. I would install heat pumps in my living room, kitchen and bed room, and a small electric baseboard in a bathroom. Then I would get a generator sized to be able to run them all. The heat pump will give me heat if the mess occurs in winter and cool if in the summer. I would also look into having a plummer install drain valves so I could selectively drain my plumbing so as not to get a big freezup. Just a thought.
Here in Maine, where we live, we loose our power quite frequently depending on Winter storm intensity and direction. A 6.6 Kw Yamaha generator runs our lights, computers, deep well pump. We cook and bake with propane appliances, for a reason. So, we have lights, heat and water. Now, we also have a solar array and Tesla back up battery so we only have to run the genie days and use the battery to provide furnace power at night. That would be another power possibility probably much more sane to do in Texas. I would have more than one Tesla batter pack if that was the case.
It all varies based on your climate. Best be prepared.
Here in Maine, where we live, we loose our power quite frequently depending on Winter storm intensity and direction. A 6.6 Kw Yamaha generator runs our lights, computers, deep well pump. We cook and bake with propane appliances, for a reason. So, we have lights, heat and water. Now, we also have a solar array and Tesla back up battery so we only have to run the genie days and use the battery to provide furnace power at night. That would be another power possibility probably much more sane to do in Texas. I would have more than one Tesla batter pack if that was the case.
It all varies based on your climate. Best be prepared.
We seldom have the opportunity to test the ammo to be used in cold weather teated in a real cold weather. On Tuesday I took off for the range. The silver lining I had the range to myself till my buddy who invited me to go SW CO to after them elk showed up.
Here is how the Austin 183 looks like on Tuesday.
Here is the Austin Rifle Club
We accomplished a couple of things: Tested ammo, and tested our cold weather gear for 4 hours.
Here is how the Austin 183 looks like on Tuesday.
Here is the Austin Rifle Club
We accomplished a couple of things: Tested ammo, and tested our cold weather gear for 4 hours.
It’s always nice when you have a good layer of snow on the highway for extra traction.
Yeah, plumbing running through the attic like they do is not good for either freezing issues or for hot summers either. I discovered in my somewhat newer home in the Phoenix, AZ area that PEX plumbing runs though the attic, which explained why my cold water doesn't get any colder than 92° in the heat of the summers (a little cooler only in the early mornings). It's really a stupid idea as PEX lines (or any type of water piping) in the attic act like a solar water heater in the summer even when one has good insulation. . . and can be exposed to freezing temperatures, like we've witnessed in Texas. Like too many things, the thinking is more about doing things cheaply rather than addressing things from a sound risk management point of view.
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Two weeks ago my water pipes froze up. Then...we got -°40, -43 & -46. Thats not windchill. Found a guy in Canada who came down with a 1.2million btu diesel heater/blower and 4 hrs later I got water. Things like this happen most years its part of rural living and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
From Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian:
WINTER STORM:
• This week, our grid failed us when temperatures reached historic lows and people needed electricity and heat the most.
• There were almost 4.5 million customers without power during the peak of the outage on February 16th. As of today, there are still close to 3 million Texans without power.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, manages about 90% of the state's power for 26 million customers.
• ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.
• ERCOT's recently elected chair and vice chair for the board of directors do not live in Texas and live in Michigan and California respectively.
• ERCOT said there were 45,000 megawatts offline. Of that, 15,000 megawatts were wind and 30,000 were gas and coal.
• On the morning of February 14th, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness warned: “We are experiencing record- breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas. At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units.”
• It is important to note that every natural gas plant online at the start of this crisis stayed online.
• While there have been some issues with natural gas production during this storm, much of that has to do with ERCOT cutting off power to well sites in West Texas. ERCOT assumed the state would have 67GW from thermal sources (gas & coal), but ended up only being able to get 43GW online.
• Many, including myself, have warned for years about the dangers of relying too heavily on unreliable, intermittent forms of electric generation like wind and solar to meet the energy needs for thirty-million Texans.
• This couldn’t have happened a decade ago when “coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed... In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent.”
• ERCOT was notified over a decade ago that Texas power plants had failed to adequately weatherize facilities to protect against cold weather. A federal report that summer recommended steps including installing heating elements around pipes and increasing the amount of reserve power available before storms.
• Instead of spending our resources making our grid more resilient, policy and spending has focused spending on mandating or subsidizing as much wind and solar as possible.
• The takeaway from this storm should not be the failure of fossil fuels, but the failure of leadership at ERCOT and the dangers of relying on intermittent, unreliable forms of energy like wind for a quarter of our energy needs.
• It shows as clear as day that the goal of 100% renewables by 2035 is a pipe dream that will increase suffering and harm Texas families.
• Had Texas been using 100% renewables, we would have had 100% blackouts.
+++
Thank you, Commissioner!
WINTER STORM:
• This week, our grid failed us when temperatures reached historic lows and people needed electricity and heat the most.
• There were almost 4.5 million customers without power during the peak of the outage on February 16th. As of today, there are still close to 3 million Texans without power.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, manages about 90% of the state's power for 26 million customers.
• ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.
• ERCOT's recently elected chair and vice chair for the board of directors do not live in Texas and live in Michigan and California respectively.
• ERCOT said there were 45,000 megawatts offline. Of that, 15,000 megawatts were wind and 30,000 were gas and coal.
• On the morning of February 14th, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness warned: “We are experiencing record- breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas. At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units.”
• It is important to note that every natural gas plant online at the start of this crisis stayed online.
• While there have been some issues with natural gas production during this storm, much of that has to do with ERCOT cutting off power to well sites in West Texas. ERCOT assumed the state would have 67GW from thermal sources (gas & coal), but ended up only being able to get 43GW online.
• Many, including myself, have warned for years about the dangers of relying too heavily on unreliable, intermittent forms of electric generation like wind and solar to meet the energy needs for thirty-million Texans.
• This couldn’t have happened a decade ago when “coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed... In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent.”
• ERCOT was notified over a decade ago that Texas power plants had failed to adequately weatherize facilities to protect against cold weather. A federal report that summer recommended steps including installing heating elements around pipes and increasing the amount of reserve power available before storms.
• Instead of spending our resources making our grid more resilient, policy and spending has focused spending on mandating or subsidizing as much wind and solar as possible.
• The takeaway from this storm should not be the failure of fossil fuels, but the failure of leadership at ERCOT and the dangers of relying on intermittent, unreliable forms of energy like wind for a quarter of our energy needs.
• It shows as clear as day that the goal of 100% renewables by 2035 is a pipe dream that will increase suffering and harm Texas families.
• Had Texas been using 100% renewables, we would have had 100% blackouts.
+++
Thank you, Commissioner!
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Todd, My lines from the meter at our home are 48" under all 900' to the house. My only concern is my 5 frost free faucets that are on the outside wall of our home. Ain't seen a break yet and it is 39deg right now. We did have a water line break at my Auto Shop. About 20 yrs or so ago I had a small hot water mounted above our "Ladies" rest room. Didn't pay any attention, but he ran the copper pipe on the NE outside wall. It was insulated, but not enough.Butch, with all this global warming going on, you guys might want to plow those water lines in a little deeper too.
NCAA Rifle qualifying starts tomorrow.
Yeah, I'm really worried about "Global Warning". Chuckle chuckle!
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