| |
|
|
Power Outages and such
It's the third day without power and the utility still has no ETA for repair. The phone lines went down Friday for no particular reason it seems (want's windy, wasn't raining) and they also have no ETA for repair. Temperatures have been in the mid-20s and the house is pretty chilly in the mid 50s. One fireplace doesn't do a great job heating a big house. Next year we'll buy a second LP generator just to run the heat pump. Generators are sure cheaper now than they were when we bought ours during Y2K. Anyway, just whining some.
|
|
 Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Good luck Ken, we were out for 1 week several years ago - but were lucky it wasn't too cold. Funny, when we lived in apple orchard country as a kid we never had long outages. But in recent years and not so far away we have had more and longer outages. You don't have a wood stove?
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
No wood stove. We have two fireplaces but one is in the unfinished basement. They're fairly efficient units with outside combustion air and a blower but still not enough for the entire house. We didn't get around to installing radiant floor heat this year but definitely will do that next year. That will add gas-fired heat on the main floor but won't be adequate for the upstairs bedrooms.
A few years ago we were out of town for Christmas and the power here went out for a week while we were gone. My cousin was keeping an eye on the house so it wasn't a problem, just a pain.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
I think it is called deregulation. On the coast where I grew up and my father was a lineman. We had a thinning crew working full time removing brush and suspect trees. We seldom had the power out. They laid the crew off and then got contractors in to thin once in a while. My fathers overtime doubled. Someone just looked at the cost of the thinning not the cost of overtime for the linemen or the risk it put them in. In addition we lost a friend and nearly a whole line crew do to over loaded lines and trees that had grown too close to 500 KV lines.
The old thinning crew took ownership of their lines and their work. They knew the problem areas. They kept the brush at the required distances. With the rate that the trees like alder grow it is essential that you stay on top of them. A contractor sweeping through once every few years can not stay ahead of the problems. If a tree dies how long does it take it to be a problem? Here with the pine it is about a year.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Peters, my Dad used to be one of the guys who ran the power plant in the control room. I used to think the reason we had so few long outages was because my Dad used to call the plant whenever the power went out  . Your explanation sounds good.
My Dad lived through some pretty scary situations at the powerplant. One time the giant fan disintegrated killing a worker. Another time a new power plant "imploded" when the furnace vents wouldn't open, a vacuum was created inside the furnace and the steam pipes broke away from the furnace. Everyone was crawling on their hands and knees to find a way out. Turned out a squirrel had gotten into the controls somewhere which prevented systems from operating correctly.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Peters, you could be right on the deregulation.
On the east Coast something I have noticed with hurricanes is years ago they cut off the power so swaying lines did not hit each other and burn something out. No more. Now they leave them live until they swing and hit each oher buring something out. No doubt there is a reason for this, could be they worried about switching the lines back on.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Yay! Power came back on a little while ago and the heat pump is doing it's best imitation of pumping out some heat. Went through ~250 gallons of propane in 3 1/2 days. Expensive outage! I'm just grateful that the power is back before Christmas (knock on wood).
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
You did come to my mind this weekend on this. Glad for you.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Good to hear the power is back. Lister made a small cogen system that used the waste heat from the engine to heat the house. If you sucked back 250 gallons of propane there must have been more than a little waste heat.
Did you consider just putting a heater coil in the heat pump ducts? You could run this off a hot water tank and then use waste heat like that from the generator. The old house had one and it ran off the outside wood burner. It kept the house toasty warm.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
|
Power Outages and such
Capturing the heat is a good idea but might be sort of difficult. The generator is in a shed about 100 feet from the house. It's an open frame generator with the exhaust piped to the outdoors. But the heat isn't totally wasted. We keep firewood in that shed and the shed gets to be about 80 degrees with the genset running which helps dry out wet wood
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
Gas Generator Weather Protecti
12-17-2006, 19:02 
Pics
Reply
Digg It 
Del.icio.us 
