A SNOW-LESS Winter in Bahstin...

It's warmer here in Maine — good luck, chai!

Thanks!
I'm fortunate I'm in a safe (getting warmer) house.

I just called AAA. They are concentrating their efforts in this area that are stranded on the road, or other unsafe area. So, they temporarily suspended their services to people that are ok in their homes. I'll just try back tomorrow. I'm definately not a priority.
My step daughter seems to think it just needs a jump, not a replacement, as this happened to her. After service I'll just drive around a bit and brake a lot on some side streets. Braking charges the big battery. Not sure about the auxilary.

I like it that the first thing a CSR at AAA asks you when they pick up is "Are you in a safe place?" Nice.

I felt kinda ripe after 30 hours of wearing 2 pairs of sweats, sox, flannel shirt, bathrobe and turban made out of a scarf, so warmed some water on the stove and at least took a sponge bath, and washed my hair in cold water. Feel so much better.

If I had realized I'd be out so long, I would have put some perishables on the back patio in the cold. I ended up having to throw out a nice rack of ribs I was going to cook in the crock pot, and a couple of packaged meat products in the freezer. They had thawed.

I'm really fortunate. So many others not so.

On the other hand, since I don't suffer fools gladly, I've been shaking my head a bit when I've gotten some notifications on my Ring app.
Understandably, when the power went out, there was a lot of back and forth with ppl in the area, making sure they weren't the only ones out. Others supplying the link to the electric company which provides a power outage map, etc.

But then starts the people who like 18 hours into it are demanding (yes demanding) other ppl to tell them when the powers back on. One person saying "my water isn't running. Why did they turn it off? I'm going to call them" Yeah Maisy, you and 200,000 other households. Jesus wept.

Oh! and this other person who posted something like "Anyone looking for a place to take a warm shower? I have a small 1 bedroom apt, and you're welcome to come over"
And Jesus Christ! People were actually telling him (I assume him) "Oh, you're being so kind offering help." "You're so kind" etc.
I responded saying "Were ya'll born yesterday!?"

Hmm. Maybe was a she, looking to pick up a few extra bucks.

I'm shocked to see that kind of weather in Austin. All we've had in NW NM is snow, and not much of that compared to most of the country.

Say hi to shewolf for me.

Will do!

Good to hear you are warming up. At least up here we are prepared for the snow/cold.

Ha! The power went out again, at 7pm yesterday, and just came back on @ 2:30, about 1/2 an hour ago.

The worst part is it's SOOOOOOO boring.

I can read a little, but the portable book light I has a USB port for charging. I kept thinking it would go out.

Of course all the shades were closed, so it's been dim in the house. I got up at 4am and made eggs and tomatoes by Yankee Candle light.

I did remember I had one of those mylar space blankets. I put it over me and the blankets and really made a big difference.

I would recommend anyone to get a couple for emergencies. They very cheap at a buck or two, and you can get them on ebay.

The temp only went down to 54 indoors this time.

This time I won't be surprised if the power goes off again. I really want my car jumped so I can go look for some interesting food, even if it's junk food.

had enough of eggs, nuts, seeds and uncured salami.

Well I hope it is resolved for you soon. It is hard to feel really well when you are cold.

The latest (and hopefully last update)

Electric on.

Water came on after there was none for I think 5 or 6 days, at around noon yesterday. First thing I did was wash my hands 3 times!
On boil water notice so most people just getting bottled, which is pretty much back in the stores, after the initial "the sky is falling" people pillaged the supply.

Honestly, people who probably haven't drunk a straight glass of water in five years were suddenly climbing over each other.

About 10 minutes after my water comes on, a neighbor knocks and says water is running out of my garage.
I go into the garage, and sure enough. Then went outside and saw it's gushing out of the side of the house.

The water heater went bust. Got the source of that water turned off. So just cold water in the house. That's ok. I just heated up enough to mix with the cold from the tap to clean up enough.

Fortunately, when I bought the house in August, it came with a one year warranty.

I'll call them first thing Monday.
I also, to be on the safe side, filed a claim with my insurance online. I heard this has to be done within 48 hours.
If the warranty takes care of it, I'll just cancel the claim.

There's a lot of people who had busted pipes, water heaters and lots of other stuff. So it's not like a plumber would be coming out any time soon.

Fortunately, I joined the YMCA a little more than a month ago. I'd been going for their indoor pool 5 or 6 days a week. It's opened tomorrow. I'll just take my showers there.

Glad to hear you are back in service (mostly). Today, I read an article about some of the absolutely horrible article about the unbelievable electric bills some had been receiving - in the 5,000+ range. Sure hope that doesn't affect you.

Well, that was a little incoherent, but you get the drift.

Oh that stuff about crazy electric bills

I’m going with people aren’t going to have to pay that. I’m on my phone now so too much to type out.

As if people are going to pay an electric bill that could take them 10 years to pay off, or go bankrupt, during COVID, or any time

Glad to see you back on line. I was hoping you did not have damage from burst pipes etc. Good thing about the warranty!

Ha! Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.

The warranty doesn't cover it because of "act of God" and my insurance deductible is $2000. Which the heater I need is about $1200-$1400.

The plumber was recommended to me by my next door neighbor James. When I called him (Zack) he was literally 2 more houses down. Seems like a lot of houses in my little community had problems. Zack has a monopoly with us.

I've got to order the unit, and he'll replace it.
Normally he could order it, but he said he'd be putting out $50k to get all the units he would need to replace everything for all the neighborhoods he's working.
I like it that he didn't want to have that money up front. A scam artist could do that then disappear. I'm fine with ordering it myself.

So, in the far North, are everyone's pipes insulated or something?

A lot of people mistakenly think or say Texas homes aren't insulated well. That's not true. How do people think we survive the high summer heat? We just don't, at least where I am, do the pipes since normally we'll have 2 or 3 separate freezing nights a year. That means usually mid 20's.

Rural single-family houses are built over cellars and basements and waterlines from individual drilled or dug wells are routed to the basement at a depth below the frost level. Some older houses without good insulation often have "cold spots" where pipes running along outside walls can sometimes freeze so these pipes are insulated or wrapped with thermostatically controlled "heat tape". If the power goes off for more than a few hours in a real cold snap the heat tape doesn't work so most homeowners have a way to isolate and drain those sections. Where I live in Maine the power is most likely to go off in sloppy storms with ice and rain and temperatures around freezing. The snow we get in a real blizzard is drier, lighter, and much less likely to cause downed power lines.

Here in Germany it is said that it should be at least 15°C degrees in unoccupied rooms and 17°C degrees in occupied rooms to prevent water pipes from freezing (we recently had -22°C here).

15 years ago there was the so-called Münsterland snow chaos here, triggered by unusually high snowfalls of over 50 cm for this region.
Some older generation electricity poles could no longer bear the weight of the heavy snow on the lines and buckled. Fallen branches led to line breaks and short circuits. About 250,000 people in 25 communities were affected by the power outage.

Ah. That's another thing, at least in this part of Tx, that's rare. Cellars/basements.

The water table is just too high. Plus there's a lot of clay, which expands.

At my old house, new people from upstate NY bought the land next to me.
His father, who had lived up there all his life came down and personally built the house with his own 2 hands, and a couple guys he hired.

You guessed it. They built a basement.
People in the neighborhood would walk by, scratching their heads at the folly of this. Dad heard from multiple sources this wasn't a good idea, but he was stubborn.

It is, to this day, a bloody mess. Too wet to be of any use for storage or an extra room. No need for it to protect pipes.

What Hightor said. Although we do not have a basement either -- just a rather deep crawl space under the part of the house where the water pipes are located. Water intake from the well buried below the frost line and well insulated. Believe it or not we have to worry about sewer lines as well -- those of us with septic tanks anyway. The first winter we had indoor plumbing lots of neighbours had frozen drain lines -- of course temps were around -40 C with the windchill for weeks. We did not have any issues and were thankful.
Temperatures are hovering around freezing now and lots and lots of snow.

I am deliriously happy.

My new hot water heater arrived today.

Now to have Zack the Plumber come install it.

That means hot showers at home rather than at the YMCA
Being able to properly wash dishes in the dishwasher, rather than heating water on the stove.

AAARRRGGHH!

They send me the wrong heater.