There are really only two practical things you can do to change the insulation in the house. Blowing more insulation into the attic is not hard and it can yield some decent results. Going around the house and plugging up air leaks can also help, although the benefits are smaller.

Changing the insulation value of the walls or installing more efficient windows gets expensive in a hurry and it’s only worth doing as part of some other upgrade.

What’s needed is better insulation and more attention to detail when you build a house.

This is the correct issue. But insulation is not what caused pipes to burst. Improper installation or design is the cause. More insulation would not have helped my parents house, where the pipe was run in the attic of an uninsulated/unheated garage. It would not have helped a neighbor where the leak was found to be a pipe run on the OUTSIDE of the insulation, but behind the brick façade.

These are not inexpensive homes, at least for our area. They are well above the median. Yet 10 minutes of consideration would have lead someone to think about where the pipe enters. Pipes freezing are rare occurrences here. No one thinks about single digits temperatures in the area.

I doubt Miami, Los Angeles or San Diego would do well either. My Townhouse in San Diego had an exposed pipe and valve that fed water to all units.

^^^^+1 Bad design and bad installation are what cause the most problems.

:confused: More insulation stacked in a garage won't help either. - Of course insulation needs to be applied strategically.

James, I assume your boss is telling everyone not to schedule any long vacations where you work for the next year or two?

We had an interesting uncontrolled experiment unfold in our hood.

Not really unexpected or surprising but there is a direct correlation with amount and severity of pipe failures based on who the builder was.

In my subdivision, 70 ish homes, they are either Newport or Highland.

Highland homes did not perform nearly as well as the Newports.

Interesting. Actually, the interesting part is that either one did some things "right" vs both doing a crappy job. Makes you wonder, were they done right on purpose or did they just get lucky? I assume that in some cases, it doesn't actually cost more time/money to do it right. (maybe pipe inside insulation vs outside).

A couple examples:

Two water pipes in my laundry room. Hot and cold. Both come up through the slab, 4 inches apart. The sloppy plumber ran the hot pipe close to the outside edge of the wall (2x4 framing) and the cold line close to the inside edge of the wall. Hot line froze, cold line didn't.

Some idjut wants to install a Jacuzzi in the master bath. Opens up the outside wall and cuts a horizontal channel along the outside edge of the studs to run the hot water line. Insulation? What's that? Guess whether it wanted to freeze, or not.

Etc.

Not my house, just one I'm renting for the time being. Originally built in 1980, hacked by idjuts since.

My home lost electricity for 4 hours, pipes were down to 34F. I have no insulation, but did put a heat lamp in overhead socket as well as a heater in the water closet. It's a 1957 model. They were built better when? I'm on stump and beam!

No one has mentioned it yet, or at least that I know of, but the use of the rainy day fund is about to come. Count on it, 10B waiting to be paid out in some or whole.

One call, that's it. Relief.

$50BN in power bills during the week of the freeze? Does that get paid, by whom, over how long. Which utilities and customers go BK, which power generators just had an incredible windfall, does the state try to claw anything back?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-22/texans-will-pay-for-the-state-s-power-crisis-for-decades-to-come?sref=eCUg41rA

$35BN physical damage from freeze, of which $20BN insured? Which insurers and reinsurers get hit, who pays the rest, and how?

https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/southcentral/2021/02/25/302247.htm

I don’t know if these numbers are right. If they are anywhere around right, it is going to be very interesting how Texas deals with this. Presumably the state will try to get a lot of the money from the federal government. I don’t see the feds paying Texans’ power bills, but I do see tens of billions in other federal help coming, and strings attached. Like, federal oversight of the Texas grid?

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Texas-grid-again-faces-scrutiny-over-cold-15955392.php

This is happening right as Texas is really gaining momentum in pulling companies and people from California and other states. The state will have to be careful not to lose the low taxes & cheap power that helps draw things like TSMC fabs and TSLA assembly.

Texas is a good place for rooftop solar, right? I wonder how many people will decide to install PV and battery plus generator, or grid-tie PV, rather than participate with ratepayers in the repayment of all that money. And whether the state will find a way to prevent them from going solar, in order to keep them as ratepayers. If I were a federal govt trying to encourage renewable power, I might think about my leverage here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/18/traffic-to-rooftop-solar-sites-jumps-as-texans-seek-freedom-from-grid/?sh=3f831855691d

I thought unskilled laborers were free to practice? Pretty sure the Gov. said so. Cost maybe 8B. 5B if illegals help for repairs. 50B sounds kind of steep for the power bills, especially with not much of anything working.

This letter was sent out to Oklahoma Gas and Electric customers. I am on Public Service of Oklahoma and haven't seen what they are doing. Oklahoma is not deregulated.

Dear customers,
In the aftermath of February’s extreme cold, you may be wondering how the weather could affect your utility bill.

During this weather event, our focus was on limiting the effects of temporary service interruptions and ensuring you had the power you needed to keep your families warm. We spent about $1 billion on natural gas to ensure we met the increased demand. That's more than we spent on fuel for all of 2020.

To minimize the impact to you, we're working with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) to spread the recovery of these fuel costs over 10 years. This is a two-step approach:

Step 1: We're asking the OCC to allow us to recover a portion of the fuel costs beginning in April.
Step 2: We're asking the OCC to approve spreading the remainder of the associated fuel costs over 10 years, beginning in 2022.
If approved, the average residential customer can expect to see a fuel cost-related increase of less than 10%.

Separate from fuel costs, you may also see a higher February bill if you used more electricity during the intense cold than you normally do. If you took conservation measures, like lowering your thermostat, you may not see as much of an increase.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/02/25/i-co-authored-the-law-that-deregulated-the-texas-electrical-grid-ercot-didnt-cause-winter-outages/
Opinion
I co-authored the law that deregulated the Texas electrical grid. ERCOT didn’t cause winter outages
Lawmakers should grant regulators the power to enforce weatherization rules for generators.


By David Sibley

1:30 AM on Feb 25, 2021 CST

This op-ed is part of a series published by The Dallas Morning News Opinion section to explore ideas and policies for strengthening electric reliability. Find the full series here: Keeping the Lights On.

“Misinformation rides the greased algorithmic rails of powerful social media platforms and travels at velocities and in volumes that make it nearly impossible to stop,” New York Times opinion writer Charlie Warzel recently wrote.

Then, no matter how incorrect the misinformation is, it becomes “information.” We’ve seen that a lot recently as state leaders, the public and many others have loudly blamed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for widespread power failures during statewide subfreezing temperatures.

I write to defend ERCOT and set the record straight on what is information vs. misinformation.

First, it’s important to understand exactly what ERCOT does, and doesn’t, do. ERCOT manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers who represent about 90% of the state’s electric load. It schedules power on an electric grid that connects more than 46,500 miles of transmission lines and 680-plus generation units.

When generation drops to dangerous levels, like it did in the early hours of Feb. 15, ERCOT tells transmission companies, municipal utilities and electric cooperatives how much energy must be shed to keep the grid stable. Those entities decide how to reduce demand and which customers have their power cut. ERCOT is not a state agency, but it answers to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.

Texas just suffered through the worst winter storm in a century. As a result, electricity for much of the state was disrupted for hours and days. As bad as this was, it could have been much, much worse. Quick action by ERCOT engineers in the middle of the night on Feb. 15 saved many lives. Had they not acted when they did, the whole grid would have collapsed. Full service to the state could not have been restored for months. Imagine how many lives would have been lost if that disaster had occurred.

Within two hours on that night, as the winter storm worsened, electric generation massively failed as plants stopped operating. Texas lost 41% of electricity produced by natural gas, coal and nuclear plants. Some wind turbines froze, compromising that source of electricity. Interestingly, in the days after the crisis developed, solar production doubled.

On a normal February day, Texans need about 54,000 megawatts of electricity at peak demand. Early on that Monday morning we needed over 70,000 megawatts as heating our homes required more energy. When generators started going down, ERCOT was managing a full-blown disaster. Given the tools ERCOT had, it did an excellent job.

I hear accusations that Texas’ deregulated market was the culprit in this disaster. Not true. As co-author of that deregulation legislation (which easily passed with a bipartisan vote), I’m proud of what it has accomplished since the deregulated market was established in 2001.

Texans have since saved billions of dollars in electric costs and now pay some of the lowest rates in the country. New generation has been built, with fewer regulatory roadblocks, helping power our state’s booming population and economic growth over the past decade. Without that additional capacity, last week could truly have been catastrophic and impacted even more Texans.

Improving the reliability of generating plants does not require abandoning our free market. Winterization of these plants is indeed needed; this was recommended a decade ago and should be required. The Texas Legislature can grant the PUC authority to enforce this.

Some of my conservative friends are blaming renewable energy for the grid failure. This isn’t fair. When you lose 41% of gas, coal and nuclear plants, it isn’t the fault of renewables. Only 25% of the grid’s capacity comes from wind, with 70% of the state’s energy generated by gas, coal or nuclear sources.

Early in the morning on Feb. 15, over half of ERCOT’s generating capacity was offline because of the storm, mostly due to problems with the natural gas system.

So, what should Texas do? ERCOT and the PUC can only act in ways permitted by the Texas Legislature. They do not have the authority to compel electric generators to winterize their plants. They can only suggest it.

Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed legislation to give the PUC authority to require winterization. The Legislature should act immediately to give the PUC the tools it needs so that Texans do not suffer another week in the cold and dark.

David Sibley is a former Republican Texas senator who co-authored Senate Bill 7 in 1999, which deregulated the Texas electric market. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Got an opinion about this issue? Send a letter to the editor, and you just might get published.

David Sibley

The math doesn't add up to $50 billion for power.

Let's say wholesale power price peaked at 8pm on Sunday 2/14 and stayed at peak price until 8pm on Wednesday 2/17 for a total of 72 hours.

ERCOT generation during this period hovered around 42,000 MW

ERCOT's peak price is limited to $9,000 per MWh

So total wholesale cost would be 72 x 42,000 x $9,000 for $27.2 billion

The wholesale price was not at $9,000 the whole 72 hours so that makes it less than $27.2 billion

The $9,000 price only applies to power that was not pre-purchased by the retail supplier so much of the power sold over this period would be priced at somewhere around $20 per MWh. Apparently Griddy doesn't pre-purchase power so their customers got screwed.

Granted this is wholesale and not retail but a $9,000 MWh would not be marked up the same as a normal $20 MWh.

Do the new residential energy codes require all waterlines to be insulated?

If you're building a house it'd be good thing to pay a little more for if not covered by code.

if you lose power for days on end no amount of insulation will stop breakage. Buried water mains were breaking.

It was caused by extreme cold (30 -50 degrees below the norm) over an extended amount of time.

Water lines from the main to a house have traditionally been buried below the frost line. This depth varies, as the frost line varies with latitude. Generally, the pipes are buried far below it. I haven't buried anything (water, gas, electric, etc.) less than 36 inches deep, ever. That's well below the frost line in the parts of Texas that were hit hardest.

Water lines are typically insulated where they come out of the ground and through the slab. Slab on grade construction is the typical standard now.

Water lines are not typically insulated separately in the walls; the walls themselves are insulated. Even where there is little risk of freezing, the walls are still insulated against heat gain in summer.

Nobody I know would run a water line above the ceiling joists in an attic, insulated or not. I guess it happens but that's because idiots are allowed to build houses.

Most of the problems you saw were related to lousy workmanship. If you do it the way they've been doing it for years, IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, you'll likely not have a problem.

All of my parents water lines were insulated. My lines that broke were insulated. That wasn't the issue.

1. No Electricity - No electricity, no heat.
2. No water pressure - Water was stagnant
3. Cold Air - It was 6F at my house.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the heat losses and insulation requirements are built around a maximum of a 30F differential temperature, which is maximal summertime high vs. interior temperature. Our normal winter temperatures would produce similar differential temperatures.

A lot of the issue was design/installation/permitting. In the county, permits are not required for most things. So, no construction, plumbing or electrical review before closing the walls. And most of the construction contractors are not required to have licensed electrician/plumbers during the construction phase. Maybe this needs to change.

My house, a hot water pipe was just too close to the outside wall. It was in the insulation, not on the house side of the insulation. At my parents, the water main line went through an unheated, open attic in the garage. It has a tee line for a hose bib as well. Both were insulated, but the area was unheated. It was not enough with stagnant water and 6F air temps.

The "solution" is to require the water main come into warm part of the house directly. And to have an inspection of the house prior to closing the walls. One of my friends built a house about 7 years ago. I suggested he hire an engineer to inspect the job for structure, plumbing and electrical. The house was basically perfect, since they caught a bunch of issues.

We don't have a "Frost Line" here. The ground doesn't freeze. The water lines are buried, but many were "open" to the elements when they hit the house.

I was lucky (sort of) in that respect. I have a whole house backup generator, so we had heat. I have 2 exposed pipes for irrigation. They are heat traced. The heat tracing is close enough that it probably helped my main water pipe.

See above. Idiots are allowed to build houses. And it doesn't matter how upscale the construction.

All utility lines need to be buried deep enough to prevent damage. Usually that is well below what the frost line might be in any given area. So, it's really a moot point.

The furthest south I have worked in Texas was down in Harlingen. When I first arrived there, I was surprised to see water lines coming up out of the ground unprotected and then going laterally into buildings. I know it seldom freezes down there but I consider than just stupid. Never mind the lack of protection from cold snaps, copper pipe isn't all that stout and is easily damaged. An idiot on a riding mower could take it out instantly.