47 degree inside the house.


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Its easy to wire your furnace to a generator. Just take the furnace on/off switch apart, and hardwire it to an extension cord that leads out to the generator. If its only going to the furnace, you won't be creating a hazard for line workers/neighbors.

We got a phone call from the power company that said that they were aware of the outage. They said we should expect the power to be out the rest of the day.

Power back on after about 27 hours out - no idea how long it will last. My house got down to 36-37 degrees (a little colder in some parts of it) - pretty damn cold for indoor temp! Only time I've seen colder was a few years ago when the power was out for 5 days, when I was living in Rockwall TX at the time (got to 34-35 inside).

^^^
When it gets that cold inside...it helps if you leave the fridge door open :D

Yea, when it is that cold inside you don't need to go to the fridge to get a beer!

Ha ha - no doubt! :D

Power was on for less than two hours and now back off - warmed house air to 57 but dropping quickly as it is less than 20 degrees outside. TexASS sux!!!

Power is back on, came up about an hour ago. Giving the generator a rest.

I thought winter was the time for suthurnurs to mock and ridicule we northurnurs for what me must endure because of where we live.

Somebody should build a pipeline all the way from the oil fields of Canada to The Gulf of Mexico. It would be a keystone to energy independence.

Power back on in this area about 1.5 hours following my previous post, but now that I've said that, it will probably go out again any minute. :)

Just wait until we all drive electric cars, and see what that does to an already taxed power grid, let alone what cold/ice will do to the cars range.

Bring on the "New Green Deal" !

Maybe your disaster preparation sux ?

Absolutely it does - no doubt about that. What's worse is I have lived here a long time and failed thus far to accept how bad the Texas power grid/system is, and act accordingly - I suck biggly!

During the nearly 5 days here in rural Willamette Valley of Oregon..I often thought that OAC and the other "green new deal" politicians should have to live as Cindy & I. And we had it better than a lot of other folks. Old fashioned Schrader wood stove kept us warm, a single burner propane bottle camp stove and an old fashioned percolator kept us in coffee and warm food. Kerosene lamps for light. Luckily, neighbors across the road had power, so our wagon style garden cart handles 6 five gallon buckets. So, no problem with toilet flushing. Oh..and my old Porsche Design Grundig transistor radio for entertainment. At first, it pulled in only a few AM stations, only 1 FM. It was interesting to figure out which town got power back as the number of stations increased.

Lots of big fir limbs and a couple of trees down. Right now, deciding whether to tackle it myself or hire it done. At age 77, I'm not as keen about chainsaw use as I once was.

Oh..and I'm also going to try to figure out why my gunsmoke style hand pump atop my well didn't work this time...it worked like a champ during other power outages. I lucked out that the neighbors had power..

Lemme tell ya, my Monday night shower and shave felt heavenly! Don't want to think about how odiferous I must have been. :eek:

Texans, hang in there! It may seem to be never ending, but eventually it will.

Big update, and it has been a busy day.

Power came back on around noon. I switched back to grid power.

Water came back around 3. Water flowed out from the kitchen cabinets. I have a broken pipe, and it appear to be the hot water pipe. I thought it would be near the sink. Nope. In the process, the cold water pipe broke. Still haven't found the actual break. It appears to be behind the oven or the cabinet in-between. I'll start with the oven area tomorrow, then check the other cabinet. Water definitely went all under the cabinets.

At my parents, the water came back on and a neighbor called. A small river is coming out of the garage. Power was not back on, but I tripped the main for safety. The garage is not heated, it is attached, but there are no rooms above the garage. The water main comes in on the outside, goes into the garage, runs around in the unheated ceiling. Oh, and when everyone else in the neighbor hood has PVC, they have copper.

About 7:30, their contractor came over and we ripped down sections of the garage ceiling. The 3/4" main had multiple ruptures and a 1/2 pipe for a hose bib was also split.

Just as they were leaving, the power came back on in the area. We switched everything off that could be a garage breaker. Slowly checked the breakers and found the one marked and one unmarked for the garage. So electric is back on and the cat will now not freeze.

Contractor gave me 1/2" CPVC end caps to allow me to plug the cold water line. I think I can valve out the hot water heaters and at least get us cold water, until we find the broken line.

This one will be a mess. Since the outside wall is brick, fixing the pipe has to be done from the inside. Which means ripping out about Dishwasher, sink, 30" cabinet, 30" range and refrigerator walls. Messy and expensive. Unless I find the exact spot with the broken pipe and break through the brick.

James, did you get a "may you live in interesting times" fortune cookie? Damn!

Houses here are not designed for temps like this. And definitely not without power and running water...

I didn't even start on the "monkey work" that looks like plumbing under my sink in the kitchen.

Apparently, whoever did the work didn't have an elbow. So he put in a Tee with a short pieces and an end cap. They also did not secure any of the pipes! And instead of shortening a pipe so it did not interfere with the drain, he just left it loose with the dishwasher valve at the end.

Damn James that really sucks. Finding water leaks can be a real challenge, back in the day I fixed a lot of mobile homes with freeze damage. Often times the split is small enough that you can’t see it, and the water can follow the pipe for a while before it drips. Makes finding the actual leak a real pain.