Finally got some cell phone service. Been without power for 24 hours. No land line or internet. Run gas furnace using generator for blower. Water pressure low. Almost out of fire wood.

Yup, it’s the epitome of easy. It’s also junk.

Really sorry to hear guys, I hope you get through it.

You should send your power companies up to Canada to learn to deal with a proper grid and extreme temps. We have been in the -30’s for about three weeks and can’t thank our energy producers enough for keeping the power and natural gas online.

This is a historic event down here. The longest SW Oklahoma has ever been under 32 degrees was 83 hours. We are at 218 now with Friday, more likely Saturday, being the time we finally get above freezing. We could easily go 300 hours.

We had a couple of days were our daily high was less than the old record low.

We have been very lucky so far. No power interruptions as yet. Our water pressure is low, but I bet that is from the water main leaks from the super low temps around the city. I have to really feel sorry for the guys fixing broken water mains when it is 14 degrees.

Our house is 25 years old, and all the water lines are in the slab, and using PEX. The best part is all the areas with water supply are on inside walls. We are indeed very lucky so far. We have not been off the property since last Saturday. I will spend some more time with my leaf blower and the snow shovel to try to clear the driveway off enough, but the street is deep with snow and I don't know if we could get back up the driveway through that deep snow.

We are supposed to climb out of the freezer this weekend. Two solid weeks of below freezing. Virtually all the records are broken for cold temps, and we have had a full winter of snowfall in just two back to back storms.

I am still fine. No power or water problems. No way in hell could I get out of my neighborhood.

We're in Dallas.

We are super lucky in that we bought a portable 8k watt generator in 2019 after two separate tornadoes missed us by 2 blocks, but left us without power for a total of 9 days.

Power just came back on, but we have probably had 5-7 hours of electricity since early Monday morning. Fortunately with the generator it powers the gas furnaces and our house if fine. The generator won't power the pool equipment and so I did a quick winterizing and it is now frozen over. I need to get a drill and measure the thickness of the ice.

What is extraordinarily frustrating is that some people in Dallas have never lost power and aren't really near what we think is critical infrastructure. They should be part of the rolling black outs too.

Plumbers and I imagine HVAC companies will be raking in the over-time once it warms up and people get power back on. Good thing we have a fully deregulated electricity that does not reward investing in the infrastructure.

I just picked up some copper (1/2" and 3/4") for my parents repair, in case their repairman couldn't find the pipe he needed. What ever is left over is yours. US290 & Fairbanks (looks like your picture) HD had plenty of copper and copper fittings. Just not much for CPVC. I picked up a 1/2" PEX line as a substitute.

A monkey would have been embarrassed by the job in my kitchen!

I feel for you guys down in Texas. Up here in Nebraska we are better prepared for this kind of weather. Monday night the low was -31°. Last night was only 15 below zero. Today is actually going to get above 0°! We have had only one rolling black out and that was on Monday for about 45 minutes. No frozen pipes in our 105 year old house.

I highly recommend that you think about using PEX for replacing your broken pipes. I completely replumbed our cabin with PEX waterlines five years ago. PEX is quite easy to install and can expand a little bit if the water freezes. I ran all of the waterlines to a manifold in the lower part of the crawlspace. That way I can shut off each faucet individually without having to turn the water off completely.

hope you guys get warm soon

I would be glad to send you our weather
it has been over 80 all week

btw climate change means more big storms both summer hurricanes and twisters
and winter also as there is more energy to drive air both further and faster

I have no idea what the situation is at our property. I'm sure it's bad because all of the pipes are PVC. We'll deal with that when we can get back.

At our apt, they had power for about 4 hours or of the last 60. We're lucky that our daughter and family just moved to a new house, but they haven't sold their old house. It has yet to lose power or water. it's on the SE side of Houston (the warmest side). Their new house has no power or water. They are staying with friends, and we packed up and are at their old house.

I have a busy on Facebook that hasn't hag power in a couple of days that is heating bricks and landscape stones in his fireplace. Then they wrap them in towels and hug them for warmth.

Thanks James. I was able to get the 1/2" stuff I needed and repair the split line. Wishing you the best at your house and hope we can clink glasses at Senate Brewery soon.
Yasin

James,

This is the first place I've lived where the plumbing lines are in the ceiling. Is this because soil shifts so much around here?. In our other TX houses the plumbing was beneath the foundation and just stubbed up into the living area. Much easier to prevent freezing and much less damage if it froze. But much worse if a line broke for some reason.

Our power was off for 43 hours, fortunately we had a gas log fireplace and lots of blankets. Never lost H20 so we dripped every faucet for 3 days and nights but no frozen pipes. In the next upscale subdivision over their water went off Monday morning and is still off and power just came back on. There gonna be a lot of flooded houses when those pipes thaw and the pressure comes back up.

Good luck with finding and repairing your leaks..

A long power outage is a miserable thing. Then when it's over, the needed clean up and repairs are also miserable things. My total sympathy & understanding to all...because misery loves company, right?

Special note to James...in the 40 years Cindy & I have lived in this place, there have been many repairs and mods...with me wondering why it wasn't done right the first time.

Good luck to all with frozen lines. We were fortunate to only freeze one pipe and so far no leaks once it thawed.

We got power back at 12:30 this morning and then lost it at 6am.

Now we have no water. Our neighbors are taking water from our pool to flush toliets.

Things are still really tight for the Texas grid and we're still having trouble getting some units back on line but the longer we're above freezing, the easier it'll be.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613589958.jpg

Not me however. I never stand in line to buy overpriced coffee. I just brew it at home for pennies per cup.

I also hope things are looking up soon for all of you affected by the cold snap. We have an opposite sort of problem. Our outages (occasionally multiple days) are during the warm part of the year during fire season. Hang in there.

Today was a good day. We were getting progressively longer periods of power. was feeling pretty encouraged when we got to 1:45 of power. Thought if we get past 2 hours we should be in good shape relatively soon.

We just passed 3:10 and i thought, well that’s finally over.

Now i’m sitting in the dark again

motherf****er

Was watching the Portland Oregon news yesterday, they were interviewing some poor folks who lost all the food in their refrigerator with the power being out...lost hundreds of dollars of food... almost crying.

It's been below freezing most nights there, day time highs not more than upper 40's.

So basically the outside temps are pretty close to the same as their refrigerator. Are people so simple minded these day's they can't just go put their food in a cooler on the porch or just stick it on the front seat of their car? I was disgusted. Maybe the city of Portland and surrounding areas need to start the emergency texts telling people to just set their food outside. FFS-WW