Baby It's (been) Cold Outside (and inside!)

Red Leg

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The internet is finally back up (as of an hour ago), we can take a shower (even if we still can't drink the water), the house is finally warm again, and the ice is just starting to melt. Two days ago, conditions were rather unpleasant. We hit 3 degrees outside and 48 degrees inside. For my ignorant European fellow correspondents, that is minus 16 and 9 degrees Celsius respectively. Naturally, my generator chose this cold spell to decide that generating power was simply too much work. Like all these wonderful modern pieces of machinery, control panels and circuit boards defy a wrench and a flashlight. Because it is a 30KW, it does at least represent impressive yard art. Now to find an old rusted out car to set by it .......

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Just wish we could clearly identify the idiot back in the nineties who convinced a state awash in clean natural gas to commit 20% of its electric grid to wind farms and solar power that won't function during ice storms and near zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Those darned unintended consequences and second order effects will bite you........ :A Bang Head:

It has been fun and its been real - just not real fun.

And yes, I know all you damn Yankees walked to grade school three miles each way in these conditions. We are not equipped - physically or culturally - for such temps. Williamson county doesn't even own a snow plow. And my highly refined Southern blood will take weeks to function normally again.
 
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When wood burning stoves are outlawed, only outlaws will have wood burning stoves.
 
I one upped you. We had an inside temp. of 46F.
 
I'm back on the grid too as of 4:15 this morning, we've been out of power since Sunday night and boy oh boy it's been freezing. We had very similar temperatures as @Red Leg this week except that we got down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) inside the house. Have not been cold like that since I was a kid waiting for hours in the snow for driven boars in the middle winter in the Vosges mountains of France, but at least for that you have adrenaline and some excitement to look forward to.

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I wonder if anyone noticed that I have not been on the site for the last 5 days?! :E Cold:
 
You live in Texas too??? :)
 
And here I thought that all of you Texan's would of just moved into your camping trailers for the last few days.

A number of years ago we went javelina hunting in Arizona and when we got to the motel that we were staying in they told us that they were froze up and had no water. That didn't bother us too much but the next morning when we went to get some coffee the store was frozen up so we had to go without coffee.

Now that was a bad morning.
 
Time to winterize the house? Did pipes break? Hope not.

Living at 6200 feet elevation, I had neighbors questioning why I put in air conditioning when I built the house. Being from the Dakotas, I don’t like heat. It can get 90+F here in the foothills of Colorado. The neighbors sure like to visit and have a cold beer when it’s hot!
 
Just wish we could clearly identify the idiot back in the nineties who convinced a state awash in clean natural gas to commit 20% of its electric grid to wind farms and solar power that won't function during ice storms and near zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Those darned unintended consequences and second order effects will bite you........ :A Bang Head:
It wasn’t just renewables (closer to 10% of generation supply). Plenty of thermal generation went down too, either because equipment got frozen, or because natural gas supplies were cut off. Hopefully there will be lots of changes from all of this.

Glad your power is back on. We just have to boil the water at this point, which is no big deal.
 
It wasn’t just renewables (closer to 10% of generation supply). Plenty of thermal generation went down too, either because equipment got frozen, or because natural gas supplies were cut off. Hopefully there will be lots of changes from all of this.

Glad your power is back on. We just have to boil the water at this point, which is no big deal.

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I have a friend in Baird Tx that said he saw -2 one morning.
I don't know if true but I've seen online reports that axis and blackbuck populations nearly wiped out in many areas?
 
I just landed in Bozeman, Montana and it is two degrees warmer than Houston! Me and Ted both got the hell out of there!
 
I was fortunate, no power outage at my house and working water. My house is on a protected circuit. I did have some problems with the circuit breaker with the heat strips. The house did get down to 60f, not bad. Slept with my trusty blanket that my wife hates, but kept us very warm. Once the circuit breaker was replaced, the house was back to 74f. My 93 old father did not fair as well. He had a 12 hour outage. I put some firewood on his back patio before the weather started to get bad, and he had a fire to keep him warm until the power returned.

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I have a friend in Baird Tx that said he saw -2 one morning.
I don't know if true but I've seen online reports that axis and blackbuck populations nearly wiped out in many areas?

I don’t know about the blackbucks, but the Axis are still walking around in my neighborhood.
 
When life gives you snow-build a snowman.
hope things continue to improve for you folks-and soon! Missed you Jerome
 
I live in Minnesota I had an outside temp of -23 without wind chill
 
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I wonder if anyone noticed that I have not been on the site for the last 5 days?! :E Cold:

I did buddy.
I've been watching the store.

At least I had my Honda Generator to power my computer the day I got to join you guys without power and heat. The Electric company decided the middle of winter was a good time to replace poles and conductors.

Glad you guys are safe. Lawn ornaments and all.
 
I live in Minnesota I had an outside temp of -23 without wind chill
You just knew some damn Yankee wouldn't be able help himself.

But do tell us - how was the inside temperature?
 
Just horrible. Once your body gets cold it becomes quite unpleasant! I am glad that you and family are ok.

Did I read correctly that the natural gas lines were also frozen? Or was all of the blackout due to the wind/solar equipment failure?
 
We had -23 on our coldest morning here in Kansas. My inside temperature never dropped below 75. Some days we had to open windows to cool the house. Hedge wood burns hot.
 

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