Preparing for next freeze (Weir: new house, water heater, neighborhoods)

[oceangaia]

One more thing I'll add, perhaps the most important thing.


A checklist. We took a number of steps to get ready; we covered plants, wrapped spigots, let faucets drip, bought extra water, etc. But forgot some things that I already knew to do like turn down water heater, dry out and insulate meter box, buy candles, gather flashlights/lanterns (had to root them out in the cold and dark), charge up battery packs for phones, etc. Lots of great tips here but useless if we don't remember them in the heat/cold of the moment.

[astrohip]

Originally Posted by rjj42

The whole house generator option did cross my mind. How much did it cost to get it installed? I'm guessing you were able to use it all of last week without any issues?
Also, I'm assuming that this is a natural gas generator?

They cost about $10K, plus or minus. Yes, natural gas if available. Propane is a far distant second choice.

They ran the entire time across Houston without issue. Natural gas is one of our most stable infrastructures.

Originally Posted by kreeyax

I'll get a water meter key and turn the water off at the meter next time. And drain all of the faucets outside and inside.

Do you have a main line cutoff into the house? I thought almost all houses had those?

If not, I would give some serious thought to having one put in. And have them put a drain above it, so you can cut off water, and drain the entire house at once (open faucets, etc).

Originally Posted by oceangaia

A checklist.

Great idea!

[TallGreengrass]

My neighbors have a whole house generator. They were lit up like Christmas for the 40 hours we were out of power. They still had a pipe bust in the attic.

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by rjj42

The whole house generator option did cross my mind. How much did it cost to get it installed? I'm guessing you were able to use it all of last week without any issues?
Also, I'm assuming that this is a natural gas generator?

Total cost installed was about $11K. It's a 22kw Generac and yes, it runs on natural gas. You can buy the generator itself for half that cost, but you have to do the install yourself and that can be a big pain. It's actually a bit on the small size for our house, so we had to set it up to offload based on zones if there was too much use (oven, upstairs HVAC, a few other things are on the "sacrifice" list based on priority). It ran nonstop for about 46 hours when we were out of power. You could hear it surge briefly anytime something large came on (probably one of the HVAC units), but we were pretty good about not overusing power, so it never had to offload anything (i.e. we didn't do laundry or run the dishwasher) .

The process to get a generator installed is a bit longer and more involved than one might think and I'm not even talking about any wait for the unit itself. And by that, I mean that it requires the company to come out and assess your property, including inspecting your gas meter (which might need to be upgraded- ours did). They have to pull a permit and the municipality has to inspect it. Then, once you get the unit, the send out a crew to install a concrete slab, and then a different crew comes out to install with electricians and plumbers etc. The whole process took us about 3 weeks and that was with the company having the generator already in stock and dealing with an extremely efficient municipality. Oh, then there's the matter of the annual maintenance contract, which costs us $300 per year and includes them setting up the unit to run a weekly check and a Tech coming out semiannually to do a tune up and change the oil. You can do all this on your own for much less money, of course, but oftentimes doing your own repairs will void the manufacturer's warranty, so that's something to consider as well.

[oceangaia]

^^ that sure seems like a lot of expense and hassle for an occasional outage ^^


I plan to get a $1000 generator and a few hundred more to install a transfer switch. With all gas appliances that should be plenty without AC. Our monthly winter usage is about 400kwh. Summer is 1200-1500kwh but if it could run AC by itself we could alternate to keep it somewhat cool. It might take a few minutes to start up and plug in, and require a bit more "power management", but my goal is to get through a brief outage not carry on business as usual.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

^^ that sure seems like a lot of expense and hassle for an occasional outage ^^


I plan to get a $1000 generator and a few hundred more to install a transfer switch. With all gas appliances that should be plenty without AC. Our monthly winter usage is about 400kwh. Summer is 1200-1500kwh but if it could run AC by itself we could alternate to keep it somewhat cool. It might take a few minutes to start up and plug in, and require a bit more "power management", but my goal is to get through a brief outage not carry on business as usual.

Get a multi-fuel generator you can run on natural gas. Much safer than refilling a gasoline powered unit.

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

^^ that sure seems like a lot of expense and hassle for an occasional outage ^^

And that's a valid argument that many make. I didn't look at it from a purely financial cost/benefit perspective. I looked at the generator as being insurance and protection that may or may not pay for itself over its lifetime. The peace of mind it provided this week made the cost more than worth it to us.

[gwarnecke]

We fared relatively well - no damage other than a few dead plants, despite losing power for ~36 hours.

Things I'll do to prepare for the next big winter storm:
-Insulate pipes in the attic. We didn't have any pipes break, but probably would've if the freeze occurred while we were away from the house.
-Keep a couple of 1/2 and 3/4" Sharkbite fittings handy for emergency plumbing repairs for myself or neighbors.
-Next time, if there's multiple days of solidly below-freezing temperatures in the forecast, I'll just shut off and drain the plumbing ahead of time so that I don't worry about pipes freezing. We left our water main on until Wednesday and were nervous as to whether the low flow that we were experiencing was due to a leak/frozen pipes or an issue on the City's side.
-Keep at least one electric space heater on hand in case we lose natural gas (unlikely but it does happen...see note below).
-Add a tri-fuel carburator to my portable generator for the ultimate in redundancy.

Things that worked well:
-Plenty of food and bottled water on hand.
-Filled bathtubs with water for flushing toilets as soon as our city water pressure started dropping.
-Drained sprinkler backflow preventer - no issues once water came back.
-Had a water main "key" handy to quickly shut off water for us and for several neighbors.
-We managed to save more plants than we lost, mostly by covering them with old curtains and stringing old-fashioned C9 Christmas lights on a few of them for a bit of heat.
-On Wednesday, our cell service dropped to almost nothing, but was still able to communicate via a $20 ham radio. An impromptu "disaster net" popped up in which folks from all over the city were reporting on the status of their utilities, which stations had gas, whether anyone needed help, etc.
-3500w portable generator + interlocked power inlet on the breaker panel worked perfectly, allowing us to keep most of our 4500 sq ft house running. We couldn't run any 240v appliances and had to be careful not to run too many items at once, but we were able to keep the lights on and run gas furnaces, two fridges, coffee pot, microwave, garage door openers, TV, etc with no issues. It can't match the convenience of an automatic standby generator but is far cheaper to buy and maintain. Plus, with a tri-fuel carburator it offers superior redundancy. We never lost natural gas to the house, but a couple of neighborhoods just south of us did lose natural gas for ~6 hours on Tuesday, which would've rendered a standby generator useless.

[tewest86]

Originally Posted by Texas Ag 93

Total cost installed was about $11K. It's a 22kw Generac and yes, it runs on natural gas. You can buy the generator itself for half that cost, but you have to do the install yourself and that can be a big pain. It's actually a bit on the small size for our house, so we had to set it up to offload based on zones if there was too much use (oven, upstairs HVAC, a few other things are on the "sacrifice" list based on priority). It ran nonstop for about 46 hours when we were out of power. You could hear it surge briefly anytime something large came on (probably one of the HVAC units), but we were pretty good about not overusing power, so it never had to offload anything (i.e. we didn't do laundry or run the dishwasher) .

The process to get a generator installed is a bit longer and more involved than one might think and I'm not even talking about any wait for the unit itself. And by that, I mean that it requires the company to come out and assess your property, including inspecting your gas meter (which might need to be upgraded- ours did). They have to pull a permit and the municipality has to inspect it. Then, once you get the unit, the send out a crew to install a concrete slab, and then a different crew comes out to install with electricians and plumbers etc. The whole process took us about 3 weeks and that was with the company having the generator already in stock and dealing with an extremely efficient municipality. Oh, then there's the matter of the annual maintenance contract, which costs us $300 per year and includes them setting up the unit to run a weekly check and a Tech coming out semiannually to do a tune up and change the oil. You can do all this on your own for much less money, of course, but oftentimes doing your own repairs will void the manufacturer's warranty, so that's something to consider as well.

I'm thinking about going a little cheaper route. I'm looking at purchasing a tri fuel generator for about $700. That way I can bring it out and hook it up to my natural gas line out back. I will get an electrician to install a transfer switch with a plug so that all I have to do is flip the switch and plug the generator into the house. Similar to like an RV. I've seen this from neighbors. Now, this won't be strong enough to run you a/c unit but it will run heat, lights, etc. just fine.

[tewest86]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

^^ that sure seems like a lot of expense and hassle for an occasional outage ^^


I plan to get a $1000 generator and a few hundred more to install a transfer switch. With all gas appliances that should be plenty without AC. Our monthly winter usage is about 400kwh. Summer is 1200-1500kwh but if it could run AC by itself we could alternate to keep it somewhat cool. It might take a few minutes to start up and plug in, and require a bit more "power management", but my goal is to get through a brief outage not carry on business as usual.

This is exactly what I'm looking at doing. I was looking at the Firman TO7571 from Costco. Sometimes they are on sale for $699. It's a tri fuel generator. It can run on gas, natural gas, and propane. I am looking to get a natural gas ran with a shut off to hook up. I had an extra natural gas line at my old house that was hooked up to a grill.