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Sooo... its 12F outside, my power is out until tomorrow night...

Supervstech

Supervstech

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Getting ready to cook Christmas dishes for the Christmas eve family gathering and... pop... substation for my neighborhood blows... coldest night of the year so far, and Duke says power won't be restored until next evening...



My stash of batteries powered a space heater on low for 4 hours.. I've rearranged more to get it going through the night I hope.
I got a generator to recharge and run heater on high in the morning...

Wish me luck.
 
I'm worried all my neighbors will have burst pipes tomorrow... entire area is pitch black out, not a light to be seen...
 
Cheers, hope you're able to make things work out!

No natural gas heating options? Or propane heaters you might be able to borrow from a friend in an emergency? Might want to let a trickle of water run if you've got some pipes in or near exterior walls.

I'm in the same boat... Dad's without power too in another state. My furnace happened to go out basically at the worst possible time Friday afternoon (not long after the blizzard & coldest temps of winter so far started setting in). I'm current doing alright with a few space heaters (borrowed 2 from a friend) and utility power... but yeah, I'm really going to be in trouble if power goes out for a while :(
 
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Supervstech said:
Getting ready to cook Christmas dishes for the Christmas eve family gathering and... pop... substation for my neighborhood blows... coldest night of the year so far, and Duke says power won't be restored until next evening...



My stash of batteries powered a space heater on low for 4 hours.. I've rearranged more to get it going through the night I hope.
I got a generator to recharge and run heater on high in the morning...

Wish me luck.
Click to expand...
good luck

may your batteries be charged before noon

and the grid be restored soon ?
 
Supervstech said:
Whelp… inverter is beeping like crazy, so… not gonna make it.
I suppose I could fire up the generator, but it is so loud at night…
Click to expand...

It will also attract the neighbours like moths to a flame. They will eat your food, drink your beer and watch your TV! (And use your internet if it's still working)

Well ours do here in Thailand, at least here almost nobody will freeze to death (it's not unknown, even with night-time temperatures around 18C = about 64F).

Hope everything gets sorted soon.
 
Power outage in the dead of a frigid night is a real pain. You have my sympathy though that provides no warmth.

Electric for heat (or cooling) is a major hurdle for many trying to use solar as an alternative to grid power. PV brings in watts but heating takes kilowatts.
 
Not trying to be funny but I am very surprised you're not prepped for something like this ? Especially being the admin of a DIY solar offgrid type forum lol,


Try this? Plants pots and a candle, they make a REAL difference in a room. they've got us through some cold days

I normally do 3 plant pots stacked

1_Viral-DIY-plant-pot-heater.jpg
FIY9FGNHR0APVU7.png



Don't put too many candles under or they go up in smoke
 
If I could beam you some juice I would.
Hopefully it won't take as long as they think.
 
Supervstech said:
I'm worried all my neighbors will have burst pipes tomorrow... entire area is pitch black out, not a light to be seen...
Click to expand...
What you can do to prevent pipes to burst (probably a bit late). Insulate your pipes. Then, shut off your main water valve and drain the water from pipes. Open up all sink cabinet doors (where your pipes are) to allow hotter air to circulate. I did this every time, the temp outside drops below 30F. Probably overkill, but better than fixing burst pipes.
PS: you need to have buckets to hold your water when you plan to shut off your main valve.
 
Oh yuck I'm sorry. We are lucky we never lost power, not even a blip, although the utility did report a number of outages around.
 
I got the generator going this morning, and powered up all my little power banks, ran the space heater all day today... propane tank placed in the exhaust stream of the genny just ran out about 30 minutes ago.


Fingers crossed the power comes on by 8pm like they say.


Sucks I didn't get to make my cheesecakes because of it...
 
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