Power Outages-

[ea56]

Last Oct. we had our power shut off for 4 and 1/2 days, because PG&E doesn’t maintain their power lines in a manner that would prevent them from coming down in high winds and starting fires.  So, to avoid yet another lawsuit settlement for their negligence in maintaining their equipment, the customer just has to bite the bullet and suffer without power.  

 

The last time before this shutoff that I was without electricity for so long was in Dec. ‘64 when my family was without power for 6 days when it rained biblically for seven days and seven nights non stop, and the Russian River had a record breaking flood.

 

PG&E should be spending more of their profits on the maintenance of their equipment instead of paying it out in dividends and then going to the CPUC begging for rate increases expecting the customers to pay for maintaining their equipment.  These are tax deductible business expenses.

 

Eddie

 

[supersuds]

As far as I can tell, PG&E has not paid a dividend since 2017. It’s in bankruptcy court.

 

[ea56]

Yes, PG&E hasn’t paid a dividend since 2017, because thats when the excrement hit the fan due to the Tubbs Fire that began from a PG&E power line falling.    The resultant lawsuits and bankruptcy have prevented any dividends since then. BTW, the Kincaid Fire of last Oct. also began from another fallen PG&E power line, they just don’t learn or they just don’t care.

 

 However, had they been properly maintaining their lines and equipment prior to this terrible fire (Tubbs Fire of 2017) that happened 10 miles from my home theres a good chance thousands of people wouldn’t have lost their homes and many wouldn’t have lost their lives.

 

PG&E has been in “bed” with the CPUC for as long as I can remember and I’ve been paying PG&E since 1970.  Anytime PG&E makes a request for a rate increase its a done deal before the ink is even dry.  The CPUC puts a rubber stamp of approval on anything PG&E wants, the customer be damned.   I have zero sympathy of this company or its shareholders.

 

Now every late summer and fall we in Northern California have to sweat it out as to whether or not we will have electricity that we can depend upon.  Should I buy groceries or not?  Because who knows if I’ll be able to keep them from spoiling.

 

 It’s not like they are providing our power for free, we pay fairly high rates, and they keep going up all the time so we can pay for their equipment maintenance and replacement, which in my book is the responsibility of of the provider, not the rate payer.  

 

As I type this post I don’t know whether or not I’ll have power tonight or tomorrow because we are currently on notice that there is a potential  of Public Safety Power Shutoffs.

 

Eddie

 

[kb0nes]

I made a DC power supply for my DSL modem and Wifi router/access point so I can run for about 36 hours through an outage. You could just plug these devices into a computer UPS but stepping the battery voltage up to 120v AC and back down costs a lot of run time. I use a 7 amp hour 12v lithium battery.

Only thing I shut off during a power failure is the air conditioner. Everything else will be fine. I used to really worry about the computers making sure they were all on a UPS to protect the spinning hard drives from power bounces. Since none of my computers have mechanical drives anymore I only have a UPS on my NAS box with spinning drives.

I don't worry too much about surge spike damage as that problem is way blown out of proportion, but I do have an impulse supressor at the breaker panel. Mainly because I have antennas in the air for amateur radio so I am cautious about strike energy.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

We haven't had a power failure since August 14th, 2003. The great Northeast Blackout. When we had that power failure the first thing I did was fill the bathtub, buckets and virtually every pot with water. Beyond the 7th floor, we loose water since the pumps fail. We're supposed to get emergency generators to power the water pumps, elevators and common area lights. No generator yet, and I'm not holding my breath. However the common area lights have batteries, enough for them to work for 5 hours. On particularly hot days, when power demand is high, we sometimes get a reduction of voltage. Other than the lights being slightly dimmer, everything else seems to work fine.

 

[perc-o-prince]

If the outage lasts more than maybe 1/2 hour, I start the 4K watt portable generator and plug in the extensions to power the freezer, 2 fridges, internet/cable box/router, a TV, a couple of lights, etc. If it's winter, I take the cover off the 120VAC connection for the furnace, disconnect the wires and put a pigtail on it so we still have heat and hot water. Things get plugged in and unplugged as different things are needed (microwave, etc.). Inconvenient but livable.

Chuck

 

[wayupnorth]

I had a 5000 watt generator that powered all I needed. Male to male pigtail in an outside outlet and a jumper wire across the breaker box with the main breaker off to power everything I needed. But it chewed a gallon of gas an hour and it was too much work to mess with. My whole house Generac works flawlessly as we tend to loose power alot, total of 12 days since Halloween.

 

[DADoES]

 
Full outages are rare although momentary blinks may occur during thunderstorms or a rogue 18-wheeler hits a pole.  Have a portable gasoline generator bought when one of the hurricanes some years ago was headed straight here (it turned so nothing happened) but have never (yet) used it.

The circuit substation is up the road 'round the corner, not that that means anything specific.  The local electric cooperative owns their service lines, not shared with any other utility.

 

[gizmo]

What's a power outage?

we live off grid and make our own power.

Solar mainly, with a small 24V DC generator to replenish the batteries when the sun doesn't shine enough.

Home-made DC genny - 6 Hp Briggs Vanguard engine driving a 24 volt Bosch truck alternator.

 

Of course I was joking about "what's a power outage," we have had a few outages. One serious one when the inverter shorted and had to go off for repair - fortunately we have neighbours with whom we share a spare inverter so we used the spare.

Other than that, in earlier days with a smaller inverter we had to be careful not to put too many high load items on together, no ironing when the washing machine is heating for example. now we have a bigger inverter so not such an issue. We still try to have only one big load on at a time - inverters last better if they run cooler, so we try to space out our loads.

 

[davetranter]

Power outages, generators, and fuel

Whilst most of the UK has stable, reliable power, the old mining village and 'satellite' estates where I live have started having more frequent outages in the last few years. This is almost certainly because the infrastructure can no longer cope with the ever increasing loads, for the simple reason that none of the private electricity companies nor the Government want to spend any money on it!

About a month ago, I came home from work one afternoon to discover that the power was off, and (by checking the electro-mechanical clock on the heating timer) that it had been off for about 4 hours already, so set about digging out my 1.5kVA Briggs genset, which is my usual 'standby set' for short outages. Sadly (and rather annoyingly!!) I was unable to start it, despite it working perfectly at the end of last year. Luckily, the power came back on after a total of 5 1/2 hours.

This brings me to the 'crux' of my post this morning....
I discovered that the fuel (gasoline) in the generator tank was now 'stale' and virtually non-combustible, as had been the fuel in my lawnmower a month or so earlier.

I have never previously had problems with fuel 'overwintering' before, but have heard rumours that the 'gasoline' being sold now contains very little in the way of petroleum distillates, and is mainly wood alcohol, which evaporates much quicker to leave degraded,. useless fuel in store.

Have any of our readers had similar problems with gasoline (petrol) going 'stale' in a very short time, rendering the notion of a 'standby set' unworkable??
I would value any replies/opinions.

All best (after a long absence)

Dave T

P.S. Please excuse any rambling... It's 8:30am here.... Went to bed at Midnight with terrible toothache... Been awake since 2:30, still with toothache!! Concentration not at a maximum now.... :-(
P.P.S. Yes, I had noticed the time was 'Tooth Hurtee'... Never let personal discomfort interfere with your sense of humour!! ;-)

 

[fan-of-fans]

It's kind of odd, because we used to have power outages almost every other day during the summer when we'd get severe thunderstorms. They would last for hours.

But these days it's rare we get an outage at all. At most the power will blink off for a second. Several years ago our utility went around and replaced most of the transformers, and I think that fixed part of the problem.

At work we'll sometimes get an outage that lasts an hour or so, but they're usually due to cars knocking down a pole somewhere.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Petrol going off

I've heard of that too, but thought is was as follows:

I have heard that during winter, you should keep the car's petrol tank reasonably full (i.e. not empty dregs), because of moisture condensate, which causes water to collect in the tank.

I suppose it's like a box of matches getting damp. Becomes useless.

 

[wayupnorth]

Problem with gasoline now is the ethanol content that will gum up the carbs in small engines when gas sits for a month or more. Stabilizers for gas help some. There are a few stations selling non-ethanol gasoline that I use for all my small engines for a buck more a gallon but worth it.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Ethanol

When I picked up the Mantis tiller from the repair shop I let the guy know my routine at the end of use for the year- add Sta Bil and run for 5 minutes or so to have it get everywhere. He said it will help, but it's best to either run the unit dry or use high-octane fuel without ethanol. I'm leery about running them dry- anyone do this?

Chuck

 

[DADoES]

 
Running to-dry (after every use) ... that's what I was told to do with my Stihl line trimmer and a push-mower that is used only to mow the deep FM ditches (when they're not wet from rains).

 

[sfh074]

I run mine ....

dry at the end of the season. Been doing it forever since my dad did the same thing with his tools.

 

I use ethanol free gas and spend the extra buck a gallon for it. I also mix Stabil in with it.  Doing this has kept the primer bulbs and fuel lines soft. Can't remember the last time I had to replace clear fuel lines or bulbs. 

 

At the end of the season I'll crank and run the unit for a few minutes to get it warm. Then turn it off and pour out any remaining fuel. I then crank it again and run it with 3/4 throttle until it runs dry.  I have never had any problems starting the next spring ..... and I have probably a dozen tools with gas engines.

 

[mattl]

Run dry here too...

 

[dalangdon]

In thirty years of living in Seattle, I can count the number of outages on one hand. The Inauguration Day windstorm of 1992, the Hanukkah Eve windstorm of 2006, and one weird microstorm that hit our neighborhood with lighting and took out about twenty transformers. Other parts of town are more prone to outages, but we live in the central part of the city.

With that said, I work for the power company, so I am familiar with outages. It seems like whenever there is an outage, everyone just filled their freezer. ;-)

If it were worth the investment, I would get solar with some of those Tesla power walls. (That allows the solar to keep functioning in the event of an outage). But the infrequency of outages, combined with our low rates, just doesn't pencil out.

When the power has gone out, I haven't done anything special (partly because I'm usually called into work). The nice thing about having elderly appliances is that they ride through outages pretty well. They can be rough on solid state stuff. We had a situation a few years back where a transmission line fell on a distribution line. That blew out gobs of customer equipment, but the old stuff just shook it off.

 

[sudsmaster]

Seems like the gas problem here has gotten worse over the past few years. Such as having to replace carbs on small garden engines.

 

[volsboy1]

One advantage of having a house near Chattanooga ever sense they installed Fiber to the home for all houses and business.They installed it for power switching during outages in 2009 but it has dual uses as very FAST and Very cheap internet.I pay 69 bucks a month for a 1 Gig of speed and 10 gigs cost 200 bucks a month I think.
Power rarely goes out here for more than a minute.Then comes back on.
The last time it was out for a long time was in 2011 when we had Tornadoes destroy everything. That was the last time my parents Generac ran for more than a hour.
Now the at farm where we don't have Fiber optics the power goes out frequently
a few times a year and takes hours and hours.We have a very large Yanmar diesel Generator up there being a working farm for the Milk refrigeration.My Brother who works for Oak ridge labs told me that other cites are wanting to install a Fiber optics system like Chattanooga but that Comcast is putting up road blocks at every chance they get.