Winter storm 2022 (Huntsville, Madison: power lines, appliances, house)

[johnsonkk]

Realize this isn’t a “community board” but looking at the Huntsville utility outage map, there are thousands without power this Christmas Eve. Today is “day 2” of complete cold with temps not cracking the freezing temps. Sure hope the HSV utilities can pull thru on this emergency and not take too much heat.

https://www.hsvutil.org/outagemap/

On a much lighter note, every heated dog bowl in this city is sold out.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Realize this isn’t a “community board” but looking at the Huntsville utility outage map, there are thousands without power this Christmas Eve. Today is “day 2” of complete cold with temps not cracking the freezing temps. Sure hope the HSV utilities can pull thru on this emergency and not take too much heat.

https://www.hsvutil.org/outagemap/

On a much lighter note, every heated dog bowl in this city is sold out.

Apologies for my earlier post. These electrical outages are planned! When calling HSV utilities, the voice recording says the outages are due to recent storms. But nope, the Christmas outages is TVAs way of “managing” high energy demand. This article says “social media posts” will explain any updates.

https://whnt.com/news/alabama-news/r...y-curtailment/

[dijkstra]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Apologies for my earlier post. These electrical outages are planned! When calling HSV utilities, the voice recording says the outages are due to recent storms. But nope, the Christmas outages is TVAs way of “managing” high energy demand. This article says “social media posts” will explain any updates.

https://whnt.com/news/alabama-news/r...y-curtailment/

That is not the case. The outages are due to record high demand on the grid which in turn is finding all the weak spots. Some of the outages were caused by the high winds causing tree limbs to fall on power lines. Also, many of these outages are due to older transformers blowing requiring replacement.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by dijkstra

That is not the case. The outages are due to record high demand on the grid which in turn is finding all the weak spots. Some of the outages were caused by the high winds causing tree limbs to fall on power lines. Also, many of these outages are due to older transformers blowing requiring replacement.

Makes sense for those areas but clearly here, in NW Huntsville, it’s controlled outages. First one was 15 min, which isn’t enough time to send crews out, etc., and now the second just ended right at 30 min. There weren’t any outages yesterday when the sustained wind gusts were 25+ mph. Calm weather now for over 12 hours. Last night and this morning with minimal wind.

Record high demand, sure/agree. Every store is out of the 1,500 watt portable heaters which aren’t friendly to the grid.

Update: local news (19/WHNT) is specifically saying there are no storm damages, assume to calm the public. So the rolling blackouts, at least in Huntsville, are deliberate. This is confirmed by Joe Gehrdes of HSV utilities.

[chucksnee]

And if I may add.....HEAT PUMPS SUCK in this type of weather!

Emergency heat would not even work, the pump would shut off and the emergency heat would kick in, but still not enough heat.....the house stayed at 60 degrees throughout the night and finally when it turned 15 degrees this morning, and I guess the sun helped a little in defrosting the pump we are finally getting the house warmed up.

[harry chickpea]

Had one of those rolling blackouts here this morning. I suspect they may become more common with growth in the area and elimination of the coal fired generation. No biggie for me other than maybe getting caught in the shower and my pump going out.

Heat pumps do suck at these temps. You can specify gas as the backup heat when one is installed, or have it changed over from the heat strips. I have a propane wall heater so I'm good for heat with no power, and as backup for that I have a woodburning fireplace that can heat the entire house if I bank the fire right.

I'm more concerned about vehicles. The rain then freeze froze my van doors shut, and my antifreeze levels aren't great, requiring added heat on the engine to be safe while parked.

[RocketDawg]

We had at least two of the rolling blackouts, the first one 30 minutes. Don't know how long the second lasted because we weren't at home.

We have two high efficiency, two-stage heat pumps that have kept the house toasty. I'm sure the strips were on much of the time to keep things warm though. When we built our house, gas wasn't available (around 1990). Huntsville Utilities wasn't allowing new gas service at the time.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

We had at least two of the rolling blackouts, the first one 30 minutes. Don't know how long the second lasted because we weren't at home.

We have two high efficiency, two-stage heat pumps that have kept the house toasty. I'm sure the strips were on much of the time to keep things warm though. When we built our house, gas wasn't available (around 1990). Huntsville Utilities wasn't allowing new gas service at the time.

Even if the blackouts were just 5 min long, the impact would be significant when the electricity returned. So many appliances and devices need to be “manually restarted” in order to begin consuming electricity again. Coffee makers, humidifiers, TVs, ovens, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, just to name a few. So when electricity is turned back on, there certainly would be less demand, even if a fraction of those devices were restarted.

[Rick In Madison]

Anybody have a Generac/Kohler/Briggs & Stratton standby/whole house generator? It's always times like these when you think about dishing out the cost for one.

I can find quotes for natural gas units. Is it safe to assume the installation cost is about 70%-90% of the cost of the unit based on experience of the readers?

I haven't experienced the rolling blackouts, yet.... Besides having a NG heat pack on the HVAC, we have NG water heater and fireplace. However, the fireplace was only fired up once 21 years ago when we bought the house. Worst case scenario if its too cold for too long of time, I could fire up the fireplace and place a box fan near the front to draw the heat out.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Anybody have a Generac/Kohler/Briggs & Stratton standby/whole house generator? It's always times like these when you think about dishing out the cost for one.

I can find quotes for natural gas units. Is it safe to assume the installation cost is about 70%-90% of the cost of the unit based on experience of the readers?

I haven't experienced the rolling blackouts, yet.... Besides having a NG heat pack on the HVAC, we have NG water heater and fireplace. However, the fireplace was only fired up once 21 years ago when we bought the house. Worst case scenario if its too cold for too long of time, I could fire up the fireplace and place a box fan near the front to draw the heat out.

Probably should get the gas fireplace checked out before using it after it being idle so long.

The rolling blackouts are over for this batch of cold air, but we still have several other opportunities coming for the rest of the season. I had at least two instances when the power was shut off - once was Saturday morning for a half hour, and another time while we were gone out of town. Could have been more than that, but at least two.

The only other time I'd lost power due to load was in December 1989 when the daytime temperature failed to get above zero, and there was a fierce wind. But the population (and electrical load) has at least doubled since then.

One other week-long failure was April 2011 due to the tornadoes wiping out the main lines coming into Madison County.

Otherwise, no interruption of service in over 30 years.