Preparing for next freeze (Houston: live, costs, delivery)

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

The only controversy in my mind is whether Houston officials are ignorant or self-serving. Not once ever have I seen them back this up (pressure loss) with hard data. As stated here, a drip amounts to about 5 gallons per DAY so if you drip 8-10 faucets that's only 50 gallons per DAY. Spread around the clock evenly not in sudden surges of demand. An average shower pulls two gallons per MINUTE so a 20 minute shower matches all the dripping you might do. How come we don't have catastrophic loss of pressure and system failures every morning when a million people hit the shower to get ready for work? Not to mention when people run lawn sprinkler systems in the summer. Those triple my consumption for a few months.

They tell people not to drip (which keeps water moving through the mains as well as the house plumbing) then wonder why their mains freeze up and burst. The day they assume responsibility for all damages to my house from frozen pipes will be the day I lend their advice the least bit of consideration.

Didn't Houston just have a boil notice a few weeks ago? Those guys are incompetent.

Houston is different from other cities in that the system pressure is maintained by pumps. There are no water towers, which is what most other cities use. If everyone has their faucets dripping, there very well can be a pressure loss across the system. IT's not a matter of volume.

If you think Public Works is incompetent, apply for the job running the water system.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by WRM20

The water heater is not throwing any codes, so I think it's just the supply pipe. The installers ran far too much of the supply pipe outside the wall, and the direction they were run makes it impossible to install the Rinnai pipe cover. I'll probably get some heat tracing installed, and replace the pipe insulation, which is in worse shape than I thought it was. I may see if there's a way to get the pipes redone, although that would require removing the hardiplank to get access.

And, the hot water came back this afternoon, further supporting my belief that the supply line was frozen. There were lots of Nextdoor posts on the topic. I've put some insulation around the bottom of the water heater, which should help tonight.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Houston is different from other cities in that the system pressure is maintained by pumps. There are no water towers, which is what most other cities use. If everyone has their faucets dripping, there very well can be a pressure loss across the system. IT's not a matter of volume.

If you think Public Works is incompetent, apply for the job running the water system.

Right. Houston is different from every other city. Well that should tell you Houston is doing it wrong.

Then maybe they are negligent for not having water towers. If the pressure is maintained by pumps then they need to maintain backup generators for their pumps and keep it pressurized. There is always a pressure loss when there is demand. Like I mentioned with showers in the morning or sprinklers in summer. You too failed to show the effect on pressure from drips is even on par with much less greater than that. It's their job to have a system that doesn't implode with demand. As for volume, refer to Boyle's law.

Either Public Works is incompetent or they are self-serving. Maybe the real reason they don't want pressure loss is because of the thousands of leaks in the system that they have failed to repair. I don't need the job. I'll just drip my pipes. Sounds like maybe you should have run your hot water a bit and maybe that supply pipe wouldn't have frozen up. Hope that doesn't turn out to be a thousand dollar mistake.

[kitty61]

Originally Posted by Ghost Town

Well we also know what could happen.
30-40% houses in my area had burst pipes from 2021 freeze, collapsed ceilings, ruined carpets, etc.
That's a lot of damage just from fairly simple freeze. Because houses here are not designed for these temps. Next week it's going to be 70-73F

That's in 2021. But now, that you are preparing for something you have experienced before those ceilings won't collapse (you've gotta shovel your roof) or pipes burst or carpets ruined.

I think houses in my area are built from the same materials as yours are but the difference is probably that you do not have furnaces built-in for central heating like we do or maybe your water piping is not all enclosed inside your homes like ours (mobile homes the exception).Generally we here don't expect built-in A/C when we buy a house or even to rent an apartment which I suspect is crazy to you.

I think you should get used to weather anomalies like this for the future so making necessary changes to your property would be wise.


Good luck!

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by kitty61

That's in 2021. But now, that you are preparing for something you have experienced before those ceilings won't collapse (you've gotta shovel your roof) or pipes burst or carpets ruined.

I think houses in my area are built from the same materials as yours are but the difference is probably that you do not have furnaces built-in for central heating like we do or maybe your water piping is not all enclosed inside your homes like ours (mobile homes the exception).Generally we here don't expect built-in A/C when we buy a house or even to rent an apartment which I suspect is crazy to you.

I think you should get used to weather anomalies like this for the future so making necessary changes to your property would be wise.


Good luck!

It's all about the power. If the power stays on, one can take basic measures to make damage unlikely. When the power goes out for days on end, no amount of insulation will matter. I was born and raised in a northern state where sub-zero was not uncommon (and it's below zero right now) and I don't ever remember the power going out for more than a few hours and never due to overloading the system. So far, looks like Ercot is doing a better job this time. I don't know why. Maybe better preparations kept generators online, maybe demand was less this time, but supply has exceeded demand.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

(Check out the Fuel Mix. For all you hear about wind in this state, it is currently 4% of the supply.)

[forsheamountain]

I live in Utah at 5800 ft and we get cold snaps as much as anyone. In addition to letting your taps gurgle, open the doors under your sinks. My kitchen sink is vulnerable so whenever the forecast calls for overnights below the teens I will let the sink drip, open the doors under the sink and also clamp a heat lamp under the sink. I've had the pipe freeze twice in 13 years but not since I've done this routine.

[catalonians]

regarding gas piping into homes in Houston, is Centerpoint the sole distributor, or do they have competition serving Houston area?
I'm thinking about switching to gas central heating now. they keep saying it's a "once in a generation" arctic blast, and yet, we had 1 last year, and we have another one this year...it's more like "once in a year" arctic blast...this is gonna be regular, I'm telling yall...even if this is the LAST arctic blast in your lifetime, the expense for gas is way cheaper and there will be times when electricity gets knocked out, but not gas...

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by catalonians

regarding gas piping into homes in Houston, is Centerpoint the sole distributor, or do they have competition serving Houston area?
I'm thinking about switching to gas central heating now. they keep saying it's a "once in a generation" arctic blast, and yet, we had 1 last year, and we have another one this year...it's more like "once in a year" arctic blast...this is gonna be regular, I'm telling yall...even if this is the LAST arctic blast in your lifetime, the expense for gas is way cheaper and there will be times when electricity gets knocked out, but not gas...

Do you have a gas meter? Are there even gas lines in your area? If natural gas is not currently available in your neighborhood, you're going to need to get a lot of your neighbors to each submit a residential gas application because they will need to know they can make money since it will be very expensive to install the lines.

[gwarnecke]

If natural gas isn't available in your area and you're primarily concerned about being able to heat your home during a winter grid outage, your main options are as follows:

-Wood-burning fireplace
-A few portable heaters plus a ~7000+ watt portable generator
-If you want to run the heat strips on an electric furnace, you will need a massive generator. Even the largest portable units on the market (~17500 watt) will struggle to run heat strips and will guzzle gasoline while doing so. An automatic standby generator may run the heat strips, but it requires a NG hookup or an onsite propane tank.

Our house is all-gas and I've grateful for it - but although the gas grid is more reliable than the electric grid, it's not perfect. There have been reports over the past couple of days of NG pressure drops in north-central TX, and CenterPoint put out a gas conservation request for the Houston area yesterday evening. If you have NG, it's best to have some sort of backup (a wood-burning fireplace or a generator that can run on gasoline or propane in addition to NG).

[catalonians]

seems like I need to install LNG tank in my house and have amerigas come refill my tank regularly?