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I am moving to northwest Cary. Without giving the exact neighborhood, it is the Amberly-Braemore-Cary Park area.
Anybody able to give a rough estimate as to how many hours (or days) in an average year that an average house in one of these neighborhoods would be without power due to storms, etc.?
Could anybody estimate, in an average 5-year span, what would the longest continuous power outage be? Are we looking at an outage of 2-3 days (or longer??) once every several years? Once per year?
I know nobody can predict the future, but I'm just trying to get a sense for what to expect. Specifically, I'm trying to figure out if a whole house generator would be worth buying. I suppose I would think it was worth it if I should expect more than about 12 hours per year of power outages.
Nobody can predict the future. Power outages are rare. But a natural disaster could cause an outage for days/weeks. It's happened before, and it will happen again.
Depends largely on whether the power lines are buried or not. I'm not sure if any of the neighborhoods in that area have buried lines. It's also tough to figure an average. You could go years with just a handful of hours without power, then have a Hurricane Fran tear through or major ice storm, and be without for days.
In my time in the Triangle (nearly 15 years) I don't think I've ever had a power outage more than 6-8 hours. In that same span of time, there are going to be people who will tell of being out of power for days. It's really difficult to predict.
I say move to the area, ask the neighbors what their experience is, and then evaluate the need for a whole house generator. Most people get by with a portable generator to power the refrigerator and freezer so food doesn't spoil.
Also, power outages can be very specific to certain areas. One side of our neighborhood never loses power for some reason.
A couple of weeks ago we were having flickering lights every time it rained. SUPER annoying especially since no one reports that. Finally after a couple weeks of this nonsense, Green Hope HS lost power, and that seemed to fix the problem when they fixed the transformer over there.
Also saw on next-door a few months ago that people in the Highcroft area were having flickering lights issues.
Longest we've been without power here is 8 hours during a snow storm.
Depends largely on whether the power lines are buried or not. I'm not sure if any of the neighborhoods in that area have buried lines.
While this helps a little, it's pretty rare that a widespread, extended power outage is due to an issue in your neighborhood. Once you get out of subdivisions, the lines usually aren't buried.
While this helps a little, it's pretty rare that a widespread, extended power outage is due to an issue in your neighborhood. Once you get out of subdivisions, the lines usually aren't buried.
Recognizing that my experience is anecdotal and possibly coincidental, but I lived 7 years in an Apex neighborhood with buried lines, and I don't recall ever losing power for more than a couple of hours. Even after the tornados that tore through Holly Springs just 3 or 4 miles away. (I actually don't think we lost power at all that time)
Extended power outages (more than 24 hours) are usually weather related like an ice storm or hurricane.
During Fran I didn't have power for 4 days. The 2002 ice storm was around 5 days. And just over 24 hours for Hurricane Matthew. Those are the longest power outages I can remember.
I've been in the area for over 30 years, and have opted to not buy a whole-house generator. Multi-day outages are not common in the area, and the cost and maintenance on the unit far outstrips the $80 a night for a hotel room away from the affected area when they do.
I've lived in an area of Cary with underground utilities for 28 yrs. A whole home generator would make no sense to me unless a special medical condition exists. I think we lost juice for a day during Fran and for a few hours a couple other times. You could stay in a nice hotel for couple months for the price of a generator.
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