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I feel like we have had more power outages lately than we had many years ago and the data seems to back me up: Power Outages On The Rise Across The U.S. | Inside Energy. In that link they list their reasons why this is happening: "An aging infrastructure, combined with a growing population and more frequent extreme weather, are straining the electric grid.".
I feel it is more complicated than the reasons given. Years ago the other utility companies and the electric companies worked together because they all depended on poles. Today the telephone companies would just as soon abandon all the poles for wireless communication. Even the cable companies have plenty of competition with satellite and the internet and they do not have the funds to be full partners with the electric companies maintain the poles. Even the municipalities do not want to help like they once did.
One other factor should be that we do not produce the transformers and equipment needed to do many of the repairs.
Top all that off with the '450' invasive pest from overseas destroying our forest: https://www.theguardian.com/environm...risis-resource. I quote: "About 40% of all forests across the US are at risk of being ravaged by an army of harmful pests, undermining a crucial resource in addressing the climate crisis, new research has found." If our trees die; they will eventually fall. When they fall they can easily take out power lines.
I currently have a small generator that I use for heat and water when I know we will be out for days. However; I am considering the whole house, automatic, generator because of the inconvenience of loosing power. We are getting to the point where almost every severe lightening storm or wind storm test our system.
Does it go out once a year? once a month? What?
Has your water ever been unavailable? If so what was the cause? natural disaster or ?
I have a friend who lives in a rural area in Central America and his lights go out every month at least for a minute or two - maybe a couple times a year for an hour or more, and his water has been cut off several times in the last 2 years due to infrastructure problems.
I have no idea why but he says the electric co. will often turn his electricity on and off very quickly, like once every few seconds, up to 20 times in a row. Sounds crazy to me!
So I was talking to him and I said "Hmmm. I wonder if small towns in the USA or people who live outside bigger towns, in the country have this problem? I'll ask on the forum."
Just curious!
My guess is, here in the USA we don't have these kinds of problems to the degree he does. But I could be wrong!
If you could give the general area you live in (near what city or what state or both) that would be interesting to know as well.
I lived in California most of my life and my water never once was cut off, and my electricity went out maybe once per year or less. NEVER went on-off-on-off like my friend says his does!
I live in a somewhat rural area in central North Carolina. We're rural enough we don't have trash service, but we do get city water. As far as that goes, we've never lost water, but we have had plenty of boil-water advisories after hurricanes and such. We lose power about once a month during a thunderstorm, but we have a back-up generator so it comes back on almost instantaneously.
'Bout 5-7 times yearly.
Usually a blown transformer.
From ice storm or lightening.
Water advisory a few times.
Had one a month ago that lasted two days. Ruined my foods. The fridge hasn't been the same since. Thinking it did circuit damage. May need a new fridge. My dairy products still seem to spoil quicker.
'Bout 5-7 times yearly.
Usually a blown transformer.
From ice storm or lightening.
Water advisory a few times.
Had one a month ago that lasted two days. Ruined my foods. The fridge hasn't been the same since. Thinking it did circuit damage. May need a new fridge. My dairy products still seem to spoil quicker.
Surge protector on fridge? There's an inexpensive one I got on Amazon that also has a 5 minute timer before switching back on so you don't risk the "on off on off on off" problems that can be hard on a compressor and the electronics.
Spoke to soon on our electricity as we had a long period of years where we rarely had an outage, but the power has been out the last 3 Sundays. This past Sunday it was out about 5 hours. They merged our rural electric into a larger conglomerate about a year and a half ago and maybe this will become the new normal.
A guy told me Sunday to use 2 surge protectors on each appliance.
Ours doesn't go off much, but it did last week when a giant tree in a neighbors yard fell over during a microburst, taking the electric lines down with it. The power was out for around 7 hours. I was the only person in the neighborhood with power since I have a whole house generator. I still feel kind of guilty when this happens, but geez, that's why I bought the darned thing in the first place and it's essential to have one because of the sump pumps in the basement. However, it's also a blessing to be able to have A/C and lights!
Electricity - almost every time during a heavy thunder storm. The transformer behind my backyard gets hit by thunder quite easily. I report the outage and the electricity gets restored in matter of few to several hours.
Water? Only when a main line somewhere in the neighborhood is broken. Every few years, maybe. We have very old pipes here.
My electricity and water almost never go out. We once lost power for a week, but that was because a tornado destroyed all the huge feedlines to our area from the nearby nuclear plant. All our electric lines are underground from our substation. I've been here for 32 years, and other than the weeklong outage, electric has done nothing more than flicker a few times. Water has gone out once in that time when a construction company broke a water main while digging. It was out for a few hours then.
]Spoke to soon on our electricity[/b] as we had a long period of years where we rarely had an outage, but the power has been out the last 3 Sundays. This past Sunday it was out about 5 hours. They merged our rural electric into a larger conglomerate about a year and a half ago and maybe this will become the new normal.
A guy told me Sunday to use 2 surge protectors on each appliance.
That always happens - mention how good the service is, and it immediately goes out. Apparently the utility gods are listening, or in this case, reading City-Data.
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Apparently the utility gods are listening, or in this case, reading City-Data.
