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anyone know how big a battery bank is needed for central A/C? Rolling blackouts will be a regular thing if we keep following California.
Since you live in a mouse house a 9v battery should suffice.






That's funny because no one has the first clue what size house you have.
 
I have central A/C unit in our home and temperature on the 110 degree day the A/C kept it at 77 degrees all day long downstairs. We have a two story home so it was a bit warmer upstairs. Started running in the late morning and ran all day and pretty much all night as well.

Once the sun set the A/C cooled our home to 75 degrees. It was still hot outside so we couldn't open the windows.
 
Since you live in a mouse house a 9v battery should suffice.






That's funny because no one has the first clue what size house you have.
that was Sarcasm as we wont be allowed run it without power and I guess Rolling blackout and A/C are non compatible.. My point wasn't actually running A/C off grid it was trying to point out the problems California has with it's grid being green. They predict more rolling black outs being unable to meet demand in the heat.
 
I have central A/C unit in our home and temperature on the 110 degree day the A/C kept it at 77 degrees all day long downstairs. We have a two story home so it was a bit warmer upstairs. Started running in the late morning and ran all day and pretty much all night as well.

Once the sun set the A/C cooled our home to 75 degrees. It was still hot outside so we couldn't open the windows.
I hope your a/c wasn't running continuously to keep the place cool--last time my a/c ran continuously it broke down soon after
 
Oregon is trying to pass California as the craziest anti-fossil-fuel State of the Union. Brown signed a bill on July 27th that:

"The bill requires Portland General Electric and Pacific Power to submit plans to reduce emissions by 80% from a baseline amount by 2030, 90% by 2035 and 100% by 2040."

It also bans expansion or construction of fossil-fuel plants.

It provides a whopping $50 million in grants for community-based energy projects, among other measures. With that huge budget, we will have Powerwalls in every house! Not.

Prepare for brownouts and rolling blackouts within a few years. :rolleyes:
 
Look up bio fuels. Pretty crazy stuff. Just go from burning one thing to another.
 
The first item on the agenda should be to have your house evaluated for air leakage/heat loss and how much more insulation can be added. This is the low-hanging fruit of energy saving.
 
Be prepared for much higher power rates. The Legislature has ordered PGE and PP&L to make major changes in how they produce power. It is logical that the regulators (In Oregon, the Public Utility Commission) will allow the companies to pass along added costs to the consumers.

I'm not the only one that saw this coming. According to Wikipedia:

"In 2001, PacifiCorp was purchased by Scottish Power.[4] Since 2006, PacifiCorp has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (formerly MidAmerican), itself an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway."

BH is run by Warren Buffett, who is regarded as one of the smartest (if not THE smartest) investors on Wall Street. If he was willing to buy PacifiCorp in 2006, he had figured out that a regulated public utility was headed for a major increase in value within a short time.

Remember, Scottish Power had bought PacifiCorp five years earlier. After the acquisition, they drastically cut the number of employees, branch offices, and local repair operations. They had picket the low-hanging fruit, as it were, so the easy way to make back the investment had already been taken.

In our area, there used to be a local repair unit with trucks and supplies (wire, poles, transformers, etc.) at a central point in each county. Now those have been consolidated in one place, Albany. It now takes 45 minutes just for someone to come and look at the problem. They then call back to Albany for the crews and supplies, so it takes another hour or more before anyone shows up to work on the problem. Sometimes it takes much longer.

Expect things to get much worse. This reduction in service was approved by the PUC. I have called them the "Practically Useless Commission" for over 40 years, and they have earned that title. They are sure to approve the transfer of wealth from the regular people of Oregon to the investors on Wall Street.

Warren Buffet made news when he said he wasn't being taxed enough. He should put his money where his mouth is and restore the level of service PP&L used to have using the money he says should have been taxed from himself and his investors!
 
Now that the Pacific Northwest has experienced temperatures that high, I think it would be foolish to think it will not happen again at some point... We are currently preparing to rewire an older home and I am going to ensure that I have the wiring infrastructure for a very hot climate... I need to research how they cool homes in Phoenix or Las Vegas.
When I lived in the SW a lot of us used what they call swamp coolers. Used pads kept wet with water and a LOT of air pulled through them. Works pretty well as long as its dry outside. Would not work very well up here. A lot had central air of course but, then you have to decide how high you want your power bill compared to what temp you can live with. As another poster of course mentioned insulation rating is often the first and easiest thing. After that is individual room AC. So you only keep the rooms you want cooled. For me that's always been where I sleep. Having to sleep days AC is a must. Even on nice days I use it so as to not have to hear everyone mowing their lawn and such. :D
During that time when it was just over the top hot here we pretty much lived in the bedroom. Took TV in there and ate in there. Go downstairs to make some food and head back to the cool. Keeping just that one room cooled off I could hardly see a difference in the power bill.
 
anyone know how big a battery bank is needed for central A/C? Rolling blackouts will be a regular thing if we keep following California.
The battery tech is making leaps and bounds but, that would still be a LOT of battery. May be better to look at a decent Genset. One that uses LP or Nat gas or diesel. For not too much you can have a bypass panel installed to have the thing wired into your home. So you just flip a switch and turn on the Genset. I have one for outages that will run a constant 6K and just use some heavy cords since its used so seldom. Its enough to run the fridge, freezer, and could run an AC unit if needed. Mine uses LP gas so storage is simple and safe.
 
The battery tech is making leaps and bounds but, that would still be a LOT of battery. May be better to look at a decent Genset. One that uses LP or Nat gas or diesel. For not too much you can have a bypass panel installed to have the thing wired into your home. So you just flip a switch and turn on the Genset. I have one for outages that will run a constant 6K and just use some heavy cords since its used so seldom. Its enough to run the fridge, freezer, and could run an AC unit if needed. Mine uses LP gas so storage is simple and safe.
My neighbor a few doors down as a natural gas powered generator and automatically comes on when the power goes off. Pretty costly and it needs to put a switch panel. I am not sure if has enough power to run their entire home. But if has the Refrigerator/freezer, furnace or A/C, and few lights probably good enough.
 
My neighbor a few doors down as a natural gas powered generator and automatically comes on when the power goes off. Pretty costly and it needs to put a switch panel. I am not sure if has enough power to run their entire home. But if has the Refrigerator/freezer, furnace or A/C, and few lights probably good enough.
Yep all in how much you want to pay. We often go all year and never use ours so never spent anything for easier. Now if we had rolling blackouts or weather that left us out regularly? I would certainly spend a lot more. I don't want to rough it, I just like comfortable now days 😁
 
One thing to consider about blackouts is that they could occur at any time. Look at the Texas debacle last Winter. The shortage of natural gas was caused by government prohibiting using the natural gas to run the pump stations, thereby causing them to be converted to run on electricity. When the electricity went out, the pumps quit, and the gas was no longer delivered to the natural gas-powered electrical generators, leading to a downward spiral in electricity, freezing homes, and deaths.

"I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help you."
 
I seem to remember the climatologist in the 70's saying the worlds natural climate was generally pretty extreme, we've had 100 years or so of fairly stable climate. And that we were headed back to the normal extremes - hotter summers, colder winters, strange seasons, etc. there was no mention at that time about 'man nade' climate change- I guess there was no koney in it back then.
 

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