Power outage practice run

[HiFi Magnetics]

Bummer on the power raise next year.....

 

[Tony617]

you must not be close to giant trees.
When I was planning for a house a while back, I wanted to get on rural with trees around it. One day it snowed really heavy and the tree was buried with snow. I called the apartment landlord and I told them that the tree is leaning and pointed towards us. Knowing some typical apartment manager the the only thing he does is he lets his wife do all the building works while he's shining his pickup. I finally figured out that the future I will have with that apartment manager will be equals to NOTHING. Later on I bought a house with controlled tree height surroundings.

The area we live is filled with trees. Huge number of evergreen and a fair amount of deciduous trees as well. We do not have any overhanging trees on our roof and our power lines are underground in our neighborhood. But once you get down outside our neighborhood we have poles with power lines attached above gound.

 

[The Heretic]

you must not be close to giant trees.
When I was planning for a house a while back, I wanted to get on rural with trees around it. One day it snowed really heavy and the tree was buried with snow. I called the apartment landlord and I told them that the tree is leaning and pointed towards us. Knowing some typical apartment manager the the only thing he does is he lets his wife do all the building works while he's shining his pickup. I finally figured out that the future I will have with that apartment manager will be equals to NOTHING. Later on I bought a house with controlled tree height surroundings.

I am surrounded by tall trees. A number of them are tall enough to hit the house and cause some serious damage. In 2014 I had the trees thinned significantly.

This morning I was looking at one out near the shop; it is kind of sickly (a lot of dead limbs and live limbs are sparse) and tall enough to probably hit the house if it fell towards the house, certainly tall enough to take out the shop. I should have had the logger fall it - I was marking the trees myself, but I missed that one (I was sick with the flu at the time so I didn't get all of the ones I should have). I was lucky one winter when that tree dropped a widow maker about 10 seconds after I had walked past it.

I did mark some trees nearer the house.

So far I've had a tree or two fall each winter, but none have hit the buildings or vehicles. Every winter we have several windy or snowy days where the ground is speared with widow makers sticking into the ground.

 

[The Heretic]

The area we live is filled with trees. Huge number of evergreen and a fair amount of deciduous trees as well. We do not have any overhanging trees on our roof and our power lines are underground in our neighborhood. But once you get down outside our neighborhood we have poles with power lines attached above gound.

My private road has underground utilities, but once out to the public road then everything is above ground on poles.

 

[HiFi Magnetics]

I'm okay with trees as long as it has a good safe distance in case of high winds and snow. The other thing is like the maple tree we have in front as they "grow out of control", the root will make its was in eating up my house. I live in "wetland" Not a stilt house but a bit elevated off the ground which actually is a good thing for insulation. I spent alot of time and effort in insulation from top, feet insulation on the bottom and all sides. On summer I run the AC around 4 hours the most around 3:30 pm. It tends to hold the temperature for a long time. It also helps to the get the cool breeze at night by opening the window at a certain time. I have no plans of getting any solar power especially in Oregon. but I'm also bummed out of hearing the news on increase power cost. Right now I'm paying $127 - $137 a month on top of all the improvements that I did. I'm not sure whats going on.

My private road has underground utilities, but once out to the public road then everything is above ground on poles.

Right on. Did you build a bunker?
Honestly I want one if I can only afford and add it on the home improvement.

 

[The Heretic]

Right on. Did you build a bunker?

No. My property is more or less the same as when I bought it - with the exception of the logging operations and some crude landscaping.

My plan is to sell and buy land/property further away from Portland, and build a ICF partly sub-terrain single story house and a shop, both well insulated, with geothermal heat source and hydronic radiant floor heating. Also a solar array, battery bank and diesel inverter genset as a backup adjunct for grid power.

The goal is to be more capable of being off-grid when the grid goes down, and being all around self-reliant.

With regards to trees, I would prefer to have large trees far enough from the buildings so they can't damage them if they fall.

At the same time, one of the things I like about my current house, is that during the summer it is mostly hidden from the private road by trees and other vegetation, and totally hidden from outside our neighborhood (you cannot see it at all once you leave the neighborhood via the private road) - except from overhead.

So many houses up here were built with a "view", which in turn makes them visible from that "view" - many are visible from miles away in the valley, some tens of miles away during the night or when the sun reflects off their windows.

 

[The Heretic]

ETA changed to 6 PM

 

[HiFi Magnetics]

ETA changed to 6 PM

Hopefully they get it done asap. Its gonna be dark soon.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Power went out last night*....Just got back on @2.20 .
Spent my Veteran's Day helping my neighbors clean up debris and cutting tree limbs and the like....
Andy
* Skagit County

 

[The Heretic]

Went out to the shop to split some more firewood and then moved it into the house. I will be using the wood from out there first, to keep a nice emergency store of firewood in the covered porch attached to the house. The idea is that if it snows heavily then I don't need to tromp thru the snow to get firewood, I can get it from the porch.

 

[The Heretic]

Hopefully they get it done asap. Its gonna be dark soon.

Not a big deal - I have lighting and I have my batteries to supply power to my router and charge my laptop. If they don't get it fixed by tomorrow I can always deploy my genset. The neighbors have their generator running - I can hear it (slightly) when I go out to the shop.

 

[The Heretic]

I was right about the battery backed bulbs; the PGE crew must be working on the outage because my battery backed lights suddenly came on, but the power has not been restored yet. Maybe something to do with a ground or something.

 

[HiFi Magnetics]

Hopefully they get it running soon. Its better to have full power especially in rainy nights

 

[Bacchus]

I guess I need to get a new UPS.

But also consider just replacing the UPS batteries. I've done that with good success, but they do go bad a lot sooner than I would expect. If that doesn't work, you might have to replace the UPS, but if you get the same model at least you will have an extra set of batteries. I've replaced batteries, and then ultimately I replaced the UPS when the battery replacement no longer worked.

Easy test for the UPS: Just unplug the UPS input power from your wall outlet and see how long it maintains power to your devices. However ... you might not want to do this with a PC up and running, you don't want it to lose power while it's writing to your hard drive. I think I would power down the pc first, and just have a 60 or 100 W lamp plugged into the UPS before you unplug the UPS from the wall.

 

[The Heretic]

Hopefully they get it running soon. Its better to have full power especially in rainy nights

Yeah - I have some laundry that needs to be done, and I want to take a shower before I hit the sack. Plus I want to charge some stuff and get the fridge running again.

I think they are working on it, so I bet they get it fixed soon.

 

[The Heretic]

But also consider just replacing the UPS batteries. I've done that with good success, but they do go bad a lot sooner than I would expect. If that doesn't work, you might have to replace the UPS, but if you get the same model at least you will have an extra set of batteries. I've replaced batteries, and then ultimately I replaced the UPS when the battery replacement no longer worked.

I might. I've run it down a few times during an outage, and since they are probably SLA batteries they probably got damaged due to the usage.

Easy test for the UPS: Just unplug the UPS input power from your wall outlet and see how long it maintains power to your devices. However ... you might not want to do this with a PC up and running, you don't want it to lose power while it's writing to your hard drive. I think I would power down the pc first, and just have a 60 or 100 W lamp plugged into the UPS before you unplug the UPS from the wall.

It already had some things plugged into it, and it lasted about 20 minutes, when it should have lasted about 90 minutes.

I only use a laptop now, so I don't need a UPS for my computer. But I do want my router to work during a power outage. I have it running on my "power station", and I charged my laptop back up.

 

[Member 38805]

I was right about the battery backed bulbs; the PGE crew must be working on the outage because my battery backed lights suddenly came on, but the power has not been restored yet. Maybe something to do with a ground or something.

Puzzling that anything to do with your normal power would somehow cause your backup EM. lights to not function during a power outtage? Those lights should come on anytime the power is off if they're properly connected.
I spent 35+ years as a licensed journeyman electrician, and about 25 of those for a company that specialized in backup generator systems for home, commercial, and extremely large buildings. A lot of that was for BPA to backup their transfer switching of West Coast, and East side main high voltage lines throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
For residential use the small transfer switch panels like Gentran, Reliance, etc. are a very good choice as they come pre wired with a 2 ft. flex conduit and wires numbered and colored to connect to your existing main panel. Usually 6-12 circuits depending on the user's needs, and they have a male receptacle on the panel to connect your generator to the panel.
Takes maybe 3-4 hrs. to wire them in, and once wired you simply plug in your generator, fire it up, and switch the breakers in the E panel from normal to Gen. and it powers the chosen circuits back up. No chance of back feeding the panel, or the lineman working on your power. And once power returns you simply switch all the E panel circuits back to Normal, turn off the generator, and roll up the cord again. Done.

 

[Provincial]

UPS batteries go bad with age and use. Unless the circuit board or other part goes bad, I replace the battery. Open the case, unplug the leads from the battery, and remove it. Replacement is just the reverse. Charge it up before putting a load on it.

If you pull the bottom of the case of most UPS units, you can see the label on the old battery and measure it's size. Use the rating and dimension to order a replacement battery. I keep a spare unit around and install the battery in it when I decide an operating unit needs service.

 

[Provincial]

PP&L has asked for a 9.5% rate increase. No word on what the real increase will be. Watch BPA rates to resellers (PP&L, PGE, co-ops, etc.) to get an idea of increases to their costs, but there are other costs that change. For instance, PP&L is spending a lot on tree trimming, and is paying off a large judgement for damages from not trimming enough in the past.

 

[gmerkt]

A lesser hardship practice run. We just got through a power outage of 90 hours. We are soft, weak and addicted to electric power. In our county, we were blessed with the focal point of a 50 mph wind storm barreling down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I've got weeks work of outside work as a result.

We have equipment for power outages, but our house doesn't include the switch panel for a generator. So I rig cords running around, tripping hazards which we were somehow able to avoid. I have emergency fuel stashed away, aux. lights. etc. Thankfully I burn wood for extra heat when needed, and that was a major plus considering the overnight temperatures went into the 30's a couple of nights. There is a propane stove for heating water and some cooking.

We live on wooded property, I've taken as much care as possible to keep stuff from falling on our house. But our property is mostly wooded, hundreds of trees including Big Leaf Maple up to 165 years old. Those old maples are craggy, lightning struck over the years, lots of newer wood straight up. Out in the north end of the property, I had some serious wind falls. There are a couple of 40 foot logs laying side by side, and another that would be well over 40 feet exept that impact on the ground broke it in three lengths. All of these in turn had 20 plus feet of lesser brush growing from the tops, plus there were many smaller wind falls, plus lots of smaller, standing dead stuff that was blown down. Of course when those tree tops break off, they tear off all sorts of lower stuff that comes down with them.

This was all one year and two days ago. The massive piles of windfall brush were cleared up within a couple of weeks. By December, I had all the big logs and larger limb wood bucked, carried and stacked. The past couple of weeks, I started burning some of that wood which by now has seasoned out. Four months without rain this Summer aids in that process. I dug out the broken septic drain field line and spliced in a new section. As long as I was at it, I installed a new riser in the line where the repair was made. It never hurts to have an access port in case some time in the future it has to be inspected/jetted out.