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Notes -
Hoping things go a little smoother in Texas this year. Not terribly optimistic given the government's response last time around.
Got any tips for stocking up accordingly? I don't think my apartment will tolerate an actual wood-burner.
Texas appears to be going much better than it did two years ago.
I'm not personally surprised: the 2021 storm was a particularly unlikely event that was worse than this one in multiple ways. That storm came with heavy early freezing rain, causing power lines and wind turbines (especially ones in South Texas not adapted for anti-icing) to fail even from the start: this one has been pretty dry. Two years ago Texas saw multiple inches of snow, making transport difficult in areas that largely see snow accumulation once-or-so a generation, and covering solar panels: it's sunny today. A NPSH sense line installed improperly in 1988 caused one of the state's 4 nuclear reactors to go offline: this worked for more than three decades of weather conditions, but was fixed after 2021.
Although I occasionally saw it mocked on social media, temporary insulation and tarps at power plants apparently do work, probably in the same way that wrapping exterior pipes on houses can be quite effective: often it's only a handful of degrees that keep pipes from freezing.
For anyone interested, the ERCOT dashboard tracks energy supply and demand in realtime.
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A lot of people I know are using portable propane. It's like burning money and has a carbon monoxide risk if it's not burning fully, but it stores well and you can use it for your cook stove and generator too. Definitely worth having a CO alarm for, and maybe an HRV to vent some of the moisture.
I couldn't live without a wood stove. Can't beat free heat just from cleaning up fallen trees, and somehow it feels cozier than anything else.
Been meaning to talk to people here about battery backups. Fiber modem keeps working during an outage, but it's like 20+ watts vs just tethering a phone for 1-3 watts; requires a big jump from a 90watt-hr UPS to a proper power system. There's lots of little convenience loads batteries can help with, like 15w house lights.
I ran out of time to build a battery system this fall that's sized right for running basic lights+electronics loads with intermittent generator charging. So I'm stuck with Ryobi battery lights this time, which are admittedly awesome.
Ideally I'd want to run the genny only once a day to keep the batteries and freezers topped up, recharge any electric tool batteries, and maybe pump some well water if the storage is low.
Vent moisture? Here where I am, the temperature is below freezing now, which is rather unusual, and my heat pump struggles a bit to keep up. Thus, I’m running a boiling pot of water non stop on big burner on my gas range, to both add extra heat with cheap gas, but also to add extra moisture, in 50% relative humidity range. Without it, and without my big air humidifier, it’s like 20%, which makes everyone in my family cough a lot and get skin issues.
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It definitely is cozier. If you burn wood, you also basically ventilate the whole house in matter of minutes including all the vapors out of your chimney. You then create the area of lower pressure in your house, so instead of your warm high pressure and moist air going against your roof/walls (creating mold), you have the opposite effect when the air is going the opposite way from the outside to the inside through various mircrospaces. Plus good wood stove heats also via infrared waves, which is much more comfortable. You have cooler air around your body but you absorb heat from infrared - similar to how some sunny autumn days feel comfortable if you are outside even if the air temperature is low.
I have to say that wood stove is the most comfortable source of heat, not only directly but also creating this good microclimate in the house.
I only started appreciating this after switching to the heat pump. Airing out the house daily is now mandatory, and it really needs a ventilator fan.
And yeah, I wonder about what it'll do to the wall lifespan. I don't want to have to buy plywood at these prices!
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