Winter care - Tips and thoughts

[infernalis]

it's good to remember that for most of us power outages are really exceptions rather than the norm

Unless you live here Rhea, we experience sometimes a dozen a year.

Last year 2 of them came from an intoxicated driver breaking off the SAME pole twice 3 months apart going home from the bar. (He lost his license to drive, so he won't be a problem anymore)

The biggest enemy is Ice and wind, Ice has broken the mains more times than I can count, and wind blows trees over landing them on the wires.

[Snake lover 3-25]

how long does the outage usually last??

[infernalis]

one time, the power was out for 14 hours...

We have a propane heater, it will heat the whole house.

[Snake lover 3-25]

wow that stinks.... ours only goes out for an hour... 2 at most.....

[infernalis]

wow that stinks.... ours only goes out for an hour... 2 at most.....

When some drunken lush breaks the pole off at the ground at 1:00 am, it takes NYSEG several hours just to get out here, and several more hours to install a new pole.

since I am up at all hours, we were watching a good movie at the time (second incident)

Thankfully we were up, I can sleep in a tent outside right now, so we were already up, we got the heater running before the temps dropped too low.

[Stefan-A]

(He lost his license to drive, so he won't be a problem anymore)

If that only kept them from driving..

[infernalis]

Well at least here if he gets stopped again, its a jail sentence.

[drache]

one time, the power was out for 14 hours...

as long as the temps indoors don't drop below 50ºF, I really worry more about the humans than the critters, and if indoor temps drop that fast from your heat being off for a few hours, you seriously need to do something about insulation and draught control
there is no need to keep garters in the 70ºF range (nevermind 80º) during a power outage - I however feel uncomfortable below 68º, and ideally like it at least six degrees higher than that, just because wearing a ton of clothes indoors is cumbersome
even my lizards hail from deserts where a nighttime drop into the 50ies is not unheard off
unless you get one of those prolonged power outages - days or more - I don't consider it a big issue

[infernalis]

Dorothy has arthritis in her spine, if it falls much below 80 in the house, guess who hears all about it

Thankfully Rhea, you are right, as our was built in 1996, it has state of the art insulation, its more problematic that all appliances including our cooking stove are electric.

[drache]

Dorothy has arthritis in her spine, if it falls much below 80 in the house, guess who hears all about it

Thankfully Rhea, you are right, as our was built in 1996, it has state of the art insulation, its more problematic that all appliances including our cooking stove are electric.

arthritis sucks; pain can puts a damper on life
our house needs some upgrading in the insulation and draught control department
fortunately our stove, water heater, plus the heater that heats the radiator water - all run on natural gas, which tends to be subject to different kinds of emergencies
I've got great roof exposure for solar and that's in the planning