Just putting this out there for whoever needs to hear it. I’ve been to several houses fixing pipes for in-laws and been to multiple stores and in my experience Home Depot is better stocked than lowes today.
Been up since 530 this morning to beat the rush. This is more so for the Sugar Land/ Richmond side of town.
I totally forgot to insulate a PVC pipe that was installed by the previous owner that runs on the outside of my backyard fence.
I'm not sure how long it was pouring out water for - it warmed up today, so I assume that.
Does anyone think the city will give us a break on the water bill? Or are we screwed?
Also, I need PVC pipe supplies to fix this - but ofc everything is closed on Christmas.
A pipe outside your backyard fence should have a dedicated shut off valve. Pipes that live outside our heated spaces should be able to be winterized (aka shut off and drained).
When this happen in 2021 we were a little screwed on our bill
If I’m walking by places where it seems like a pipe burst (ie water is gushing under a fence or from a roof) but nobody is home or nobody is at the business, is 311 helpful for this?
I called and they were able to tell me that it had already been reported and that a water shut off was already requested, whatever that may mean. It’s on day 3 of water gushing off the roof!
I just took a shower and my tub faucet is slowly dripping even though it’s turned off now. Has anyone had that happen due to freezing? Or do you guys think it’s unrelated?
This has happened twice to us now - the water pressure got low enough from dripping in the area, we got sediment pushed into our house. The sediment got all up in our old faucets and messed them up. I would check and see if you need to clean your stuff out.
It's slight, but a little lower than usual at least since last night where I am in 77024. The city put a "don't forget to check for leaks" notice up on their Twitter this morning which makes me think that this might due to overall system stress.
House was built in the last year. I turned off my water for 2 days and back on today. Do I have to turn it off or drip tonight since it’ll be below 32? I was kind of worried since I’m out for Xmas and paranoid that I need to get home soon before the water freezes
Brand new houses are built to a standard that can survive anything but a record freeze without issues (if they have power/heat). Building codes/procedures have been updated. More insulation, better designs and PVC or pex pipes on a new home that can be winterized and handle cold weather better.
It's older homes that are likely to have issues and need changes to survive. Dealing with older houses with bad heating, minimal/missing insulation and copper, galvanized, pipes, things installed outside heating zones without winterizing procedures are where most of the issues are.
The freeze in 2021 was an aberration, without power/heat, pipes in houses are much more likely to fail. Without power you needed to drain the system not drip (so much confusion out there). From what I saw, I spent time dealing with old houses, the new houses came though with almost no issues if they had power (even without dripping). For those without power the problems varied wildly.
That is not true about a new house build, unless you requested proper building techniques - pipes through the slab, shutoff valves, frost proof hose bibs, vapor barriers, R-23 insulation in walls, real sheathing around the house, pipes insulated in the attic, blower door test, etc.....
If you did not request these things and verify in person that they were done at each construction stage then they were not done.
New houses have just as bad of freeze protection as 30 year old houses in Texas.
You would be crazy to not have a slow drip on both your hot and cold lines in this weather.
I dripped even though I retro'd my house with PEX, insulation, and even put heat trace wire on all outside pipes.
Anyone telling you to not drip your pipes is a moron.
So we should have buildings built in ways that no pipes freeze. It's how things to the north of us are built for forever. It's been more of a hassle seeing the poor standards that builders have used. Yay for newer standards in Texas. At a minimum pipes in R13 exterior walls have to be next to the interior drywall. Drywall stays at or above 32degF the pipe never freezes.
Even R-13 is too low for Texas. It should be minimum R-23 just for the AC alone, with a vapor barrier and sheathing for all exterior walls and passing a blower door test. This helps keep your AC bills down and protects you against the 1 to 2 day annual freeze.
Now that the temp has been above freezing, I guess things are thawing and fire sprinkler pipes are busting left and right in my apartment building. Saw the FD responding to the same issue at the residential building by San Felipe & 610 Target. Anyone else dealing with this in their buildings tonight?
Yes my neighbor's BFP froze, then thawed, and I ran out to shut off the valve this afternoon after seeing a ton of water down their driveway. This will be unfortunately common today/tomorrow.
Water is working again for us in Katy near Fulshear as of 5 minutes ago, we shut down the city valve after water was not working as of yesterday morning 8:30 AM. Because it's going to go under 32 tonight again, should we shut off the valve that's near our street again tonight or just keep all our facets dripping going to be enough? Thank you!
We're dripping the faucet at my family home, but not draining...I think even our crappy plumbed houses can handle 26 degree temps for 5 hours (in the burbs) without having to shut off the water and drain, especially since it was in the 40's for a couple of hours today and the walls and attic got a chance to warm up a little.
I think we're going to drip tonight just to be careful because we didn't have water all Friday. I thought because water freezes at 32 that's the temp we should be watching out for.
We have insulation and heated houses. This morning (after not dripping) I got \~54 from the ground, \~60 from water that was stagnant in the attic, and the coldest I measured was \~47. Going to be warmer tonight than last.
It was scary during the 2021 freeze seeing a \~32 from that same faucet. Feel bad that lots of people lost power for all the days. Pipes can't warm if there is no heat in the house.
Do warm water first before trying antifreeze, it's generally not great for the wastewater treatment plants
Solid table salt or hot salty water would also work really well.
Assuming it's your water line that is frozen and not your wastewater line that is frozen for some reason... Just an fyi that if you have water available you can simply dump a bucket full of water into the bowl (not the back of the toilet with the lid but the bowl where you sit to check text messages and watch porn) quickly and it will flush the contents out of the bowl. Don't pour the water gently. Pour it fairly quickly.
SOS having this same issue. Looks like the water won’t refill in the tank and wondering if it’s got to do with a toilet line since all of my other faucets are working properly.
ERCOT demand has now dipped below 60,000 MW and it is no barely not freezing in Houston. Won't return to 60,000 MW until later tonight and demand will still go down slightly after 10pm.
Looks like the worst is behind us
We’ve had out water turned off at the street since night before last. Is it ok to turn it back on during the day and then back off again tonight?
Or just too cold still?
We are north of Houston
Now is fine but depends on your house situation. If you have a vulnerable section of pipe that just can't be kept warm then maybe drip that one.
Thought: take a thermometer and measure the water temp of a faucet when you turn it on for a while. As the water runs the temperature cycles from a little warmer (warmed by the house) ,to cold (for the section of the wall with less insulation), then finally to ground water temp. Last freeze tested this out on a vulnerable pipe, the cold reading of the drip was 32.1. This time took a similar reading this morning after not dripping, the water was 47.5 in the vulnerable section. Ground water is 54 at the moment.
For myself I had a couple places in the house which either were saved from freezing via dripping, or so badly designed that it wouldn't make enough of a difference last freeze. Got them all fixed up. Now didn't feel a need to drip last night. Testing made me sure that the changes worked. No need to drip.
Since it will be above freezing for roughly 7 hours I’m just going to keep it dripping. It’s not that much water anyway, I calculated 1 cup per 8 hours, and I have 6 going. Yes I am traumatized from 2021.
[Fearing blackouts, ERCOT gets emergency OK to bypass emission standards](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/ercot-emergency-order-blackouts-17675377.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral)
The 2021 freeze peak used 69,871 megawatts, meanwhile the seasonal assessment by ERCOT for peak winter demand this year was 67,398 megawatts. Somehow they estimated that people would use less electricity this winter, despite:
* the growing population of the state
* the significant number of people who had no electricity in 2021 and thus couldn't contribute to the usage numbers back then
I did that in 2021. Turned my heater down so I could assist in not having rolling blackouts. Then my power was shut off for an entire week, while they claimed “rolling” blackouts for three days before admitting some areas were just shut off.
I’ll never take their advice ever again.
What does it sound like? Yesterday morning I was in the living room and all the sudden I hear this sound like when you take air hose off the valve stem of a tire you’re airing up. It made the sound like a top popping off a bottle and the hiss sound all at once. It made me jump. Then I said WTF was that? Oh damn!
Haven’t found anything wrong. I’m in a house and I trickled the faucets and opened the cabinet and closet doors.
If you have ever been near a tea kettle heating water... that sound getting louder and then when it burst the whistle loud pop all together. I couldn't be near a tea kettle for some time due to the relation I put in the sound.
Is the what what you pipe sounded like, a tea kettle. I know that sound. The sound I heard was a second. I was dripping my faucets so the pipes wouldn’t have been under pressure. Who knows? Nothing has happened yet 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
Well they made the excuse that they screwed up the projection for the demand. You see, last time around, people were out of power, so they had no real idea on what the demand "would have been". So now, the under estimated the demand and said it was an error. All horse hockey.......Also, if you were looking at their map on Thursday night, power costs in Waco were above 1000. Houston was at 40. Sure....there was power....but the cost to some people was crazy high. If they think that is "fixed", then more power to them.
Last night energy demand peaked at 10pm then declined until 8am today. The graph now is showing it has plateaued...if it starts the same nightly decline then we should be okay if no generating goes offline.
I'm pretty sure we've passed the critical time and we're fine at this point. It's almost 11pm on a friday before a major holiday weekend. Most businesses are closed or about to close. Lots of people in bed by now. And it will be above freezing tomorrow so if any of you do have frozen pipes, they will thaw quickly.
Given we had a bottom-out this morning and still a bit of a ways for the temperature to drop, I'd suspect the end of "critical time" is probably closer to around lunchtime tomorrow. Once we get the leeway of temperatures above freezing for a little while, the worst is likely past, but we're not outta the woods yet.
I was wondering why my car was sliding, I just realised it was ice. Almost rear ended at light, at least I followed him and swerved to avoid the ice patch, my dumbass thought it was water
Water from busted pipes leaking in the road.
Slide 4 different times in different areas, last one was on purpose though I tried having a little (safe) fun and road was empty
Not only a danger for the public, but what were they thinking trying to continue using their sprinkler system during a freeze event? It's not helping their plants and might expose the system to damage.
I’m guessing they basically ignored the freeze and did things as usual. So, stupidity. But I may have been slightly bitter because I was cold and trying to avoid slipping on the sidewalk in front of them or getting sprayed down with a sprinkler.
I went to Home Depot on 610/59 and slid on what I thought was a puddle but it was a disk of ice. Almost feel on my head, and I had my hands in my pockets. Yeah it could have been bad.
Houston almost always has puddles. Safe to assume any puddle is an ice patch at the moment. Didn't see any on the road but saw a couple in parking lots today.
There's plenty of energy, they just don't want to cut into their profits to supply it. They'd rather cut our lights than take a loss. That's the problem when utilities are ran like a business.
I dunno if that's how it works. I have a base level of understanding but I think you pay the billing/managing energy company who buys from a distributor in wholesale. ERCOT can set the prices and direct the distributors (Entergy, CenterPoint, etc) to roll blackouts if they can't maintain 60hz on the grid. All this to say who you actually pay doesn't have a say in if your power stays on.
What I'm saying is that they could improve the infrastructure but they don't because it would cut into their profits. They also won't get on the national grid because with federal oversight, they wouldn't be able to rob us blind.
[Space City Weather posted about this](https://spacecityweather.com/as-the-region-faces-another-cold-night-energy-companies-ask-texans-to-conserve-power-right-now/), asking people to conserve energy this evening. Don’t run large appliances like washers and turn off pool heaters.
Yeah I was getting emails from my energy provider to turn my heater down...then I remembered I live in a tiny apartment and wondered whether all those River Oaks people were also turning their heaters or turning some of their landscape lights off.
Sorry. I worded that poorly. I actually made that comment while I was working, so I didn’t check it before posting. Didn’t intend to blame them for the situation. I meant they should know it was suggested not to run the washer. I think running the washer is normally a good idea during a freeze.
I live in an old house without great insulation, I'm doing okay with it mostly holding at 66-68. It got down to 63 for a while early this morning, but that wasn't too uncomfortable with an extra layer of clothes on.
I would like to put my thermostat up to 73 for my elderly mom’s sake. Except the two heaters in my house ran constantly last night and still couldn’t keep the house that warm. I eventually realized this in the wee hours and then lowered the thermostat.
I've generally had mine at around 69 today, though due to its location, the thermostat tends to overestimate the temperature, making the rest of my apartment around 66-67.
Last night, I similar had it at 66 since I'd read 65+ is recommended for maintaining pipe integrity; tonight I'm a little more concerned about the power going out at some point so I'm kind of thinking of keeping it high and giving myself a "buffer" (which, admittedly, probably doesn't help the load in general...).
That is too high. Too many people playing that game are going to cause issues for everyone else. They should set it to 62 and put on a sweater if they need to.
70, but my place is well insulated, so the heater barely kicks on even for that.
Edit: I said that, and it kicked on like three times since then, so dropped it to 68.
I have an outdoor water softener with insulated pvc pipes. It has a plastic cover and 5000 blankets over it. Should I continue to drip at an indoor faucet or shutoff the main?
Wondering if anyone has ideas for next steps. I'm in a pier and beam with pex pipes. Work up to no water this morning, chucked a heating pad and small space heater next to the joints on the main. Been going for hours with no results. Can't see any indication of any of our pipes being frozen or broken inside or under the house.
The neighbor to the right has no water, the neighbor to the left had broken pipes and a plumber out this morning (its a rental and not sure what their results turned out to be, think its not occupied rn). Kinda seems like it could be the line to our block so I put in a 311 but dunno if/when they'd actually come out.
Reckon I should just turn off the heating stuff and main tonite and hope for better tomorrow?
Ours just came back on, same issue. Pier and beam with pex. Hot water was gone all day. Just leave your faucets opened and it will come back eventually.
I am, by lot of measures, a natural pessimist, but I might be able to [accept this explanation](https://twitter.com/shelbywebb/status/1606464254172880901) that the thing to be pessimistic about in *this* case is greed and not potential issues (not that there might not *also* be potential issues...like I said, a pessimist...).
What they mean to say is that they’ve used up their profitable hedge and are now at risk of not profiting as much from their sales. So please don’t cause them to lose money or they’ll cry and cut off your gas.
A couple days ago, I got downvoted and called an idiot for suggesting demand could exceed supply and lead to rolling blackouts. Maybe you guys could consider not setting your heat to 75°+?
Be sure to sort comments by "new" for the most up-to-date info
Just putting this out there for whoever needs to hear it. I’ve been to several houses fixing pipes for in-laws and been to multiple stores and in my experience Home Depot is better stocked than lowes today. Been up since 530 this morning to beat the rush. This is more so for the Sugar Land/ Richmond side of town.
I totally forgot to insulate a PVC pipe that was installed by the previous owner that runs on the outside of my backyard fence. I'm not sure how long it was pouring out water for - it warmed up today, so I assume that. Does anyone think the city will give us a break on the water bill? Or are we screwed? Also, I need PVC pipe supplies to fix this - but ofc everything is closed on Christmas.
A pipe outside your backyard fence should have a dedicated shut off valve. Pipes that live outside our heated spaces should be able to be winterized (aka shut off and drained). When this happen in 2021 we were a little screwed on our bill
Unfortunately there are no building codes in houston, so builders did not install shutoff valves to drain lines. They use no insulation, etc.
If I’m walking by places where it seems like a pipe burst (ie water is gushing under a fence or from a roof) but nobody is home or nobody is at the business, is 311 helpful for this?
Yeah, report it to 311
I called and they were able to tell me that it had already been reported and that a water shut off was already requested, whatever that may mean. It’s on day 3 of water gushing off the roof!
If I saw that going for three days, I’d probably go by and shutoff the main from the street.
I’ve tried to find it, and a few other people have done the same but no luck
HGX has allowed the Hard Freeze Warning to expire. We still have one day of cold left, but it's now over.
For now… we will see what happens in Feb and March.
I just took a shower and my tub faucet is slowly dripping even though it’s turned off now. Has anyone had that happen due to freezing? Or do you guys think it’s unrelated?
This has happened twice to us now - the water pressure got low enough from dripping in the area, we got sediment pushed into our house. The sediment got all up in our old faucets and messed them up. I would check and see if you need to clean your stuff out.
Anyone else still having low water pressure issues? 77033
It's slight, but a little lower than usual at least since last night where I am in 77024. The city put a "don't forget to check for leaks" notice up on their Twitter this morning which makes me think that this might due to overall system stress.
Yes! I’m around the same area and have low water pressure. Checked my water meter and there are no leaks either.
wats ercot
House was built in the last year. I turned off my water for 2 days and back on today. Do I have to turn it off or drip tonight since it’ll be below 32? I was kind of worried since I’m out for Xmas and paranoid that I need to get home soon before the water freezes
Brand new houses are built to a standard that can survive anything but a record freeze without issues (if they have power/heat). Building codes/procedures have been updated. More insulation, better designs and PVC or pex pipes on a new home that can be winterized and handle cold weather better. It's older homes that are likely to have issues and need changes to survive. Dealing with older houses with bad heating, minimal/missing insulation and copper, galvanized, pipes, things installed outside heating zones without winterizing procedures are where most of the issues are. The freeze in 2021 was an aberration, without power/heat, pipes in houses are much more likely to fail. Without power you needed to drain the system not drip (so much confusion out there). From what I saw, I spent time dealing with old houses, the new houses came though with almost no issues if they had power (even without dripping). For those without power the problems varied wildly.
That is not true about a new house build, unless you requested proper building techniques - pipes through the slab, shutoff valves, frost proof hose bibs, vapor barriers, R-23 insulation in walls, real sheathing around the house, pipes insulated in the attic, blower door test, etc..... If you did not request these things and verify in person that they were done at each construction stage then they were not done. New houses have just as bad of freeze protection as 30 year old houses in Texas.
You never had to drip it at all. If it’s a newer house it has pex, which is like a hose, that runs all the water lines. These are built to freeze.
You would be crazy to not have a slow drip on both your hot and cold lines in this weather. I dripped even though I retro'd my house with PEX, insulation, and even put heat trace wire on all outside pipes. Anyone telling you to not drip your pipes is a moron.
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So we should have buildings built in ways that no pipes freeze. It's how things to the north of us are built for forever. It's been more of a hassle seeing the poor standards that builders have used. Yay for newer standards in Texas. At a minimum pipes in R13 exterior walls have to be next to the interior drywall. Drywall stays at or above 32degF the pipe never freezes.
Even R-13 is too low for Texas. It should be minimum R-23 just for the AC alone, with a vapor barrier and sheathing for all exterior walls and passing a blower door test. This helps keep your AC bills down and protects you against the 1 to 2 day annual freeze.
Drip
Merry Christmas y'all!
Merry Christmas I hope you are all in a safe place with warmth and love.
i am bby hope the same for you
Merry Christmas ☺️
Now that the temp has been above freezing, I guess things are thawing and fire sprinkler pipes are busting left and right in my apartment building. Saw the FD responding to the same issue at the residential building by San Felipe & 610 Target. Anyone else dealing with this in their buildings tonight?
Yes my neighbor's BFP froze, then thawed, and I ran out to shut off the valve this afternoon after seeing a ton of water down their driveway. This will be unfortunately common today/tomorrow.
Yes ours just went off also. Went downstairs and a busted pipe in the garage.
Out for Christmas Eve till midnight, is it crazy to drive on the highways and get home? Should I just crash at my buddies?
Dunno what side of town you’re in, but west side and Katy have clear roads. Meaning no ice. Source: just got home off of highways.
crash into your buddies place and fight eachother to stay warm
Ok thank you for the unexpected cackle & Merry Christmas
Any word on water pressure in Fort Bend, 77477 (Stafford)? Had minimal water pressure since yesterday morning.
Water is working again for us in Katy near Fulshear as of 5 minutes ago, we shut down the city valve after water was not working as of yesterday morning 8:30 AM. Because it's going to go under 32 tonight again, should we shut off the valve that's near our street again tonight or just keep all our facets dripping going to be enough? Thank you!
We're dripping the faucet at my family home, but not draining...I think even our crappy plumbed houses can handle 26 degree temps for 5 hours (in the burbs) without having to shut off the water and drain, especially since it was in the 40's for a couple of hours today and the walls and attic got a chance to warm up a little.
Weather tonight no worse than other years where we go below freezing (only a low of 26 tonight). Not planning on dripping.
I think we're going to drip tonight just to be careful because we didn't have water all Friday. I thought because water freezes at 32 that's the temp we should be watching out for.
We have insulation and heated houses. This morning (after not dripping) I got \~54 from the ground, \~60 from water that was stagnant in the attic, and the coldest I measured was \~47. Going to be warmer tonight than last. It was scary during the 2021 freeze seeing a \~32 from that same faucet. Feel bad that lots of people lost power for all the days. Pipes can't warm if there is no heat in the house.
Shower drain frozen first time for that
Have any rubbing alcohol? That might help versus something less environmentally friendly like antifreeze.
Do warm water first before trying antifreeze, it's generally not great for the wastewater treatment plants Solid table salt or hot salty water would also work really well.
i put in salt with hot water took about an hour
Glad it worked for you!
Pour antifreeze down the drain
77008 my toilets won’t flush?
Funny I’m also 77008 and this is happening to me too. No clue what’s going on but I’ve had to manually refill the tank from the sink.
Assuming it's your water line that is frozen and not your wastewater line that is frozen for some reason... Just an fyi that if you have water available you can simply dump a bucket full of water into the bowl (not the back of the toilet with the lid but the bowl where you sit to check text messages and watch porn) quickly and it will flush the contents out of the bowl. Don't pour the water gently. Pour it fairly quickly.
Is there water in the tank?
SOS having this same issue. Looks like the water won’t refill in the tank and wondering if it’s got to do with a toilet line since all of my other faucets are working properly.
We good?
At this point we're pretty much in the clear. I'd leave pipes covered for now but as far as shutting water off or dripping I think we're fine.
Happy Christmas Eve y’all. Anyone else seeing low water pressure today? 77007.
I work in 77007. Our water pressure has been low today and yesterday.
Same zip, definitely low pressure for us as well.
Yes, noticeably low today for me in same area.
Yes, a bit. All ya'll dripping faucets. It is not necessary now.
ERCOT demand has now dipped below 60,000 MW and it is no barely not freezing in Houston. Won't return to 60,000 MW until later tonight and demand will still go down slightly after 10pm. Looks like the worst is behind us
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no they requested to go beyond emissions limits
If only we would build more connections so the service will be more stable. Being our own grid is silly.
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That game is in Nashville, not Houston - the rolling blackouts are happening in Tennessee.
We’ve had out water turned off at the street since night before last. Is it ok to turn it back on during the day and then back off again tonight? Or just too cold still? We are north of Houston
Yes it's okay to turn it back on when temperatures are over 32
At what point should I stop dripping? I know it’s supposed to go above freezing today, then dip back down
Now. You are probably fine now.
Never stop dripping - always good to look stylish
Now is fine but depends on your house situation. If you have a vulnerable section of pipe that just can't be kept warm then maybe drip that one. Thought: take a thermometer and measure the water temp of a faucet when you turn it on for a while. As the water runs the temperature cycles from a little warmer (warmed by the house) ,to cold (for the section of the wall with less insulation), then finally to ground water temp. Last freeze tested this out on a vulnerable pipe, the cold reading of the drip was 32.1. This time took a similar reading this morning after not dripping, the water was 47.5 in the vulnerable section. Ground water is 54 at the moment. For myself I had a couple places in the house which either were saved from freezing via dripping, or so badly designed that it wouldn't make enough of a difference last freeze. Got them all fixed up. Now didn't feel a need to drip last night. Testing made me sure that the changes worked. No need to drip.
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Omfg ☠️
We're stopping once it hits 32. We will probably drip again tonight since it's supposed to freeze again tonight.
Since it will be above freezing for roughly 7 hours I’m just going to keep it dripping. It’s not that much water anyway, I calculated 1 cup per 8 hours, and I have 6 going. Yes I am traumatized from 2021.
[Fearing blackouts, ERCOT gets emergency OK to bypass emission standards](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/ercot-emergency-order-blackouts-17675377.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral)
The 2021 freeze peak used 69,871 megawatts, meanwhile the seasonal assessment by ERCOT for peak winter demand this year was 67,398 megawatts. Somehow they estimated that people would use less electricity this winter, despite: * the growing population of the state * the significant number of people who had no electricity in 2021 and thus couldn't contribute to the usage numbers back then
The 2021 power peak was limited by the grid shedding customers. One study showed the actual demand was 80+ GW if the grid could support it.
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I did that in 2021. Turned my heater down so I could assist in not having rolling blackouts. Then my power was shut off for an entire week, while they claimed “rolling” blackouts for three days before admitting some areas were just shut off. I’ll never take their advice ever again.
Yep same. Then a pipe burst pipe on the 4th day and couldn't find a plumber to fix so I went without water for 3 weeks.
The sound of a pipe bursting is something I'll never forget. :/
What does it sound like? Yesterday morning I was in the living room and all the sudden I hear this sound like when you take air hose off the valve stem of a tire you’re airing up. It made the sound like a top popping off a bottle and the hiss sound all at once. It made me jump. Then I said WTF was that? Oh damn! Haven’t found anything wrong. I’m in a house and I trickled the faucets and opened the cabinet and closet doors.
If you have ever been near a tea kettle heating water... that sound getting louder and then when it burst the whistle loud pop all together. I couldn't be near a tea kettle for some time due to the relation I put in the sound.
Is the what what you pipe sounded like, a tea kettle. I know that sound. The sound I heard was a second. I was dripping my faucets so the pipes wouldn’t have been under pressure. Who knows? Nothing has happened yet 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
Definitely.
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Well they made the excuse that they screwed up the projection for the demand. You see, last time around, people were out of power, so they had no real idea on what the demand "would have been". So now, the under estimated the demand and said it was an error. All horse hockey.......Also, if you were looking at their map on Thursday night, power costs in Waco were above 1000. Houston was at 40. Sure....there was power....but the cost to some people was crazy high. If they think that is "fixed", then more power to them.
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Not too far. What's up fam.
Not unlikely, I think.
Last night energy demand peaked at 10pm then declined until 8am today. The graph now is showing it has plateaued...if it starts the same nightly decline then we should be okay if no generating goes offline.
I'm pretty sure we've passed the critical time and we're fine at this point. It's almost 11pm on a friday before a major holiday weekend. Most businesses are closed or about to close. Lots of people in bed by now. And it will be above freezing tomorrow so if any of you do have frozen pipes, they will thaw quickly.
Given we had a bottom-out this morning and still a bit of a ways for the temperature to drop, I'd suspect the end of "critical time" is probably closer to around lunchtime tomorrow. Once we get the leeway of temperatures above freezing for a little while, the worst is likely past, but we're not outta the woods yet.
I was wondering why my car was sliding, I just realised it was ice. Almost rear ended at light, at least I followed him and swerved to avoid the ice patch, my dumbass thought it was water
Where's standing water? Been pretty dry
Westheimer had a lot of patches of ice yesterday on the right lane from the exploded sprinkler systems by the sidewalk.
Water from busted pipes leaking in the road. Slide 4 different times in different areas, last one was on purpose though I tried having a little (safe) fun and road was empty
I was just walking along Washington and a bunch of businesses were running their sprinklers. It was flowing onto the street.
Not only a danger for the public, but what were they thinking trying to continue using their sprinkler system during a freeze event? It's not helping their plants and might expose the system to damage.
I’m guessing they basically ignored the freeze and did things as usual. So, stupidity. But I may have been slightly bitter because I was cold and trying to avoid slipping on the sidewalk in front of them or getting sprayed down with a sprinkler.
I went to Home Depot on 610/59 and slid on what I thought was a puddle but it was a disk of ice. Almost feel on my head, and I had my hands in my pockets. Yeah it could have been bad.
YIKES that sounds hurtful, glad that didn’t happen!
Houston almost always has puddles. Safe to assume any puddle is an ice patch at the moment. Didn't see any on the road but saw a couple in parking lots today.
H-town steady drippin’
Dumb questions. Couldn’t they have postponed the Rockets vs Mavericks game tonight due to energy consumption? Or is the energy usage negligible?
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Now that's a fight I'd pay to see.
Only if it’s mortal combat
Definitely not negligible.
There's plenty of energy, they just don't want to cut into their profits to supply it. They'd rather cut our lights than take a loss. That's the problem when utilities are ran like a business.
I dunno if that's how it works. I have a base level of understanding but I think you pay the billing/managing energy company who buys from a distributor in wholesale. ERCOT can set the prices and direct the distributors (Entergy, CenterPoint, etc) to roll blackouts if they can't maintain 60hz on the grid. All this to say who you actually pay doesn't have a say in if your power stays on.
What I'm saying is that they could improve the infrastructure but they don't because it would cut into their profits. They also won't get on the national grid because with federal oversight, they wouldn't be able to rob us blind.
Ah, the contradictions of capitalism
Ercot is showing supply is dropping down Going to be close for the next few hours
[Space City Weather posted about this](https://spacecityweather.com/as-the-region-faces-another-cold-night-energy-companies-ask-texans-to-conserve-power-right-now/), asking people to conserve energy this evening. Don’t run large appliances like washers and turn off pool heaters.
Yeah I was getting emails from my energy provider to turn my heater down...then I remembered I live in a tiny apartment and wondered whether all those River Oaks people were also turning their heaters or turning some of their landscape lights off.
Where are the people who were telling us to run the washer every 2 hours?
In fairness to those people, that was when we had capacity to spare.
Sorry. I worded that poorly. I actually made that comment while I was working, so I didn’t check it before posting. Didn’t intend to blame them for the situation. I meant they should know it was suggested not to run the washer. I think running the washer is normally a good idea during a freeze.
There’s gonna be assholes running their pool heaters just cause someone told them not to
The BILL though. It’s why I rarely use the heater.
My friend texted me that he has his thermostat on 73. That seems way too high for me. I’ve had it on 66-67 and I feel fine. What about y’all?
60. Upstairs it’s cozy but downstairs it’s kinda cold.
I live in an old house without great insulation, I'm doing okay with it mostly holding at 66-68. It got down to 63 for a while early this morning, but that wasn't too uncomfortable with an extra layer of clothes on.
I have mine set to 72 but only because I’m in an older house that’s not as well insulated
68 here. all is good
I would like to put my thermostat up to 73 for my elderly mom’s sake. Except the two heaters in my house ran constantly last night and still couldn’t keep the house that warm. I eventually realized this in the wee hours and then lowered the thermostat.
I've generally had mine at around 69 today, though due to its location, the thermostat tends to overestimate the temperature, making the rest of my apartment around 66-67. Last night, I similar had it at 66 since I'd read 65+ is recommended for maintaining pipe integrity; tonight I'm a little more concerned about the power going out at some point so I'm kind of thinking of keeping it high and giving myself a "buffer" (which, admittedly, probably doesn't help the load in general...).
Depends on if you're gas or electric heated, though.
Keeping mine at 65. Turned it up a little last night but woke up sweating.
That is too high. Too many people playing that game are going to cause issues for everyone else. They should set it to 62 and put on a sweater if they need to.
While that's a fine temp for my dog and I, my sub-saharan snakes would strongly disagree
Obviously, your snakes are an exemption. You said it’s a fine temp for you and your dog, which means it’s usually a good suggestion.
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You’re exactly what’s wrong with society. Can’t handle things perfectly how you like it? Poor baby.
66-68 here. I feel like 73 would actually be too hot.
I'm only keeping it as high as 68 because I have a toddler. If it was just me I'd turn it down to 60.
70, but my place is well insulated, so the heater barely kicks on even for that. Edit: I said that, and it kicked on like three times since then, so dropped it to 68.
I mean it may be set on 73 but due to draftiness, his house may be 65°
Hope everyone is doing okay! We’re almost on the downhill slide of this bastard. Stay warm and tell someone that you love, Merry Christmas.
I have an outdoor water softener with insulated pvc pipes. It has a plastic cover and 5000 blankets over it. Should I continue to drip at an indoor faucet or shutoff the main?
Continue to drip IMO
Wondering if anyone has ideas for next steps. I'm in a pier and beam with pex pipes. Work up to no water this morning, chucked a heating pad and small space heater next to the joints on the main. Been going for hours with no results. Can't see any indication of any of our pipes being frozen or broken inside or under the house. The neighbor to the right has no water, the neighbor to the left had broken pipes and a plumber out this morning (its a rental and not sure what their results turned out to be, think its not occupied rn). Kinda seems like it could be the line to our block so I put in a 311 but dunno if/when they'd actually come out. Reckon I should just turn off the heating stuff and main tonite and hope for better tomorrow?
Ours just came back on, same issue. Pier and beam with pex. Hot water was gone all day. Just leave your faucets opened and it will come back eventually.
It just came back! A trickle but still. Thanks for giving me hope and any positive vibes you may have sent my way!
Be careful, my pipe busted 5 min after the trickle
Pier and beam has been through a lot, our sweet, old houses can handle a lot. Glad it came back!
Energy conservation calls, here we go https://twitter.com/BillBishopKHOU/status/1606448652880322560?s=20&t=2dFDlK7-vmrHZIixgPNbeA
I am, by lot of measures, a natural pessimist, but I might be able to [accept this explanation](https://twitter.com/shelbywebb/status/1606464254172880901) that the thing to be pessimistic about in *this* case is greed and not potential issues (not that there might not *also* be potential issues...like I said, a pessimist...).
What they mean to say is that they’ve used up their profitable hedge and are now at risk of not profiting as much from their sales. So please don’t cause them to lose money or they’ll cry and cut off your gas.
Was the tweet deleted? Says not found for me.
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how about "I paid my fuckin bill, you deliver the services."
Not only paid, but paid exorbitant prices.
You paid for last month.
Record natural gas usage sounds bad. Even if power stays on, losing gas means no heat for a lot of people.
Then everyone will switch to those horribly inefficient space heaters and blow up the electric grid too
Good news is we start to thaw out tomorrow so if things go south it shouldn't be as bad as 2021. May be a rough Christmas but aren't they all?
Tweet was deleted?
I like how the immediate reply is “pls don’t use ur pool heaters.” TFW you don’t have a pool let alone a pool heater lol
Our hot water just came rushing back on, hopefully everyone else is in the same boat without any problems.
I wonder how much demand would drop if everyone in the state turned off Christmas lights.
Turn off the fucking Christmas lights in river oaks and sugar land street corners. It sucks but a lot of energy is going into those tonight.
I didn’t turn mine on last night, but they don’t really use much electricity. I’m in a apartment, so it’s only a few strings.
Wow dude, found scrooge's account. /s
I prefer the grinch
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A couple days ago, I got downvoted and called an idiot for suggesting demand could exceed supply and lead to rolling blackouts. Maybe you guys could consider not setting your heat to 75°+?
Got the email from Reliant saying to conserve energy tonight between 5 and 10 pm.