Snow in Dallas!

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Thermostat switch went out, so it's not heating the Freon to keep coils from freezing over

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

There's a crazy amount of people out and about in my area. Just got back from heb, shelves looked like beginning of Covid. My company is going to attempt delivering to few major grocerers tomorrow 

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Yea, food will be the next thing. We're good for 2-4 more days. The world is unfrozen in Houston for now, but power is still out in many places and word is that food on the shelves is thin. Usually takes 2-5 days to get it back after hurricane hoarding so that's what I'm expecting. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Found it funny the amount of pork there was on shelves. Little bit of chicken. But that's why I made a run, we have enough for few days also but don't like cutting it close. I was talking to one of the managers there, he's unsure if any of the Austin stores are getting any trucks in tomorrow. One of the great things about HEBs, they all have massive generators to keep power going in times like this. They were blessing to us when we were living by the coast when Harvey hit couple years ago

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Yes, when was over there it was clear that HEB was keeping Austin functioning. They need to get two days of clear/warm weather to start sorting things out. Last nights freezing rain knocked down a bunch of trees at the house we were at so that didn't help. He clearly has broken pipes, but enough of them are still frozen that he can't even start sorting it out. Getting the right plumbing parts is hard during the best of time, it's going to be a nightmare for the next few weeks. 

Subscriber-unavailabile said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

There's a crazy amount of people out and about in my area. Just got back from heb, shelves looked like beginning of Covid. My company is going to attempt delivering to few major grocerers tomorrow 

Mrs. Snowdoggie is good at keeping the pantry full. She had us ready for this one. One of my neighbors just went to the store. I'm not sure I want to go out at this point. The office is closed till Friday and the area around there doesn't have power. Some places have been out for days and some places never went out. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Me too, and we aren't in the middle of a storm.  I had to switch to Outlander.  A little too much romance novel, but plenty of boobs.

+2

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I wish I could take more people in right now, some of guys I work with, with little ones  been out power/water coupes days now. We've had family come to us because of same situations. 10 people, 2 full size dogs and 2 cats were stretched in our 1000 sq ft duplex..

I just went to HEB for my neighbor. I went to check on her and she was out of water completely. And was low on food. HEB is honestly taking care of Texas. And their gas stations haven't hiked up the price. I will say, in all the places I've lived around the country, no grocery store chain beats HEB. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Still haven't seen anybody drive down our street since this mess started. No tire tracks. Nobody is driving.

Sorry,but not wanting an opportunity to go to waste .....I spy a "Unicorn" .......as he sits at the puuter with the power being on now for a whole 8.5 hours. Had/have frozen pipes , but knock on wood,  I've found a leak in the well house, but securing the necessary PVC to correct may prove to be a lesson in futility here in NW Houston come tomorrow......oh and the fireplace is seeing overtime......late 

This story sounds pretty devastating if I'm honest. 
 

Imagine having the foresight (and valves) when it freezes to drain down your house. I'll bet a lot of people will after this. 

yupididit said:

I just went to HEB for my neighbor. I went to check on her and she was out of water completely. And was low on food. HEB is honestly taking care of Texas. And their gas stations haven't hiked up the price. I will say, in all the places I've lived around the country, no grocery store chain beats HEB. 

For some reason HEB will not build a store in the DFW Area. The furthest North they go is Ennis or Waxahachie. I wonder why they won't come to Dallas?

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I wouldn't be surprised they won't expand north sooner then later. They're bigger stores are on a whole different level then anything I've seen. 

Oh, and the tiny lithium battery started the Accord when it was 14 degrees, which surprised me. Took a few crank cycles to get the battery to warm itself up, but it did it. So that was my biggest personal victory of the storm. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

yupididit said:

I just went to HEB for my neighbor. I went to check on her and she was out of water completely. And was low on food. HEB is honestly taking care of Texas. And their gas stations haven't hiked up the price. I will say, in all the places I've lived around the country, no grocery store chain beats HEB. 

For some reason HEB will not build a store in the DFW Area. The furthest North they go is Ennis or Waxahachie. I wonder why they won't come to Dallas?

I hear a lot of Dallas folk complain they can't get an HEB. There's got to be some reason. Ido know they own a bunch of land up there. HEB even tried to go into Louisiana but that store did horrible and they closed it. 

I tell you one thing. I wouldn't move to Dallas area until there's local HEB's lol

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Oh, and the tiny lithium battery started the Accord when it was 14 degrees, which surprised me. Took a few crank cycles to get the battery to warm itself up, but it did it. So that was my biggest personal victory of the storm. 

My Altima started outside at-29 last Friday after sitting for a week, no block heater plugged in.  And -29 was the warmest it had been all that week.

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

I turn the breaker off on mine for the winter..  never had an issue even in -20 degrees.

Subscriber-unavailabile said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I wish I could take more people in right now, some of guys I work with, with little ones  been out power/water coupes days now. We've had family come to us because of same situations. 10 people, 2 full size dogs and 2 cats were stretched in our 1000 sq ft duplex..

You're a good man. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I've been starting my vehicles twice a day to make sure batteries don't die. Surprised the cheap neverstart in my beater has been flawless thru this 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Maybe it's a E36 M3ty design function in my unit. A/C tech told me to defrost it with water hose until they could get back out to fix it 

Had to open my truck door yesterday to get a makeshift ice scraper and now can't get it to latch closed. Poured hot water on the door latch, but no success. It's mainly closed but I have a tarp over it for now until things warm back up.

-Rob

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Your defrost control timer board probably failed, just be careful to direct the water onto the coil and not into the control box..  Even if it was working you'd be in resistance heat mode a lot right now as most heat pumps struggle once outdoor temperatures fall below 35 F or so.   Normally that's not an issue in your area, maybe a few hours a year.   Hang in there, it looks like temps in most of Texas are trending towards 60-70F by next week. If it's any consolation I've been living part of the dream remotely here from MA due to my son being at A&M.  At one point Tuesday they had had power for 3 hours in 30 hours (starting late Sunday night) and it was 42 in his apartment, he says it's been better with longer times with power so the heat has a chance to catch up.  I now know way more about ERCOT and Texas utility distribution than I ever thought I'd know!  Good luck! 

In reply to 11GTCS :

Ditto on ERCOT, tired of the same merry go round interviews with them. Sadly seems this is going political just like everything else. Worst part of having my in laws crashing here, there the work E36 M3ty jobs, get food stamp, and are genuinely mad "they" made them go thru this, instead of accepting reality.

Do you guys run antifreeze in your radiators down there, or straight water like they do in So-Cal?

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Y'all definitely approach power grid and utilities management from a different perspective then the rest of the country for sure.   In fairness, it's tough to justify the costs to design for extremes of this order when it's such a small percentage of probability.   Until weeks like this of course.  

I was impressed on how much renewable was available, you're way ahead of most of the country from what I've seen.   Hopefully this will result in some planning and investment to prevent future recurrences.   We have a lot of work to do up here too, nearly all our current generation sources are based on natural gas.  Lots of talk about offshore wind farms for the past 20 or so years but no installations as of now.   We have had quite a rise in both residential and commercial solar but then we're a lot further north and so fewer sun hours in the winter even in clear weather.