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2022-2023 Winter Weather Thread


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46 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah, that was a long and weird way for Brisket to announce that he's enlisted a Cabana Boy.

The cool thing is, he's taking my wife to an event tonight (he's one of her business partners, they were both going anyway), so that leaves me at home alone, in a house with power and TV, to eat chicken wings and watch TV all by myself.  I'm a Cabana Boy who's winning.

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Rather drastic change in the weather as this front rolled into Houston. Dropped a good 20 degrees over the past 4 hours. Pretty damn dreary outside my office window at the moment.

Tomorrow looks great. Sunny, cool, and calm. An ideal Thursday to plan an outdoor lunch or an afternoon happy hour (or both!). 

Friday should be sunny all day, but unlikely to warm up much above 50 as the winds will be whipping around 15-20 mph all day. 

Saturday cold and sunny again, but much calmer winds. After a chilly morning, should eventually get up to the high 50's. 

That's a pretty damn solid stretch of weather by February standards.

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We still dont have internet/cable/phone. If spectrum ran our power grid we would somehow have 200k without service still. I have called and they just say there is no timetable for replacement. I went out and got a hot spot deal so we can have internet. The kids don't know or we would have no bandwidth left. I am betting we will be without for quite awhile since we are sort of out in the boonies.

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2 hours ago, HOOKEM4 said:

We still dont have internet/cable/phone. If spectrum ran our power grid we would somehow have 200k without service still. I have called and they just say there is no timetable for replacement. I went out and got a hot spot deal so we can have internet. The kids don't know or we would have no bandwidth left. I am betting we will be without for quite awhile since we are sort of out in the boonies.

I bet you'd rather be laying pipe.

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22 hours ago, kangsta said:

Anybody seen an city/contractor truck picking up branches yet? Don't think I've seen a single one in NW Hills area. 

They came through last week in Hyde Park to get the massive branches that were hanging or had fallen into the streets, but haven't picked up the piles of branches that homeowners put on the curb yet.

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@Brisketexan I didn't go back to see if Brisket finally set up his generator that he bought but wasn't able to use when he needed it most because reasons. Thought this would be helpful as I'm looking to do the same. Only concern after this is pissing off neighbors with the flex of having power when they don't.

It was interesting to read NextDoor posts from people who didn't like the sound of their neighbors generators running. Some people are just miserable people. 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

@Brisketexan I didn't go back to see if Brisket finally set up his generator that he bought but wasn't able to use when he needed it most because reasons. Thought this would be helpful as I'm looking to do the same. Only concern after this is pissing off neighbors with the flex of having power when they don't.

It was interesting to read NextDoor posts from people who didn't like the sound of their neighbors generators running. Some people are just miserable people. 

 

 

Ours is a 3500W, and I did get it up and running -- we used it to power our bedroom for 3 days.  It ran a portable heater, lamp, outlets to charge phones and laptops, that sort of thing.  In short, we can use it to turn our bedroom and bathroom into a "hotel room" setup that works well enough.  And, we were mostly able to limit generator use to after it got dark, when we needed light and more heat.  Tank holds around 5.5 gallons, and it would burn about 5 gallons overnight to keep us warm.  Worth it.  And yeah, it was loud, our neighbors didn't mind -- we also charged our power banks (backup batteries) with it, and loaned those out to neighbors to charge their phones, so that was some goodwill.

Big truck crew came by and picked up all the busted limbs yesterday, so things are about wrapping up in our neck of the woods.  Still have a couple of busted limbs on trees behind the house that need to be trimmed, but we're in no rush to get a crew out on them.  They won't do any damage if/when they fall.

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Inverter generators are much quieter than the old-school open-frame generators.  If you're going to buy one, do it for YOUR OWN ears, if not the neighbors'.  And there are several off-brand inverter gennys that are quite good these days, and significantly less expensive than Honda and Yamaha.  My original was a Honda and I still have it as a backup backup, but the two I use most now are a Champion and my favorite which is the "Predator" brand from Harbor Freight, believe it or not. 

Yes inverter generators are more expensive and yes they're worth it.

I finally picked up all of my generators from family who had borrowed them all around the city.  I don't have a camping trip scheduled until Spring Break so they'll all have the gas burned off, and get an oil change, before returning to storage.  It's good for these things to run every so often, anyway.

 

 

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Just read this on the C-C Austin forum….

Quote

We returned this Fri at 11:00 pm after 15 days in the Caribbean. Missed the whole thing. Family pounded us with pictures of the destruction on our property and it was shocking but they all assured us that we should stay on the cruise and not try to find emergency flights home. "It's done" they all said. "You were spared the horror of lying in bed at night listening to the explosions and thundering impacts of trees all around your house wondering when the next one would come through the roof." We live on several acres of densely wooded property in SW Austin. The pictures were shocking but the real shock was when we pulled into the driveway around midnight and saw what awaited us. It looked like a tornado had ripped through. We had power but upon quick inspection I could see that the lines from the pole to the house were slammed by a pile of fallen trees and limbs and were suspended only a foot off the ground stretched as tight as piano wire. The tension on them had ripped the strain relief straps for the electrical box and had pulled all of the conduit off the side of the house. All live with power. We immediately called PEC and in 45 min (at midnight) they were out with three trucks and got the power cables reattached and the box shored up. Damn I love PEC!  

Our suitcases from vacation are untouched and unopened still sitting just inside the front door where we dropped them that night. Since then it's been 14 hr days of solid chainsawing and hauling limbs to line the shoulder of the street. It's a Zulu kraal 7' high, 10' deep and 150' long and that's just the front yard debris. The sides and back are still full of wreckage. The barn roof has a big tree on it and the metal roof is torn open. On the bright side our house was spared and miraculously two classic Mustangs in the driveway look as if they had the "Jesus fire" forcefield of power all around them. Giant 12" diameter oak limbs from overhead legacy trees had crashed down forming a complete square around the two cars. The limbs resting literally inches from them. I couldn't even get to the cars without chainsawing my way through the wall. Not. One. Scratch. My conclusion - Jesus drives a Mustang.

Poor Austin. We'll never be the same. People who don't live here just don't know.

 

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2 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Then somebody commented that the poster would have a lot of firewood to burn. So he responded….

 

Yeah, I got a new chainsaw chain, but not in time to harvest any of the fallen wood stacked up on our block.  HOWEVER, a lot of trees took a similar beating in the greenbelt behind our house, so I plan to go harvest some fallen wood from there.  Then build a nice stack, and let it season for a year or two.  Might as well lay in a supply when mother nature drops it for you, even if we can't burn it for a year or two.

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, I got a new chainsaw chain, but not in time to harvest any of the fallen wood stacked up on our block.  HOWEVER, a lot of trees took a similar beating in the greenbelt behind our house, so I plan to go harvest some fallen wood from there.  Then build a nice stack, and let it season for a year or two.  Might as well lay in a supply when mother nature drops it for you, even if we can't burn it for a year or two.

I am here to declare that chainsaws and wood chippers running nonstop do not add value to a Covid convalescence.  

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5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I am here to declare that chainsaws and wood chippers running nonstop do not add value to a Covid convalescence.  

Yeah.  Gonna have to wait till I'm feeling up to it.  That said, the wife's nerves are already frayed as hell with this quarantine shit, and me taking over our room as my hideout....it may be in my health interest to GTFO of the house soon no matter what.  COVID will kill me or she will.  Might as well wield a chainsaw in the interim.

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7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, I got a new chainsaw chain, but not in time to harvest any of the fallen wood stacked up on our block.  HOWEVER, a lot of trees took a similar beating in the greenbelt behind our house, so I plan to go harvest some fallen wood from there.  Then build a nice stack, and let it season for a year or two.  Might as well lay in a supply when mother nature drops it for you, even if we can't burn it for a year or two.

Crews near us have been leaving nice piles of well cut wood at the bases of trees.  Went and collected three wheelbarrow fulls today... probably have 1/3 cord of new wood chilling for a season.  Might go collect more this weekend.  

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