Got the bulk of our debris cleanup done this afternoon, followed by a cold [welcome] shower.
Supposed to be rain the next 3 days, wanted to get the bulk of it done before that rolls in.I'm.

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:

Water drained fairly quickly after raking out several of the downstream neighbor's culverts.

In our case, people don't keep the ditch cleared & a lot of stuff flushes downstream, to the undersized culvert that passes under the cross street.
That got plugged up & our ditches crested. City guys cleared it out while cutting the tree I posted on the prior page & it drained out pretty quickly

BTW
Happy Sigforum Anniversary
July 11

Regards
R

Wow, 13 years. Time flies.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Time flies.

Time flies like an arrow.

Fruit flies like a banana.

Very lucky homeowners where the trees didn't take out a house.


You may know this but, remember to drain the pool down 4 to 5 inches before you get hit with a hurricane. Storm strength doesn't make a big difference with water volume, a slow moving cat 2 can leave a lot more water than a fast moving cat 3.

Heres the flooded street outside the front door, our lot was properly built up by the contractor, two neighbors were not and both houses flooded.



For perspective, here is the same area when not flooded.



Long term you might consider getting fill dirt in the front yard since you have all that water backing up toward the house, others look to have higher yard levels keeping the water in the gully. Even more so if flow is blocked by debris, maybe get with neighbors and plan to clear out the culverts before rain season.

Another good change to a home in hurricane areas is to have NG or LP water heater and oven/cooktop indoor and/or outside.

With the connection to a portable generator you will have plenty of hot water, and without it you can still fire up the cooktop with a match.

We have NG stove & a LP grill. Being able to cook is definitely nice.
Tankless water heater though, so the cold shower is less fun [though was welcome after clearing the yard debris].

We have an overflow drain on the pool, I had to go clear debris from it a few times, but it kept the pool from cresting the rim.

For added fun, a window regulator on my Tahoe let go, part won't arrive til Sunday. Yeehaw.

At least the new carb for the big Genny arrives tomorrow.

Woohoo! The people I pay to supply electricity to my house are once again delivering electricity to my house! The silence is incredible!

I'm thankful for:
1. the linemen who're working long hours in this awful heat to restore power
2. my awesome Kohler generator that flawlessly provided power for 81 hours straight

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:

Tankless water heater though, so the cold shower is less fun [though was welcome after clearing the yard debris].

Builds character! Better for you anyway!

Water Heater electric or gas/lp? With a generator connected you should be able to create hot water easily, I have a tankless LP, only needs 110 to fire off and heat water for the controller.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Woohoo! The people I pay to supply electricity to my house are once again delivering electricity to my house! The silence is incredible!

I'm thankful for:
1. the linemen who're working long hours in this awful heat to restore power
2. my awesome Kohler generator that flawlessly provided power for 81 hours straight

I'm only 6 miles away, hopefully we're soon!

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:

Tankless water heater though, so the cold shower is less fun [though was welcome after clearing the yard debris].

Builds character! Better for you anyway!

Water Heater electric or gas/lp? With a generator connected you should be able to create hot water easily, I have a tankless LP, only needs 110 to fire off and heat water for the controller.

NG with electric ignition. Could probably run it on the gen, longish run to there though.

Centerpointless update says Tuesday for us. Hopefully that's a Montgomery Scott estimate.

Parts of our neighborhood already have the Edison juice, hopefully we'll be back soon. Tired of the generator game.

Some of our neighbors with Ng whole home gennys have been running them 24/7 since Monday. Their bills are gonna be shocking.

quote:

Some of our neighbors with Ng whole home gennys have been running them 24/7 since Monday. Their bills are gonna be shocking.

Offset by the lower electric bill, the NG bill might not be that bad. At 1/4 power, our NG generators cost $.05KwH more than the electric company while at full power the cost was the same. Either way was a whole lot cheaper than gasoline or propane.

I hope so.

We've used the big one on propane sparingly to run a window AC in the master bedroom and the septic pump in the evenings. Our Honda inverter has been running the fridge and freezers without an issue on very little petrol. Amazing machine.

We [along with most of Houston) are in the 'Assessment Complete' phase.
No ETA given for our area yet.

Radio this morning said CP estimated having 80% restored by Sunday.

Our genny has a 50hr oil change interval. Got 4 qts at Orielly yesterday & changed the oil before it got dark [probably around 47hrs runtime], better to have too much than not enough. Gen takes just under 1 qt.

Ordered online with Orielly around 11am, claimed 1hr store pickup readiness. Got there at 4pm & they didn't have it, were waiting on a truck to bring missing online orders in. Shelf was bare for what I needed [straight 30w].

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
NG with electric ignition. Could probably run it on the gen, longish run to there though.

Put wiring the generator into the whole house, you can do it with a transfer switch, you connect it with a single run to one point.

This will disconnect the house from the main power grid, protecting workers, and when the neighbors power comes up, you simply switch back

Turn off the 220 devices like the pool pump, dryer, oven, cooktop. That way all the refrigerators, fans, lights, TV, cable modem, computers etc will run.

If your generator is large enough, and you put a soft start on the ac unit you may be able to run the whole house ac.

That's what we do, it's an easy step in keeping the whole house partially powered, and your Tankless water heater will work, no need to run power cables everywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
NG with electric ignition. Could probably run it on the gen, longish run to there though.

Put wiring the generator into the whole house, you can do it with a transfer switch, you connect it with a single run to one point.

This will disconnect the house from the main power grid, protecting workers, and when the neighbors power comes up, you simply switch back

Turn off the 220 devices like the pool pump, dryer, oven, cooktop. That way all the refrigerators, fans, lights, TV, cable modem, computers etc will run.

If your generator is large enough, and you put a soft start on the ac unit you may be able to run the whole house ac.

That's what we do, it's an easy step in keeping the whole house partially powered, and your Tankless water heater will work, no need to run power cables everywhere.

That's my plan once this is all passed.
We're running on a 6kw gen right now [borrowed from my dad].
Plan is to likely get something a little bigger in advance on when the next one comes & get everything configured for a whole house run [likely less AC, but would be good to be able to at least run the pool filter pump].

Question for our electrically savvy types: our champion outputs 240v into the panel. I was tossing around the idea of a second Honda inverter to parallel with our current one. That would give us 4200 watts. Can 120v be run into the same inlet as the big gen and have our 120v circuits energized?

New carb arrived, started right up on petrol. Huzzah.

CenterPoint map updated with eta...

My neighborhood is in the eta pending review, with some showing as fat out as 7/19.

Another week of this will be awful...

Down to 675k without power, for CenterPoint