That thing is amazing! I bet some hipster would pay a fortune for that just to hang on their wall as "art".

Hood said:

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Woah! Where do you feed in the punch cards?

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No kidding. I was kind of floored when we were looking to buy this house and came across this. This is the exact same system my Dad had in our house growing up that was built in 1977. It was state of the art back then. Thought I was in a time warp when I opened this up.

Dumb_Loggy said:

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That thing is amazing! I bet some hipster would pay a fortune for that just to hang on their wall as "art".

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When it breaks down I'm definitely keeping it. It will be my Andy Warhol piece that makes me rich.

Bottlerocket said:

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SoupNazi2001 said:

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planoaggie123 said:

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riverrataggie said:

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Neighbor's sprinkler system just turned on. Hah... Don't have enough ice John!

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I dont understand how this can happen. Dangerous and just stupid.

Plano emailed saying they will fine if they see you watering with the shortages right now....

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This happens because there are people who don't know how to operate or change their sprinkler settings.

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This was my sweet old octogenarian neighbor. She couldn't do anything around her house. I was constantly running over to turn off her sprinklers during a freeze or torrential downpour. She was a very sweet old lady though. she used to put birdseed around her crawlspace vents to feed the squirrels, mice and rats because she thought they were cute. RIP Mickey

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If we all had that kind of relationship with our neighbors, we wouldn't have so many problems. Thanks for the reminder.

Just watched a update from ERCOT those guys body language and tone sucks regardless of what they are saying

jimscott85 said:

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Bottlerocket said:

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SoupNazi2001 said:

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planoaggie123 said:

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riverrataggie said:

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Neighbor's sprinkler system just turned on. Hah... Don't have enough ice John!

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I dont understand how this can happen. Dangerous and just stupid.

Plano emailed saying they will fine if they see you watering with the shortages right now....

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This happens because there are people who don't know how to operate or change their sprinkler settings.

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This was my sweet old octogenarian neighbor. She couldn't do anything around her house. I was constantly running over to turn off her sprinklers during a freeze or torrential downpour. She was a very sweet old lady though. she used to put birdseed around her crawlspace vents to feed the squirrels, mice and rats because she thought they were cute. RIP Mickey

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If we all had that kind of relationship with our neighbors, we wouldn't have so many problems. Thanks for the reminder.

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Amen to that. We've been in our new neighborhood since June and my wife and I are both pretty introverted. Everyone has been very open this week with homes, power, hot food, equipment etc. Myself and a neighbor cleared driveways all day yesterday.

What did they have to say?

Very cool. That piece really does have an aesthetic. The rotational setting markers on the right knob create a cool floral pattern. Function and simple design accidentally(?) creating another layer of beauty.

Meh I've seen older. I see your MyQ for the garage door so you are at least a little into smart technology. Why not get a smart controller?

sure Redstone

wbt5845 said:

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One of the big questions coming out of this is going to be why rolling blackouts didn't happen. For instance - I was without power for 29 hours - the neighborhood just south of me never lost power - not even for one minute.

I realize that to give us power and cut them off, they had to move us somewhere first THEN cut their power. And maybe that's where the breakdown was. But no one EVER COMMUNICATED that - just dead ass silence.

IF I'D KNOWN this was going to be what happened, I would have left and gone to friends who offered their still energized house. Bu NOTHING was communicated.

As a point of comparison - City of Arlington water stopped yesterday around noon. Immediate posts to social media, e-mails, press releases, etc let us know what was happening. We have been getting updates every 4-6 hours on the status.

And as an aside - Dallas County Judge Jenkins had an excellent Facebook post earlier today about how ERCOT, Railroad Commission and the Texas PUC fumbled the ball. TPUC did not require certain weatherizing procedures for plants in order to lower costs - those plants tripped early. RRC did not require certain weatherization procedures to natural gas pipelines in order t save money, which caused their distribution system to fail.

Our highly deregulated energy system in Texas minimizes cost but leaves us vulnerable to this kind of natural disaster due to the emphasis on minimizing cost.

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The Musers read and email from a listener in California who mentioned during rolling blackouts addresses are put in groups, which people can look up online to see their group and where they are in relation to the blackouts.

I found this online. In CA you can click on your group number, see the cities included, click into that to see the specific map of the affected area
https://www.sce.com/outage-center/outage-information/rotating-outages/rotating-group-number

Quote:

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circuits have been arranged into groups. Each group includes a number of circuits that comprise approximately 100 megawatts of electricity usage per group, with each circuit generally serving between 800 and 2,000 customers. The amount of power Cal-ISO designates for curtailment will determine the number of groups that are interrupted at any one time (e.g., if Cal-ISO calls for 500 megawatts, we would interrupt service to about five groups). The groups will be interrupted, as operating conditions permit, and each outage is expected to last about one hour. At the end of the hour, service will be restored to the affected groups and the next groups on the list will be interrupted to maintain the amount of load requested by the ISO. Once a group has been used in a rotating outage, it is moved to the bottom of the list.

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How far away does Texas seem in relation to this?

tysker said:

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sure Redstone

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I'm in the irrigation and drainage business

mAgnoliAg said:

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Meh I've seen older. I see your MyQ for the garage door so you are at least a little into smart technology. Why not get a smart controller?

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I really like the simplicity of it and I've begun to appreciate analog technology more and more. It's actually more efficient to use than the digital controllers I've used. You can see everything at once and don't have to cycle through menus.

Obviously, when it eventually craters I'll have to upgrade, but until then I'm keeping it.

YouBet said:

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mAgnoliAg said:

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Meh I've seen older. I see your MyQ for the garage door so you are at least a little into smart technology. Why not get a smart controller?

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I really like the simplicity of it and I've begun to appreciate analog technology more and more. It's actually more efficient to use than the digital controllers I've used. You can see everything at once and don't have to cycle through menus.

Obviously, when it eventually craters I'll have to upgrade, but until then I'm keeping it.

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No cycling through menus with Rachio, set it up and it does all of the thinking for you. Plus it's connected to your phone and you don't have to physically be there.

Finally, it shows you exactly how much it watered by zone and day

The Pro HC goes even further and tells you how much each zone watered and why it watered that much and gives you reasons why watering times are/were cancelled, etc.

Got a company out replacing the padmounted transformer on our street

I'll check into these newfangled robot sprinkler apps when this thing fails. Those look nice.

YouBet said:

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I'll check into these newfangled robot sprinkler apps when this thing fails. Those look nice.

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And we have power!

Get a smart controller

Sun is out! Getting some meltage started a little early

Looks like capacity on Ercot is close to normal.

I'm in the minority, but I don't really see the need to have a wifi connected, live weather forecast controller with detailed reporting.

The hourly forecast for my neighborhood is routinely inaccurate, and I don't need a report to tell me if my lawn, shrubs, or flowers are getting enough water.

We water the two days Dallas has assigned us. If the sensor is wet or freezing, we just don't water. But I'm not going to skip a water day because of a little dew.

Then again, maybe it is just me, but I don't want to be tethered to a phone for anything.

Be honest... you wrote this on your phone while sitting on a toilet, didn't you?

Love the Raccho.

Sunlight! I'm gonna get a tan real quick.

I have a wifi controlled one but dont use the smart features. Like WiFi because I can turn it off without going into the garage. Complete first world problem, but most of the time I'm already in bed when I look at the forecast to see if I should shut it off or not.

Got a heater going in the wash room. That's the only thing that has outside pipes. Hopefully nothing has busted

I have a sprinkler story -> my system was set to OFF (which is how it is most of the winter, and it's a manual dial so being set to OFF is plain as day), yet my 1st zone somehow turns on yesterday. I see it spraying out the window, hustle to my garage, and the control panel is just reading nonsense. I had to unplug the system entirely to turn it off. It's a 20 year old system and I think all of the power off and on screwed it up.

I'm always that guy cussing folks that don't turn them off, but can now say apparently some can turn on even when off.

Yes power outages can screw with them quite a bit. Also some of the ones y'all see running could be stuck open valves. It's not always the owners fault

wangus12 said:

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And we have power!

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wbt5845 said:

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One of the big questions coming out of this is going to be why rolling blackouts didn't happen. For instance - I was without power for 29 hours - the neighborhood just south of me never lost power - not even for one minute.

I realize that to give us power and cut them off, they had to move us somewhere first THEN cut their power. And maybe that's where the breakdown was. But no one EVER COMMUNICATED that - just dead ass silence.

IF I'D KNOWN this was going to be what happened, I would have left and gone to friends who offered their still energized house. Bu NOTHING was communicated.

As a point of comparison - City of Arlington water stopped yesterday around noon. Immediate posts to social media, e-mails, press releases, etc let us know what was happening. We have been getting updates every 4-6 hours on the status.

And as an aside - Dallas County Judge Jenkins had an excellent Facebook post earlier today about how ERCOT, Railroad Commission and the Texas PUC fumbled the ball. TPUC did not require certain weatherizing procedures for plants in order to lower costs - those plants tripped early. RRC did not require certain weatherization procedures to natural gas pipelines in order t save money, which caused their distribution system to fail.

Our highly deregulated energy system in Texas minimizes cost but leaves us vulnerable to this kind of natural disaster due to the emphasis on minimizing cost.

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1. I agree with you about communication. The problem we're facing is in large part due to ERCOT and the ONCOR types not wanting to communicate. They wanted to try and slide the "15 off" rolling game so that few would. notice and no one would get mad and that blew up in everyone's face.

2. Even if he's right in this case, Jenkins can be real good about pointing out the failures of others. Why? Because he has plenty of experience failing himself.

3. Dereg is nowhere near the problem. We're not letting the professionals make the decisions on who gets what attention as far as our energy systems' needs.

posted on another thread, but this one gets more traffic, so I'll try here -

Have a few situations I'd love advice on -

1) Have 3 outdoor spigots. One seems fine (opens, water flows). Two will open, but no water flows. One of them is in the far corner of the house in the garage, in a wall I'm guessing has no insulation - the garage definitely isn't climate controlled, so it was sandwiched between outside and an unheated garage. Both have the little anti-siphon things, but I don't think they're causing any problems. Have put a heat gun on both of them for about 10 minutes and it led to some dripping (not consistent) but nothing else. The other one is in the corner of the house, but the inside of that corner is our living room which has been heated while we've had power (none for most of Monday, none most of Tuesday morning, but full power mostly since Tuesday night).

2) On the same exterior wall of the garage, we have a tankless unit (mounted outside). We haven't had hot water since Monday night. Today I was able to to hook up my flush lines and run some water through it, so it doesn't appear the unit itself is frozen, but I'm guessing it is the cold water pipe feeding it. When I say "we haven't had cold water", I mean nothing comes out - although as of last night, it usually drips a little, before completely nothing.

I'm guessing in all 3 cases (2 spigots, water heater) we have lines in the wall that are frozen...do I just need to sit and wait at this point? I'm assuming I should keep the spigots open?

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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posted on another thread, but this one gets more traffic, so I'll try here -

Have a few situations I'd love advice on -

1) Have 3 outdoor spigots. One seems fine (opens, water flows). Two will open, but no water flows. One of them is in the far corner of the house in the garage, in a wall I'm guessing has no insulation - the garage definitely isn't climate controlled, so it was sandwiched between outside and an unheated garage. Both have the little anti-siphon things, but I don't think they're causing any problems. Have put a heat gun on both of them for about 10 minutes and it led to some dripping (not consistent) but nothing else. The other one is in the corner of the house, but the inside of that corner is our living room which has been heated while we've had power (none for most of Monday, none most of Tuesday morning, but full power mostly since Tuesday night).

2) On the same exterior wall of the garage, we have a tankless unit (mounted outside). We haven't had hot water since Monday night. Today I was able to to hook up my flush lines and run some water through it, so it doesn't appear the unit itself is frozen, but I'm guessing it is the cold water pipe feeding it. When I say "we haven't had cold water", I mean nothing comes out - although as of last night, it usually drips a little, before completely nothing.

I'm guessing in all 3 cases (2 spigots, water heater) we have lines in the wall that are frozen...do I just need to sit and wait at this point? I'm assuming I should keep the spigots open?

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My advice is, yes - open the valves (including a hot valve on that water heater service and wait it out. Should probably thaw out tomorrow. Pex lines will make the hair dryer idea less effective.

Absolute said:

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JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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posted on another thread, but this one gets more traffic, so I'll try here -

Have a few situations I'd love advice on -

1) Have 3 outdoor spigots. One seems fine (opens, water flows). Two will open, but no water flows. One of them is in the far corner of the house in the garage, in a wall I'm guessing has no insulation - the garage definitely isn't climate controlled, so it was sandwiched between outside and an unheated garage. Both have the little anti-siphon things, but I don't think they're causing any problems. Have put a heat gun on both of them for about 10 minutes and it led to some dripping (not consistent) but nothing else. The other one is in the corner of the house, but the inside of that corner is our living room which has been heated while we've had power (none for most of Monday, none most of Tuesday morning, but full power mostly since Tuesday night).

2) On the same exterior wall of the garage, we have a tankless unit (mounted outside). We haven't had hot water since Monday night. Today I was able to to hook up my flush lines and run some water through it, so it doesn't appear the unit itself is frozen, but I'm guessing it is the cold water pipe feeding it. When I say "we haven't had cold water", I mean nothing comes out - although as of last night, it usually drips a little, before completely nothing.

I'm guessing in all 3 cases (2 spigots, water heater) we have lines in the wall that are frozen...do I just need to sit and wait at this point? I'm assuming I should keep the spigots open?

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My advice is, yes - open the valves (including a hot valve on that water heater service and wait it out. Should probably thaw out tomorrow. Pex lines will make the hair dryer idea less effective.

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Thanks Absolute - and yeah, I do have pex.