The 8-Bit Guys house in Texas

[Homer J Simpson]

Lots in the news on the weather and power situation in Texas.

[MikeK]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

[GlennSprigg]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

Ha!!... I'm reminded of one of the (factual) quotes by some Aussies when Americans talk about how everything
is so big there....  Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

[Ian.M]

So, living in a state that for historical ideological/political reasons, doesn't have its power grid linked to the rest of ConUSA, being reasonably well off, and not having any sort of non-electric heating in spite of the fact that winter temperatures regularly go below zero (C), seems short-sighted at best.

Also anyone who's ever owned a boat big enough to sleep on or a RV, or a holiday cabin anywhere that it freezes in winter, and most DIYers know that if sustained below zero temperatures are expected with no or unreliable heating, you need to winterize all the plumbing.  'Bailing out' without shutting off the water was IQ below (unheated) room temperature stupid.  A smart guy would have shut off the water and drained as much of the plumbing as was practical without special tools or compressed air.

However he's got a history of 'stupid'
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/vintage-computing/video-the-8-bit-guy-commits-atrocities-on-a-vintage-ibm-computer/

It doesn't help that modern American home construction doesn't cope with unexpected water leakage anywhere near as well as traditional European construction.  Stud and plasterboard walls on a slab leave nowhere for any leakage to go without damage so instead of having to rip the plasterboard off one wall and re-do it, the whole house got flooded.  If there'd been a plank floor with a void beneath it and a drain at the lowest point, the damage would have been limited to one room.  If you are building a house on a slab, consider putting slot type floor drains across the doorways of kitchens and bathrooms, and sealing their flooring to the walls hospital style.

[JohnnyMalaria]

So, living in a state that for historical ideological/political reasons, doesn't have its power grid linked to the rest of ConUSA, being reasonably well off, and not having any sort of non-electric heating in spite of the fact that winter temperatures regularly go below zero (C), seems short-sighted at best.

I lived in TX. I don't agree with "winter temperatures regularly go below zero (C)". It was rare and usually only for the hour or so before day break. I'm not surprised that heating is primarily electric. Now I live in NC, and every year we get ice storms (a scary term basically meaning freezing rain) and they can leave rural areas without electricity for a few days. We also get tornadoes and hurricanes. But so does TX. This is the bit I don't understand about The 8-bit Guy who lives in a hurricane and tornado-prone location - why doesn't he have a generator? In NC, often when the power goes out, you hear the hum of generators from all around. Granted, if it was 0F then you might have had no luck getting a generator going.

[coppice]

'Bailing out' without shutting off the water was IQ below (unheated) room temperature stupid.

Yep. He talked about getting snow regularly, but people used to snow are DEFINITELY used to protecting outside plumbing. If they ever leave the house unattended they are also used to turning off the main water valve to the house.

A smart guy would have shut off the water and drained as much of the plumbing as was practical without special tools or compressed air.

Just opening a tap or two to relieve the pressure in the pipes is usually enough. Water doesn't usually expand enough to burst pipe if you start from zero pressure.

[Ian.M]

@JohnnyMalaria,
I did check climate stats for the Dallas/Fort Worth area before I made that comment: https://www.weather.gov/fwd/d32data
Of course Texas is a big state, extending over 10 degrees of latitude, and local microclimates can elevate minimum temperatures by several degrees so I don't doubt your experience.  YMMV.

[drussell]

Yeah, leaving your home unattended in freezing temperatures with no power and heat without turning off the water is pretty silly.  I would have at least shut it off and tried to drain as much as possible to limit potential damage.  I've always got some plumbing antifreeze out in the garage, would have poured a little in each sink trap and toilet too.  If you at least drain your water heater, washing machine inlet hoses and dishwasher inlet valve you've eliminated the most costly replacement items and with the main water off it will minimize any damage to the house itself.  Repairing a few burst pipes is an expense and is certainly annoying, but not nearly as bad as if you flood your house first.

[tpowell1830]

I don't know where this guy lives in Texas, but the temperatures that we saw during this storm was well below the winter temperatures that we normally get. Although I think it is unfortunate for all those many people who had pipes burst, the typical method for handling this is similar to what Ian described above. I don't know why this guy didn't think of this, but many people were caught with the same problem. In my area in Houston, the temperature dropped to the mid teens fahrenheit, and just north, in the single digits F, which is extremely rare. I prepared my pipes and outside water faucets because it was well publicized that the temps would be very well below normal. Preparation is key for a 120 year event like this. Again, this was revealed to everyone on the TV news channels, well in advance of this occurrence. You have to be aware that, in my area, the temperature rarely gets below 32 F (0 C) and if it does, it lasts a day, rarely more.

However, all I see is criticism and hate in the comments, not a bit of empathy. I don't understand this attitude. Perhaps someone could explain. Many people suffered during this extremely rare occurrence, blaming their ignorance is hardly justified.

As far as the comment about Texas being energy independent, this is true. One of the problems is that Texas produces more energy than it normally needs, and ERCOT had started selling power to neighboring states, which caused a power imbalance. Also, the electrical infrastructure is not really designed for such an ice storm as this, causing other technical problems and rolling blackouts. Once the temperatures climbed back above freezing, the blackouts stopped in my area. I hear from friends in other areas that they still do not have electricity after 4 days, but the storm is over now and things should be getting back to normal.

I for one am not looking for sympathy or empathy, never have, even in the most dire situations, but I do have sympathy for those that suffered and I hope that their lives and homes will be back to normal soon. Some children and elderly suffered, and some died in all of this and I wish them and their families nothing but the best.

The temperature here now is a balmy 66 F.

EDIT: One of the many problems in an ice storm where the infrastructure is not designed to handle is the roads. Many of our interstate highways have bridges and overpasses that will gather black ice and this cripples commerce. This is one of the reasons that grocery stores are empty. As the wreck in FW/Dal shows, it is disastrous to get out on the road during an ice storm in Texas, as rare as they are.

[Ian.M]

Yeah, leaving your home unattended in freezing temperatures with no power and heat without turning off the water is pretty silly.  I would have at least shut it off and tried to drain as much as possible to limit potential damage.  I've always got some plumbing antifreeze out in the garage, would have poured a little in each sink trap and toilet too.  If you at least drain your water heater, washing machine inlet hoses and dishwasher inlet valve you've eliminated the most costly replacement items and with the main water off it will minimize any damage to the house itself.  Repairing a few burst pipes is an expense and is certainly annoying, but not nearly as bad as if you flood your house first.

If you don't have plumbing/RV antifreeze, a good handful of salt dumped into each sink, bath or shower trap, and a couple of handfuls dumped into the toilet and any larger interior floor drains will provide freeze protection down to about -20 deg C.  Even if there isn't enough salt in solution to stop the traps freezing it will be slushy ice that cant burst them.   However its not great for long-term winterization and isn't suitable for winterizing appliances as the strong brine solution may slowly corrode metal parts.

Its possible he was confused due to borderline hypothermia, but I'm probably being over-generous to suggest that . . .

[JohnnyMalaria]

Yeah, leaving your home unattended in freezing temperatures with no power and heat without turning off the water is pretty silly.  I would have at least shut it off and tried to drain as much as possible to limit potential damage.  I've always got some plumbing antifreeze out in the garage, would have poured a little in each sink trap and toilet too.  If you at least drain your water heater, washing machine inlet hoses and dishwasher inlet valve you've eliminated the most costly replacement items and with the main water off it will minimize any damage to the house itself.  Repairing a few burst pipes is an expense and is certainly annoying, but not nearly as bad as if you flood your house first.

If you don't have plumbing/RV antifreeze, a good handful of salt dumped into each sink, bath or shower trap, and a couple of handfuls dumped into the toilet and any larger interior floor drains will provide freeze protection down to about -20 deg C.  Even if there isn't enough salt in solution to stop the traps freezing it will be slushy ice that cant burst them.   However its not great for long-term winterization and isn't suitable for winterizing appliances as the strong brine solution may slowly corrode metal parts.

Its possible he was confused due to borderline hypothermia, but I'm probably being over-generous to suggest that . . .

Sure, hindsight is wonderful. But Texas isn't used to that extreme cold. And based on how people panic buy when a hurricane threatens where I live, I would expect most people would have had a hard time finding stuff or knowing how to prepare.

Most of the continental US simply doesn't have the population density to raise enough taxes to construct the kind of utility infrastructure found in more dense places such as Europe. When I moved from Europe to the US in the 90s, it struck me that there is a significant cultural difference: things are built to be sufficient, not necessarily to withstand rare weather events. And the weather is more extreme, too.

[JohnnyMalaria]

@JohnnyMalaria,
I did check climate stats for the Dallas/Fort Worth area before I made that comment: https://www.weather.gov/fwd/d32data
Of course Texas is a big state, extending over 10 degrees of latitude, and local microclimates can elevate minimum temperatures by several degrees so I don't doubt your experience.  YMMV.

Great, which means all you have to go on is a table of numbers. Texas is big and unbelievably flat (except in the west) and there really aren't any microclimates, especially in the Austin-Dallas-Houston triangle where I lived. In fact, the weather for the entire state is quite predictable. Summer: 95F/95%RH. Clipper fronts general sweep down from the arctic but fizzle out before affecting Texas too much except in the winter when such fronts survive. The climate is nothing like Europe, for example.

Most of those "freeze" events would have been for about an hour or two before sunrise - not enough time to freeze pipes. This recent event is different. Prolonged and extreme low temperatures will freeze pipes quickly.

[bdunham7]

Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

That's a bit of an exaggeration, like by 25X.  And it is big and dry and doesn't support very many cattle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Creek_Station

[nctnico]

Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

That's a bit of an exaggeration, like by 25X.  And it is big and dry and doesn't support very many cattle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Creek_Station

I'd say it is whoefully inadequate. Amateur farming at best. The Netherlands has 1.5 times the land surface but has room for 97 million chickens, 12 million pigs and 3.9 million cows.

[bdunham7]

Most of those "freeze" events would have been for about an hour or two before sunrise - not enough time to freeze pipes. This recent event is different. Prolonged and extreme low temperatures will freeze pipes quickly.

A hard freeze may be rare, but not unheard of.  There have been enough similar events in the past few decades to give sufficient warning.  It's analogous to earthquake protection here in SoCal--severe earthquakes are 'rare' but can happen anytime, so building codes and other policies have been adapted to be ready for them. 

Where I live there would also be devastation if we got weather like Texas just had.  The difference is that the area has never, ever had such weather as opposed to having it once a decade.

[bdunham7]

I'd say it is whoefully inadequate. Amateur farming at best. The Netherlands has 1.5 times the land surface but has room for 97 million chickens, 12 million pigs and 3.9 million cows.

It's ranching, not farming.  And you can have all the land you want, but without water you don't get much.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Anna+Creek+Station/@-28.7992332,135.9691554,73029m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6a9cad5aad729a97:0x217767942e6c9550!8m2!3d-28.7564672!4d136.0657452?hl=en&authuser=0

(click 'Satellite View')

[ebastler]

Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

That's a bit of an exaggeration, like by 25X.  And it is big and dry and doesn't support very many cattle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Creek_Station

Well, "bigger than Texas" vs. "bigger than Israel" -- easy to confound; I mix those two up all the time... 

[bdunham7]

Well, "bigger than Texas" vs. "bigger than Israel" -- easy to confound; I mix those two up all the time... 

And Australia is right next to Germany, right?

[themadhippy]

Talk about over exaggerating,an inch or 2 of nice clean water and the place is "ruined".Try 3+ foot of mixed flood/river/canal/sewage water,that's how you ruin a building and make it nigh on impossible to get flood insurance again.

[james_s]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a state that doesn't have reasons not to live in it. Earthquakes, wildfires, floods, tornadoes, animals that will try to kill you, climate, economics, politics, geographic features, there's always something. You make your choices, settle down and hope for the best.

[james_s]

If you don't have plumbing/RV antifreeze, a good handful of salt dumped into each sink, bath or shower trap, and a couple of handfuls dumped into the toilet and any larger interior floor drains will provide freeze protection down to about -20 deg C.  Even if there isn't enough salt in solution to stop the traps freezing it will be slushy ice that cant burst them.   However its not great for long-term winterization and isn't suitable for winterizing appliances as the strong brine solution may slowly corrode metal parts.

Just make sure you don't have metal pipes before you use salt, a metal P-trap and drain tail are fairly common in older homes and most US houses have a garbage disposal in the kitchen, and houses from the 1950s and earlier often have iron drain pipes, salt will quickly corrode any of these things. I spilled a grain of air dryer crystals (calcium salt IIRC) in the sink at our cabin a few years ago and it rusted a spot on the stainless steel sink.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Talk about over exaggerating,an inch or 2 of nice clean water and the place is "ruined".Try 3+ foot of mixed flood/river/canal/sewage water,that's how you ruin a building and make it nigh on impossible to get flood insurance again.

Your frame of reference is different.

I've lived half my life in the UK and half in the southern US. Hardly anything about houses is the same. A building made of brick, concrete and plaster is very different than one made of wood, drywall and fibreglass insulation. Damp and mold are extremely serious issues for houses in the US. I learned that the hard way when I bought my first house in the US. Houses here simply aren't designed to last 100 years. It makes properties cheaper but everyone accepts the risk and finite longevity of the property.

[james_s]

Talk about over exaggerating,an inch or 2 of nice clean water and the place is "ruined".Try 3+ foot of mixed flood/river/canal/sewage water,that's how you ruin a building and make it nigh on impossible to get flood insurance again.

An inch or two of clean water that sits in a house for any length of time is enough to "ruin" it in the sense that it's going to have to be completely gutted. Carpet and flooring will be destroyed, drywall will often start growing mold that is virtually impossible to stop, requiring it to all be removed. It's common for particle board to be used as a base under laminate flooring and that will swell up like a sponge so all of the flooring has to be ripped out and replaced. Most kitchen and bathroom cabinets are made of particle board so any at the floor level will swell up and start falling apart. It may not look nearly as bad, and it won't be as gross to clean it out, but the financial cost of dealing with 3' of sewer water vs 2" of clean water is probably not as significant as you think. They're both going to require the interior to be stripped down to bare studs.

[nctnico]

Talk about over exaggerating,an inch or 2 of nice clean water and the place is "ruined".Try 3+ foot of mixed flood/river/canal/sewage water,that's how you ruin a building and make it nigh on impossible to get flood insurance again.

An inch or two of clean water that sits in a house for any length of time is enough to "ruin" it in the sense that it's going to have to be completely gutted. Carpet and flooring will be destroyed, drywall will often start growing mold that is virtually impossible to stop, requiring it to all be removed. It's common for particle board to be used as a base under laminate flooring and that will swell up like a sponge so all of the flooring has to be ripped out and replaced. Most kitchen and bathroom cabinets are made of particle board so any at the floor level will swell up and start falling apart. It may not look nearly as bad, and it won't be as gross to clean it out, but the financial cost of dealing with 3' of sewer water vs 2" of clean water is probably not as significant as you think. They're both going to require the interior to be stripped down to bare studs.

For a typical US build house that is. As JohnnyMalaria stated there is a huge difference between how houses are build in Europe versus the US. In Europe a typical house is built to be there for 100+ years. You can throw water and wind at it but worst case you need to replace some roof tiles, windows / doors and/or wall paper.

[james_s]

For a typical US build house that is. As JohnnyMalaria stated there is a huge difference between how houses are build in Europe versus the US. In Europe a typical house is built to be there for 100+ years. You can throw water and wind at it but worst case you need to replace some roof tiles, windows / doors and/or wall paper.

Well that's kind of irrelevant since we're discussing an event in Texas which is an area that is full of typical US houses. There are lots of 100+ year old houses in some parts of the US but outside of the cities most areas were pretty sparse 100 years ago and inside the cities land is so valuable that most structures get demolished and replaced due to obsolescence long before that. I think some of it is probably cultural too, I like old houses but most Americans would prefer to live in something new, and I have seen lots of people buy a perfectly good older house, then either tear it down and replace it with something big and modern but more cheaply built, or gut it and replace all of the old but high quality wood cabinets with modern looking stuff that is built of cheap particle board. I suppose houses don't have to last 100 years because most will end up being replaced for other reasons.