[Yaatri]

In 45 years the first time we suffered power loss was in July 2010 for about 5 hours. The second time was probably for an hour so, while we were away at the local Harbor Freight. The longest was in Feb of 2018 or 19 when we had no power for 5 days. Today, we were without power for about 8 hour.

With this limited data, I feel outage is becoming more frequent. It's becoming worse, Maybe power companies don't allocate as much finds for maintenance as local power grids get older. We never lost power for more than a few minutes where were in Delhi although power outages were quite common, more so than here. We were just lucky.

I would prefer a natural gas generator but my gas lines are on the opposite side of the house from the a.c. mains panel. The garage is on the mains panel side. I plan to store my generator in the garage when it's not being used. It's easier to have the power inlet just outside the garage so that I can just wheel the generator out when I need to use it.

I was born in a house with no electricity or running water. We used kerosene lamps for lighting, wood stove, saw dust stove, or kerosene stove for cooking. Water carrier brought water from a well, I remember cleaning glass chimneys of kerosene lamps.

 

[Yaatri]

I've been through multiple week-long outages in the 25 years that I've been in my house. Here it's weather related. A bad ice or wind storm will affect 1000's of customers and delay repairs due to limited crews. I've been vigilant in telling the power company about overhanging trees on my road - they always come out and take care of them.

Weather is usually the cause for outages. The snowstorm yesterday had no appreciable breeze at all but the snow was wet. A tree limb brought the lines down on our street and affected 5 or six houses. Shifting to another grid won't help homes affected by the downed lines. Being prepared and waiting it our is the only solution.

I must remember the underlined part. There is a neighbourhood forum my wife looks up off and on,

Some one asked a question yesterday. They wanted to know who would be responsible if their tree fell on their neighbour's car. A limb had snapped but was still hanging from the tree. It would fall on the neighbour's car if it broke off from the tree. They wanted to know if they should warn the neighbour! Good heaven's! Why won't you help your neighbour by telling them what's going on? They were more concerned about whether they could be held responsible! I don't know what the law will decide in such a case, but if I knew that my neighbour or anyone faces a possible threat from a tree on my property, I would let them know. Not telling them would be tantamount to negligence in my opinion.

 

[Emil]

What I said before was that the Co-Op does an excellent job with trees in my area. They trim all the trees on the service lines well. When there is an outage in my area it is generally caused by fuse due to lightning or a car striking a pole. All the meters in my area have Internet connectivity to the electric company, so they know instantly when a power failure occurs, and come out to fix it quickly. This is the best maintenance that I've ever seen from any utility company. If snow or ice causes a problem, that generally means that proper preventative maintenance hasn't been done.

 

[Yaatri]

What I said before was that the Co-Op does an excellent job with trees in my area. They trim all the trees on the service lines well. When there is an outage in my area it is generally caused by fuse due to lightning or a car striking a pole. All the meters in my area have Internet connectivity to the electric company, so they know instantly when a power failure occurs, and come out to fix it quickly. This is the best maintenance that I've ever seen from any utility company. If snow or ice causes a problem, that generally means that proper preventative maintenance hasn't been done.

My fault for misunderstanding the part about switching to a different provider. You stated very clearly that they switch to a different provider when your grid went down.

We took a tree down that was sick and it's branches were hanging on to the service drip cable. Our utility crew do go around trimming limbs of trees near the curb but home owners still have to be on the look our for trees on their property. Our meters too have the connectivity that you mentioned, and are read remotely. I am sure the software would let them know when there is a disruption. When we lost power for 5 days in February of 18 or 19, there was a widespread disruption due to trees falling on power lines due to the wind.

 

[Emil]

This company comes around every two years and trims all the lines including the drops. They care for the entire system. This is what maintenance really is.

 

[Yaatri]

This company comes around every two years and trims all the lines including the drops. They care for the entire system. This is what maintenance really is.

Honestly I was thinking of you in a bucket truck yesterday. Around 4:30 pm was when I saw the first message on their web site about my outage, which said they expected to have it fixed by 7:30 pm, later changed to 7:45.

saw a bucket truck drive by slowly on our street, turn around and then drive back around 6:00. I had a feeling they were making a final check to see if there was any other location on that segment of the grid that needed to addressed before restoring power in the lines. Sure enough we had power within half an our.