Power outages increasing?

[Cash]

We've lived in our current house for more than 20 years, and until perhaps two years ago power outages happened maybe once every two years (if that!) during a major snowstorm or nor'easter. They rarely lasted more than an hour or so.

Not any more. We get power blips that knock out the digital clocks and reset the furnace at least once a week now. Outages occur at least once every six months, and they last for hours -- long enough that I keep the generator handy at the front of the storage bay in the garage so I can get it out easily. We would have lost our freezer and the refrigerator contents several times without it. I bought the generator back in 1998 after we had a major ice storm that knocked out power for some folks for weeks (only a few hours for us). I hadn't used it but once since then until last year.

Is this happening to anyone else? Should we read anything into this beyond lousy maintenance by the power company?

[Cheryl in SD]

We've lived here 10 years & we average 2 outages of more than a day every year. I don't know that it has increased but that is enough. We have old lines & the power company insisted we have backup heat as they wouldn't guarentee electrity in bad weather. I think this will be more common place as the grid ages.

[littlebird]

Funny, our power went out last night again for over an hour. No storms, no rain, no wind, it wasn't even a really hot day. In the last three months our power has gone out five times that I know of. It has dipped many times and I can't rely on our alarm clock to be set to the right time to wake us up in the morning.

It makes me really nervous about moving out to our homestead and trying to store a bunch of our produce and meat in a freezer. Other than that though, we'll manage. Last night it was still light enough to read, and when it isn't we're generallly in bed, esp at this time of year.

[Spinner]

I've lived here about 15 years and power outages have been a regular part of life. It used to go out 2 or 3 times a month and would be out anywhere from an hour to 24 hours, once it was out for 2 weeks, another time it was out for a week. Our electricity has been more reliable this past year than it was in the past.

DH surprised me with a generator a couple years ago. I've only had to use it 4 times. I don't fire it up unless the power is off for at least 8 hours. It's great to have it when it's needed. It will power the pump, freezer, frig, a TV & VCR, some lights, along with a few other little things that's nice to have.

If you use a gen, be sure to look up the items in your home so you know how much power each of them needs. I have them on a list so I can look at the list to see which items can be used at the same time. I know that I have to unplug the freezer before I an use the toaster, and things like that. Appliances will burn up from low voltage if you run to many things at the same time.

[Westwood]

Power off/on at LEAST twice a week is the norm here. Just long enough for appliances blinking at you, resetting clocks, computer rebooting. They put in a new three phase power line down to the highway (4 miles) and it hasn't helped a bit. Phone service is no better so we finally got rid of the land lines and just use cell phones. Luckily we have wireless internet WAY out in the sticks.

Time was when every local electric utility had their own linemen and scheduled maintence. No longer. They pool linemen and only work on the lines when something breaks. That's deregulation for you. But has your power bill gone down? Is your service better?

[seedspreader]

Originally Posted by Westwood

Power off/on at LEAST twice a week is the norm here. Just long enough for appliances blinking at you, resetting clocks, computer rebooting. They put in a new three phase power line down to the highway (4 miles) and it hasn't helped a bit. Phone service is no better so we finally got rid of the land lines and just use cell phones. Luckily we have wireless internet WAY out in the sticks.

Time was when every local electric utility had their own linemen and scheduled maintence. No longer. They pool linemen and only work on the lines when something breaks. That's deregulation for you. But has your power bill gone down? Is your service better?

Is your wireless through the electric lines? I've heard something about that.

[Cash]

We have to reboot our wireless router every time the power blips. It's a royal pain.

[Westwood]

Our wireless is from our OzComm, our local ISP. They have quite a few wireless towers around this part of the Ozarks. We're SO lucky to have them! The phone company has splitters on the lines here so you can only connect 22.2 or lower. Useless, but they don't care.

[stonykill]

I was just commenting to a friend the other day how we have less power outages than ever. This is the 1st winter that I ever had a generator and I haven't needed it yet because of an outage. They trim the power lines of trees regular around here, and that seemed to make the difference. We used to lose power a lot, several times a year, usually for over 8 hours at a time. Not anymore.

[Westwood]

It's because you bought a generator!

[stonykill]

nope, paid $0, got it for free.

[sgl42]

i doubt you're imagining it, altho i haven't personally experienced any more power outages.

i have read several news stories talking about how the electric grid is maxed out, and the way the deregulation was done several years ago, essentially it doesn't pay anyone to fix/maintain the transmission lines, just their own power generation facilities.

--sgl

[radiofish]

Well here in California where a few years ago, when we had rolling blackouts in the summertime it was off at least once a week. Since Ahnold the Governator came to office - no more blackouts it seems.

Now in the winter, I live in a semi-remote area and this last January, I was without power for 4 days due to 8 inches of wet snow. Between my generator, 45 watts of solar panels hooked to my battery bank for my ham gear - I am ready for a power blackout. I look at power outages as practice for real emergencies like earthquakes. We had a 5.1 earthquake offshore yesterday, but we did not loose power or have any real damage from it. The earthquake did shake the house here, but not as bad as it did at the bottom of the hill.

Falling trees are usually the culprits for loss of electrical power up here on the hill... I do watch the AC Voltage on my incoming line and it is a steady 110 Volts AC at 60 Hz here with my ham radio test equipment monitoring it (Oscilloscope and Mechanical/ Analog Voltmeter). But I do have surge protectors on all of my electronics, one never can be too careful!!

[Old Vet]

Around here we used to have power outages all the time. Any wind or heavey rain and the power would go out and it would take about 2 hours at a time. Now the trees are trimed and the power outages are because someone hit a power pole. Now if we can get the power poles where no one can hit them it would be fine.

[kitaye]

Electrical companies here and in Alberta are saying they will be using "rolling power blackouts" to control people's consumption of electricity during the hottest part of the year. They will be applying them to all residential areas in both provinces.

I've not seen the stores and office buildings reduce their use. I've heard nothing about them being told to turn up the air and turn down the lights.

[Windy in Kansas]

I suppose that it is different because I still live in the city. The power company has crews stationed here I suppose in part because they do have a generating plant locally. This same utility company supplies a good portion of the state of Kansas.

I called the company a few years ago as the service would blink off for a fraction of a second, at other times just enough to trigger required resetting of digital clocks. The company thanked me for calling and were unaware of the issue. They called back within a couple of weeks to see if the interruptions had stopped. They had. They told me the problem they had found and thanked me for calling in, otherwise they wouldn't have known about it.

I've lived in my home since 1991 and can't recall more than twice that the electricity has been off for more than three hours. Both times during high wind storms. The company is very aggressive in keeping trees trimmed away from the lines.

[Selena]

Ah most politicians and/or local govt have been spending too much time holding their collective ankles for developers (hear the word rooftops stated ad nauseum and with a paki accent). Rampant, unbridled building has stretched infrastructure that was already neglected. Heaven forbid the perceived "surplus" would have been used to upgrade and maintain water, sewer, electric, phone, and gas (where applicable) instead of lining the pockets of the rich. So get used to an unreliable infrastructure and I guess I'll increase funding for our backup power supply.