A Minor Christmas Miracle
Dec. 13th, 2008 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seawasp"I HAVE THE POWERRRR!"
Earlier this evening, checking the predictions for power restoration on Nigara Mohawk's site (well, National Grid's site which includes the borgified NiMo), I saw that they had revised it to TUESDAY AFTERNOON.
Well, at that point I KNEW I needed to get a generator and hook up the house. In particular, I was not confident my backup pump would be able to continue for another day, let alone two or three. There's a limit to what a battery could handle, and as the ground had not really frozen water has still been coming in heavily. So I left my family at the in-laws for dinner, and headed down towards True Value hardware (the only place that apparently still had generators, and was rumored to also be raising prices for them). True Value is very near my house, and as I approached I noticed a fair number of lights on that I thought were black earlier. But as I get to the intersection right at my house location, the traffic light (an almost perfect diagnostic for our subdivision's power status) is still black. Still, I have to turn around and head back to the hardware store, so I stop and I'm ready to turn there.
A NiMo truck is actually at the corner, with someone in a bucket; as I am sitting there waiting to turn, I see him reach out with a long pole and flip two pieces of the pole structure from vertical to horizontal... And the lights all come on.
So I thank them. It turns out that their management was COMPLAINING that they were doing this; apparently they're supposed to follow a particular schedule and procedure, but they decided on their own to stop and do this subdivision ... just because they could and it'd get a few more people their power just that much faster.
So after thanking them, I get to the house and go inside, call Kathy and give her the good news, and then make sure all the heat is on (it's still cold in here even now; takes quite a while to re-heat a house), and check out things.
The basement was JUST STARTING TO FLOOD when the power came back on. There is some water pooled around the very lowest parts of the basement -- none of it very high, a quarter-inch or so.
Had it even been a few hours later, I'd have ended up with who KNOWS how much water in there.
So I ran out and thanked them again.
Now I'll try the NiMo site again and see if there's anywhere to put in a thank you message.
Earlier this evening, checking the predictions for power restoration on Nigara Mohawk's site (well, National Grid's site which includes the borgified NiMo), I saw that they had revised it to TUESDAY AFTERNOON.
Well, at that point I KNEW I needed to get a generator and hook up the house. In particular, I was not confident my backup pump would be able to continue for another day, let alone two or three. There's a limit to what a battery could handle, and as the ground had not really frozen water has still been coming in heavily. So I left my family at the in-laws for dinner, and headed down towards True Value hardware (the only place that apparently still had generators, and was rumored to also be raising prices for them). True Value is very near my house, and as I approached I noticed a fair number of lights on that I thought were black earlier. But as I get to the intersection right at my house location, the traffic light (an almost perfect diagnostic for our subdivision's power status) is still black. Still, I have to turn around and head back to the hardware store, so I stop and I'm ready to turn there.
A NiMo truck is actually at the corner, with someone in a bucket; as I am sitting there waiting to turn, I see him reach out with a long pole and flip two pieces of the pole structure from vertical to horizontal... And the lights all come on.
So I thank them. It turns out that their management was COMPLAINING that they were doing this; apparently they're supposed to follow a particular schedule and procedure, but they decided on their own to stop and do this subdivision ... just because they could and it'd get a few more people their power just that much faster.
So after thanking them, I get to the house and go inside, call Kathy and give her the good news, and then make sure all the heat is on (it's still cold in here even now; takes quite a while to re-heat a house), and check out things.
The basement was JUST STARTING TO FLOOD when the power came back on. There is some water pooled around the very lowest parts of the basement -- none of it very high, a quarter-inch or so.
Had it even been a few hours later, I'd have ended up with who KNOWS how much water in there.
So I ran out and thanked them again.
Now I'll try the NiMo site again and see if there's anywhere to put in a thank you message.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 02:45 am (UTC)Those guys are heroes.
A generator is probably a good idea, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 09:22 am (UTC)also happy for me, because less time without electricity = more time for you writing = getting a new book faster :p
if you got their names (and it won't get them in trouble) name drop to their bosses! its the best way to thank them, as it might lead to promotions or raises.
now - back to the writing!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 09:44 am (UTC)(Pauses to boggle.)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 01:24 pm (UTC)In all the houses I've ever lived in, the basement can flood with more or less frequency depending on the exact location, the level of the water table, the time of year, the amount of rain, etc. In some houses, this is a very rare occurrence -- they're on a ridge way above the water table, rain runs off immediately, etc -- while in others the pump may be running, off and on, pretty much all through the year. (in some parts of Florida, most houses don't HAVE basements because the water table is so near the surface that sealing the basement would make them literally try to "float" out of the ground, and sump pumps would be trying to basically keep a leaking boat afloat)
Thus, all of them have had a sump pump -- a pump system that has a "sump" or miniature well, usually hidden off in a corner and covered, with a sensor -- a float like the one in most toilets -- that switches it on whenever the water in the sump (into which of course the water goes first, being lowest) gets above a certain level.
Obviously, something has to power the pump. They're usually wired into the mains.
For many houses, that's usually good enough. Most power failures don't last more than a few hours and in many cases that isn't a problem at all; it may be DAYS between pump activations.
In my current house, that's not the case. The yard is quite low, so that we can just BARELY get a slope from ground level near the house down to the storm drains, and so when it's wet (which it has been, and during the storm, of course, it was very very very wet)the pump is basically switching on and off every few minutes (it's a pretty beefy pump, so it can empty the sump within about ten seconds, said sump probably holding 30 gallons of water).
Having had a couple of prior floods in this house a year or two ago which really cost me (after having NONE the first, oh, four years I was here), I installed a backup pump, powered by a marine heavy-duty battery. This kicked in just fine. However, the outage duration combined with the wetness (thus forcing the backup pump to keep running much more frequently than one might like) made it run out of power after a couple days. Had the ground been frozen hard previous to this, of course, most of the water would have been kept aboveground and eventually made it down the storm drains rather than getting in my house, but it hadn't.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 06:33 pm (UTC)We don't have them in the UK.
No, I am not bullshitting you. British homes are on average 75 years old (the one I live in is coming up on its 180th anniversary next year: it predates Queen Victoria's reign). I've never lived in a building that was less than 20 years old. They were built to drain by gravity, or not at all. The indoor toilet and water plumbing was only added about 20-30 years after they built these apartments.
I can't guarantee that the UK is sump-pump-free -- come to think of it the Scottish parliament has a basement flooding problem (they built it in a valley, on top of a natural spring) -- but I don't think you'd get planning permission in this country for a house that needed an electric motor to keep it from flooding.
Or insurance ...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 07:19 pm (UTC)My great-aunt's house has/had a sump pump, in the middle of the root cellar - house was built in the 1830s. We have no basement here, but we know people who do had/have flooding problems because of rain or lack of sump pump.
Is there a (reasonable, non-costly) way to shield the outside or inside of your basement to prevent the water getting in?