The tanks are insulated and in theory the attic shouldn’t get *that* cold, and being they’re gas I’d throw them into vacation mode or drop the temp after shutting off water to the house. My uninsulated 60 gallon fish tank was fine for 24-36 hours without power during a really bad winter storm once, it only lost ~10F, the (poorly insulated) house dropped almost 30.
During the worst of times - not much external was available due to the size of the storm …
That’s what I’ve done , set it to the lowest setting and shut the main water off
Expansive clay soils deter basement construction.
Which I don’t need and have plenty gens if I wanted to
All electric is BS - regardless of where
They have plenty black outs - but likely won’t freeze to death …
I'm definitely not bashing Texas, I'm just not a fan of high levels of wind penetration because it tends to produce heavy dependence on gas, and often that capacity doesn't run frequently and then gets rushed into service under horrible conditions. This is exasperated in a market like Texas has, since there's little incentive to over-invest in maintenance and winter-proofing of this type of equipment, things are very much run on the ragged edge for the best profit.
Well - lots of folks rushed in to defend wind and blame NG … but again our media is not owned by Texans …
The cold snaps don't last long here, but we do get them a couple of times each year, and they are usually not extremely cold like Wyoming can get. I do remember a couple of years in the 80's and once in the 90's where it never froze all winter. Climate change has made the hot snaps hotter and the cold snaps colder.
Yep, that argument was insane, wind wasn't expected to show up (ERCOT wasn't planning on significant wind capacity) but because a tiny bit did, it was "the saviour" while gas capacity faltered, but still showed up at a much higher level than wind, but it was derided and panned as the reason to invest in more of what wasn't expected to show up...
100 miles down the road - honey, we have to go back 