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Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

eukaryotewritesblog.com

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Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#91

Post by dlcarrier »

Once I shoveled some stairs immediately after the first snowfall of the year, on a night well below freezing, and there was a boot print of solid ice frozen onto one of the steps. It's one of the creepiest unexplainable things I've ever seen. I can't think of any way it could have formed, and it was in the middle of a staircase with at least a dozen steps.

My best guess is that, because it was a wooden step, the boot print was permanently imprinted into the step itself, and somehow it had filled with water and frozen before the snowfall.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#92

Post by cess11 »

yokoprime wrote: post #25

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

In large parts of the nordic countries we have either killed off all the trees or dug down the cables, making power interruptions uncommon except when someone with an excavator cuts a line by mistake or bad maintenance leads to a fire or short.

In the population wise very small county here I live in Sweden we haven't come that far yet, so when the storms a while ago did their thing some people were without power for several days. Mine was out for some six hours or so. The forests around here look like "plukkepinn" and tore down many, many above ground power lines.

When I grew up in the late eighties, early nineties further south we had interruptions at every other thunderstorm and most regular storms. This is one reason why we had a wood stove and self-circulation for heating rather than a heat pump. Around the turn of the millenium they buried the power lines and since then my family there see almost no interruptions.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#93

Post by b112 »

eitland wrote: post #88
yokoprime wrote: post #25

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

It is really interesting for me to hear your experience. I have lived in Norway all of my >45 years on this earth and I can say that in the first half of my life were I lived on the west coast, power outages was totally expected. We had a generator, and we had a gas stove ("everyone" in Norway use electricity for cooking) for those days, a kerose lamp and a wood stove. The longest power outage I experienced was 3 day…

Likely city vs rural.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#94

Post by disillusioned »

Stratoscope wrote: post #87

Lately I've been fascinated by Yakutsk, the coldest large city on Earth. About 350,000 people live there, and winter temperatures can drop to –64°C (−83°F). And regardless of the temperature or time of year, they have shopping malls, restaurants, and everything else you might expect to find in any big city. Here are a few recent videos I enjoyed: 24 Hours in the Coldest City on Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D…

The outdoor market in that 24 hours video really got me. These women are just out here, selling very, very frozen fish, for hours at a time. Like... they didn't want to move that market inside?

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#96

Post by Tor3 »

dboreham wrote: post #83
fwipsy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really meant to be advice. It's the author's own experience, ironically written as if it were advice. For example: "You did bleach ten gallons of well water for long-term storage already earlier in the year, right? Good." This is sarcasm, because the author did not do that.

Perhaps it's an AI generated article. A real human would have realized quite quickly that you can put snow into the tank of a toilet when the power is out.

This is about _tankless_ toilets. They only work with electricity-powered flush pumps. That's why the author wrote about having to physically dump water into the toilet to flush it.

For our new home we're making we have two toilets (always practical). One of them is tankless, but we made sure the second one is a traditional cistern toilet with no electrical requirements. Just in case.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#97

Post by dlcarrier »

colechristensen wrote: post #30
yokoprime wrote: post #25

> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.

Those of us with above ground power lines especially not in cities experience power outages. Particularly when it's near freezing and there's significant ice accumulation.

My parents have underground power lines, and they've lost power multiple times, from vulnerabilities in the infrastructure. The transformers are still above ground, in big green boxes, and occasionally someone will drive into one and knock out power. The substation is also above ground, and once they lost power because a mylar balloon landed in the substation and shorted some lines.

They've also lost power from rolling blackouts due to not having enough power plants, but that's a California thing, at least compared to first-world countries. In a similar vein, a substation in the city my dad grew up in was once taken out by a sniper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#98

Post by qingcharles »

Stratoscope wrote: post #87

Lately I've been fascinated by Yakutsk, the coldest large city on Earth. About 350,000 people live there, and winter temperatures can drop to –64°C (−83°F). And regardless of the temperature or time of year, they have shopping malls, restaurants, and everything else you might expect to find in any big city. Here are a few recent videos I enjoyed: 24 Hours in the Coldest City on Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D…

Living in a place that often drops down to insane temps, I am also obsessed with watching the YouTubes from there.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#99

Post by cess11 »

degosuke wrote: post #84
computerdork wrote: post #23

Moved a year ago from California to northern Michigan. To add to this list, specifically regarding "Do NOT get wet and cold": o If you're walking out in the cold, have many different ways to keep your feet and your hands warm, because usually, you'll have a good-enough coat and winter-pants that'll keep your core relatively warm, but it's the very ends of your extremities that get cold (just got a small amount of fro…

Any recommendations about the boots? Or what to check for?

I prefer military boots, they have no branding and are typically designed and tested for decent longevity and comfort. My current ones are Bundeswehr surplus, I believe Meindl produced them. They cost about 60 euros or so, never been used.

Pick a size larger than you would usually do, unless they're explicitly designed as winter boots. In cold weather you'll want wool socks as well as regular socks and that requires some extra space.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#100

Post by dlcarrier »

hysan wrote: post #22

Something about the tone of the article just makes me want to write a retort / criticism instead of praising the advice. Maybe it’s because it feels like an incomplete list or that it’s too generalized but written like the author has learned it all. For example, no mention of learning when and what to do to avoid frozen pipes. Or how to fix things when it happens. Also, shoveling snow isn’t that hard if you have the…

This is a common reaction to posts on the internet, including blogs and Hacker News comments.
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