24. Live in CA.
Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
211–220 of 346 posts
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#212Interesting conversation I had with someone from a semi-warmer climate recently, as they visited: After seeing all the snow on the ground, they commented "wow it must snow all the time here". Me: "Well, we had that big winter storm, when was that, three weeks ago? I don't think its snowed much since then". You can see the gears turning as they come to the realization that snow doesn't, like, go anywhere. If it snows…
This is an interesting way to frame it, but then the obvious question is, for areas where it almost never gets above freezing, why doesn't the snow get infinitely thick? The other main ways you lose snow are: sublimation, wind blowing it elsewhere, compaction, and getting dirty (darker color helps it melt in the sun). All of these are relevant for other cities in the snow.
Compaction doesn't lose snow. It loses air. This causes the pile of snow to shorten.
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#213[deleted]
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends what you are optimizing for -- roof collapse in a high snow load local or the level of efficiency for thermal properties. You can drive for high efficiency of your thermal properties but when your roof collapses those efficiencies are meaningless. Home design is a game of engineering tradeoffs with the occasional new technology to improve things or lower costs.
An A-frame is a overkill solution to snow load when you can just make a shallower roof stronger.
Tradition says that this is not true but honestly I have no real experience except I have done the calculation for our roof. According to our local building standards at 60⁰ you basically have zero snow load, I am not sure what angle a shallow angle roof is but 30⁰ is max load. 6kN/m² is a lot of extra strength.
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#215> 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.
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Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#216> 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.
Might be all of that infrastructure paid by oil, on the other side of the border in a not that remote of an area (10people/km²). We have absolutely had power outages lasting several days.
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 rolli…
My neighborhood has underground power lines and we lose power every time there is a hurricane/tropical storm or even a major thunderstorm.
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#218> 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.
living in New England, I have also never heard of this and I don't think it's understandable at all. Trees are pruned around power lines for a reason .
come up to maine and see how much pruning the power companies do. there's a reason high wind and heavy snow storms trash power lines
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
growing up in chicagoland when it snowed blizzard level often with lots of accumulation (70s, 80s), the power never went off, to your point also.
Losing power is highly correlated with above-ground power lines. Who'd a thunk that.
and wildfires, see PG&E in CA.
they're expecting to spend 10B burying lines in the mountains.
New england is pretty much one big rock garden/shelf where you're not digging through soil in alot of places but rock ledges.
Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
#220> 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.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere Midwest (where it snows plenty), and our electricity came from a rural co-op ("rural co-ops", because no one else is going to drag electrical wires out here, so we'll do it ourselves). We rarely lost power, the infrastructure where the TFA author lives just sucks.