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Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

eukaryotewritesblog.com

221–230 of 346 posts

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#221
post #173

> 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 .

Multiple day outages in Winter are not unusual in our part of Maine. Nearly everyone has a whole home generator for good reason.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#223
I really do hate throwing shade on someone's article, but this reads like one of those "Pearls of Wisdom from Two Years of Junior-Level Software Development". Thanks, person who just a few months ago moved to a snowy, remote area with poor infrastructure, but this is NOT how you flush a toilet with no running water:

"Anyway, to flush a toilet without a running tank, dump about a gallon of water right into the bowl as fast as possible."

No, ya dork, you fill the tank then flush. There were a few other pearls, but no need to pile on. Anyway, I hope someone finds it useful or perhaps is put off the idea of moving to rustic, romanticized places when they'd be better off elsewhere.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#224

> 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 Finland, there's always news about tens of thousands of households being left without power for days after particularly heavy winter storms. It works as a reminder that yes, some people do still live in rural backwoods, their local electricity distribution depending on fragile wires suspended on wooden poles. Whereas living in a town of any size, blackouts caused by weather simply never happen.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#225
post #218
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As an adolescent in Fayette (Maine), I had great fun helping out our neighbors with summertime tree-pruning parties. FWIW we had few power issues during winter, and our winters frequently featured 4-6 feet of snow cover.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#226

> 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.

Indiana here. Power outages due to fallen tree limbs, frozen trees "exploding", ice accumulation on lines, etc. is fairly common.

It can take days to bring a grid back up after a major outage. The lead time to replace a city-sized transformer is nearly 4 years, now (ask Puerto Rico about that).

https://www.powermag.com/the-transformer-crisis-an-industry-...

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Finland, where you can easily get 30cm or more snow, all roofs are required to stand 100-300kg/m2 by law and most roofs are less than 30 degrees (e.g. 1:2 ratio).

A-frame or even 45degree angle roofs are very rare.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#228

> 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.

Also live in Norway, nord Trøndelag. Power went out 3 timeslast year, few times for days, but that was an unusual winter. This years it’s only gone out for a few hours.

Seems to be a maintenance issue, trees are not cleared well enough. Sambo said that the warmer winters make the trees more likely to fall over.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only limit to how strong you can make a roof is really money. If you space joists or trusses half as far apart you will about double the max snow load.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#230

> 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.

This is largely true in places with above ground power lines, like the US. I happen to live in an area with buried lines and have never actually lost power due to snow.
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