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Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

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Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#321

Post by pests »

joecool1029 wrote: post #27
pests wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snow and ice builds up on overhead powerlines. It can cause issues. States with tornados or hurricanes are more likely to build underground which avoids this. My location in SE Michigan is all overhead and, while we rarely lose power, I see tons of issues every ice storm that some unlucky few suffer through. I live very near a hospital and suspect I branch off their higher-SLA lines so that may be a factor. Warmer pl…

> I live very near a hospital Yeah, you won’t lose power much. That’s prioritized. I don’t get as many power outages in the winter as I do in the warmer months (in fall it’s not unusual to have some weeks without grid power). I did however get a freak outage before the last round of storms and cold. The overhead lines coming up the mountain to me have wetlands at the bottom, it appears a sudden extreme drop in temper…

> in fall it’s not unusual to have some weeks without grid power

This blows my mind. The last time I lost power was ~2 years ago and it lasted maybe 5 days. I know others in my area were out for longer. I suffered for a few days but ended up going down to Toledo and getting a hotel, thankfully only for one night as it was on the next day.

Outside of that, I can only thing of maybe ~100 hours total my power was out over the last ~5-8 years.

Aside, I do think I'm lucky in some way. I live off a semi-major road (40mph) and like I said earlier, less than 1 mile as the crow flies from a major regional hospital. But still most of my street will lose power and only me and a few neighbors will still have lights on. I always thought I was on some random spoke off the hospital grid but based on the surrounding outages it never made sense. There is a creek nearby to complicate things. One day I'll research/track the lines and see what's really up.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#322

Post by lkuty »

827a wrote: post #180

Interesting 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…

I realized this when I was on vacation in the french alps in summer time and saw a place dedicated for snow storage and labeled as such. I was "what ???" and then the penny dropped and I was impressed by that notion of having to store the snow somewhere since it does not disappear by itself. Funny

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#323

Post by fwsgonzo »

wasmainiac wrote: post #238
fwsgonzo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, also on an island. We lost power for ~8 hours during a storm, however that is the longest I've ever experienced. I have this stone fireplace: https://www.norskkleber.no/ovner/marcello/ (Marcello 140), which kept my 75sqm living room heated through the whole thing. Since that storm, we have decided to buy a second fireplace for upstairs with a cooking top.

Hey Vi burde alle chat litt. Vi bor jo alle litt i nærheten.

Gjerne det! Sitter her om dagen: https://discord.gg/4e3yd5ej

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#324

Post by jjav »

dlcarrier wrote: post #143
jjav wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between what winter-only tires can handle vs winter-rated all-season tires is so minimal that they're not with getting. Yeah.. no. The difference is night and day. Put on some Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires and prepare to be amazed. The grip on snow is spectacular. All the years I lived in snow areas I drove a Miata of all things.. RWD, light, no ABS, no TC, 4" clearance. But with Hakkapeliitta tires I n…

The difference between two-wheel and all-wheel drive is night and day, compared to the difference between winter and summer tires. Even then, it all goes out the door when conditions get icy and the only option is studs or chains, to get any traction. Chain controls, and really all winter regulations, like snow load factors in buildings and whatnot, are created locally, not by the state. Most politicians are from Sou…

Found this educational & fun video on youtube comparing a 4x4 car on summer tires vs. a 2wd car on proper winter tires:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atayHQYqA3g

Moral of the story: 4x4 is useless in the snow without grip, and to get grip you need snow tires.

If you ever need to drive in the snow, watch the video. Then get snow tires.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#325

Post by fransje26 »

esmIII wrote: post #274
dlcarrier wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the foothills in Northern California, and I've never met anyone here that changes their ties out for winter. When there's chain controls, they'll let you through if you have winter rated tires, including all-season, and all-wheel drive, otherwise you need chains. Everyone I know who drives a lot in the snow gets a vehicle with all-wheel drive and everyone else carries chains. (really they're cables, on a small…

I went to school at Michigan Tech where we would regularly get over 300 inches in the winter. I drove a Honda civic with snow tires. It was fine even on steep slopes. Winter tires keep you from loosing traction and sliding off the road. AWD helps you get back on the road after you slide off.

From what I've heard from people driving them, AWD is better than FWD going uphill, but a lot worse going downhill.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#326

Post by fransje26 »

dlcarrier wrote: post #145
kalleboo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nordic studless winter tires (different from Central European winter tires so also probably different from whatever you get in the US) do give some grip on ice, while all-seasons can be nearly as bad as summer tires. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-66968-2_... The government has done ongoing research on these subjects and the regulations do get renewed (e.g. some properly rated all-seasons are now…

I've also seen snow tires perform worse than all-season tires, e.g: https://www.tyrereviews.com/Tyre/Michelin/CrossClimate-2.htm vs https://www.tyrereviews.com/Tyre/Barum/Polaris-5.htm If tires complying with the standards overlap, then the standards are meaningless. When there's requirements for snow tires, but not for X brand or model of snow tire, than it's not doing any good. That's why it's important to have a s…

That's a pointless comparison.

1) The Michelin is 120 euro tire, vs the 60 euro Barum

2) The test page says nothing about the test conditions in which the tires were tested.

3) The Michelin tire test explicitly states:

     The testers explicitly recommended against standardizing cars with all-season tyres in Sweden, suggesting that drivers would be better served by dedicated summer tyres paired with proper winter tyres when the season changes, rather than this compromise solution that fell well short of true summer tyre performance.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#327

Post by fransje26 »

jjav wrote: post #134
dlcarrier wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the foothills in Northern California, and I've never met anyone here that changes their ties out for winter. When there's chain controls, they'll let you through if you have winter rated tires, including all-season, and all-wheel drive, otherwise you need chains. Everyone I know who drives a lot in the snow gets a vehicle with all-wheel drive and everyone else carries chains. (really they're cables, on a small…

> The difference between what winter-only tires can handle vs winter-rated all-season tires is so minimal that they're not with getting. Yeah.. no. The difference is night and day. Put on some Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires and prepare to be amazed. The grip on snow is spectacular. All the years I lived in snow areas I drove a Miata of all things.. RWD, light, no ABS, no TC, 4" clearance. But with Hakkapeliitta tires I n…

> The proper safe answer to driving in snow is top quality snow tires, not chains. Chains is the worst possible idea. The chain laws are laws created by politicians who live in sunny Sacramento and have never seen snow and have no clue.

Although I understand the sentiment, and agree with the general idea, I must say that living in the mountains, I have encountered snow conditions on uncleared roads where I did not manage to get home due to the icy/slushy/snow depth mixtures encountered on relatively steep sections. I would probably have made it home with chains if I had them, and had bothered to put the on.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#328

Post by [deleted] »

wellf wrote: post #123
Tor3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swimming (where, by the way?) or air conditioning isn't helping when walking outside.

Yeah it is basically don't walk outside much when above 35C. Unless you are a weird person with a body that can handle a 10km run in such conditions! Not me.

[deleted]

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#329

Post by fransje26 »

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…

It can rub a reader the wrong way because it is written in a sarcastic tone to self-reflect on things the author did wrong or didn't do.

Every piece of "advice" and patronizing questioning, such as "You did that, right? Right?", is a self-reflection by the author on things she should have done but didn't do, and learned that the hard way. It is not meant to be a patronizing statement to the the reader, but it is rather self-depreciation.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#330

Post by Maakuth »

Sharlin wrote: post #224
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.

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.

Since the Tapani storm of 2011 there's been a massive undergrounding of the power grid, so much of the rural areas are now also quite safe from outages. But there are still a lot of the old type of grid left and the economics for undergrounding those are increasingly unfavorable. Perhaps grid connected batteries next to the transformers might soon be more economical for many of these areas. They could serve other functions beside backup power, after all.
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