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Comment by commandlinefan | Hacker News Reader

> Is it worth paying 10% extra

No, cost-benefit-wise, it isn't: it makes more sense to buy a generator and have it handy. Even if you have to replace it every 10 years, you're still ahead. I'm not being entirely callous here, either: I live in Dallas and just lived through 3 days of intermittent power and heat and it sucked a lot. I'll be investing in a power generator in a few months (when they become available again). If half the homes in Texas had been able to switch to their own generators for a few days, the grid would have been able to sustain the remaining load.

The worse problem we have down here is water, and there's not a whole lot an individual can do about that: if we're going to collectivize the winterization of anything, I'd rather it be the pipes.

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Your position is that everyone should have generators instead of having infrastructure that doesn't require everyone to have generators?

Some people have generators no matter what, but it seems a stretch to think you can't rely on your energy infrastructure a bit more than that.

i see your point but you have to realize how unique the situation is. No skyscrapers in Texas are built to withstand earthquakes (that i'm aware of) but if one did happen I wouldn't blame the building codes and builders for the destruction and demand that all buildings be retrofitted to withstand earthquakes.

The entire state of Texas was under a winter storm warning at one point. Texas is a very large state with significant differences in climate from North to South and West to East, having the whole state until a winter storm warning is unheard of.

Stores are already out of water. They would quickly run out of gas to power everyone’s generators.

Definitely generators would have helped, but only to a point.

If you want to do it right, you probably have a generator wired in that feeds off a big propane tank. There's also a lot to be said for having an automatic system that works even if you're not home. (That said, this is the perspective of someone in a northern state who normally travels a lot so I come at this from the perspective of not losing power for an extended period during any random winter.)

right, there are setups that would have helped people get through the situation better but actually needing it is so rare as to not be worth the cost. When it's > 100F in Chicago for three weeks in a row things start to fail because that is very very rare. Three weeks > 100F in TX happens every so often and we have plans for it.

A state wide winter storm and sub-zero temperatures is pretty unheard of for Texas and so, yeah, things fell apart.

TBH, I have never actually sprung for one in New England although I'm periodically tempted. The main culprit for extended power outages in New England tends to be ice storms so the temperatures are usually not especially cold.

I'm also on a fairly major road in an exurban but not really rural environment. I'd probably feel differently if I were at the end of a country road in the middle of nowhere. I also don't have vulnerable people at home. The only thing I really worry about is my pipes. Other than that, I'll fire up the wood stove and get out the lanterns.

The smallest Trane air handler/heater combination I looked at (https://www.trane.com/content/dam/Trane/Commercial/global/pr...) is only around 6000-7000 watts; you'd want a 10kw generator and a Genrac portable would run you about $1000.

Keep up with the maintenance; you'll probably want to try filling it with fuel, running it, and draining the fuel a couple of times a year.

Note: this is just for heating; don't plug anything else into the generator while you're heating---the peak startup loads make generators sad.

If you've got natural gas (uh, whoops) or propane, a whole-house generator would only be a few thousand more (not counting installation). (I've considered one, but we don't have either, which means either getting a propane tank and service or going with diesel, which has maintenance aspects.)

That might make sense for you personally but if you consider all the other Texan households also buying generators, and the multi-family dwellings that can't each have a generator, the math starts to look different.

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