5 ms·
Anecdote: In my experience, a small but sizeable number of homes in suburban areas that are still outside the city enough to be affected by weather-related powe
by vinay427 6y ago
Anecdote: In my experience, a small but sizeable number of homes in suburban areas that are still outside the city enough to be affected by weather-related power outages every several months have whole-home generators connected to city natural gas lines. Growing up in one of these areas, there was the occasional power outage (once a year or so at most) but I can't recall any gas line outages. Those who had whole-home generators experienced no real outage, although in a colder climate having a gas heating system and a gas stove with a backup lighter/match are definitely more essential than keeping the lights on.
- TylerE 6y agoI'm more surprised that Nashville has city gas. It's not a very cold climate. It almost never even snows there.
- User23 6y agoFor many years there was an unholy union between the timber lobby and the lineman’s union that required all power lines in Tennessee to be above ground. Middle Tennessee regularly has serious wind storms that knock out those power lines, so gas is attractive. Also gas is just an efficient way to produce heat.
- SigmundA 6y agoA lot of cities in Florida have natural gas including mine. My cook top, hot water, dryer and pool heater run off it. Not used for heating the house as a heat pump is plenty for the mild winter.
- daniellarusso 6y agoWhat city in Florida? I have only seen this in newer planned communities, never city or county wide in Florida.
- SigmundA 6y agoClearwater, FL https://www.clearwatergas.com https://www.clearwatergas.com You can see a maps of the gas lines in FL and counties that have it here: http://www.psc.state.fl.us/files/PDF/publications/consumer/brochure/NaturalGasBrochure.pdf http://www.psc.state.fl.us/files/PDF/publications/consumer/b...
- philwelch 6y agoGas is useful for ranges or water heaters regardless of climate.
- TylerE 6y agoSure, but as someone who's lived in the Southeast my entire life, I've never seen city gas. Where there's gas there's a tank that's filled by a truck.
- selimthegrim 6y agoNew Orleans has it.
- frankydp 6y agoLack of gas service is mostly a geography issue ie rural vs urban, and less of a climate issue. Most of the small rural towns in the SE have gas service in at least the city centers, if nothing else for the municipal and the hospital generators. On site Propane storage can be super expensive capital wise, and also it just does not give you much runtime for any serious usage. The best solution is battery with generator backup for onsite, which our local 911 just went to in the SE, because the uptime in that setup was 4x generator with onsite storage because of the increased production efficiency.
- AdamJacobMuller 6y agoI thought it was a warm-ish area, but, its 20F there right now! https://darksky.net/forecast/36.1041,-86.7758/us12/en https://darksky.net/forecast/36.1041,-86.7758/us12/en
- TylerE 6y agoI live at basically the same latitude. That's thing... this is about as cold as it ever gets, and it was 70F here two days ago - 30 currently.
- beerandt 6y agoGas lines don't typically go out due to outright outages for these types of situations, but I've experienced multiple outages in the past few years due to the grid not being able to accommodate the surge of demand during large power outages. It's even worse/ more likely to happen for hurricanes, when natural gas wells and pipelines are shut-in in anticipation of the weather.