54 hours later and we have power!  The lineman was literally 5 minutes from the time he got out of his truck.  We are bottom of the rung when it comes to service.  Told them at 8:30 on Monday morning that we knew exactly what it was a (2 fuses on line) and it would take less then 10 minutes to fix, tried to explain this has happened about 7 times in the last 8 years.  All of you can guess their response!

Hey at least I can wash 54 hours off me in about 1 hour when the tanks get hot!

It is what happens with behemoth, virtually unregulated, monopolies.

It is what happens with behemoth, virtually unregulated, monopolies.

The unions have a lot to do with the inefficiency.

I find the last two posts a bit inflammatory.  I'll hold my comments.

Let er rip!

I find the last two posts a bit inflammatory.  I'll hold my comments.

Nothing I enjoy more than a good debate.  You are a mature, reasoned person who is not snippy or snarky, so I would enjoy your perspective.

Alrighty then. 

Since we have been discussing power companies...

When I lived in the Denver area a transformer on the ground blew about 1am, and cut power my house and some others.
It was located in the yard behind my neighbors, cross corner from me so I had a great view from my 2nd story window to witness the repair.
Didn't really know it was out until the vehicles showed up. Lots of them.
Don't remember the exact number, but there were at minimum 4 maybe 5 guys on the other side of the fence, with 3 (or 4) talking and one working on disconnecting the bad transformer.

After the work was done and everyone gabbing now, and hour passed before two vehicles showed up in front of my house.
One was a truck with the new transformer and a mini-fork lift of sorts on the back, with one person in it.
The person in the other vehicle had to have been a supervisor, because he did squat, just watched.
So it took about 45 min. to an hour to get the new transformer from the street, down to the fence and lifted it over the fence.
Then lifted the bad one back.
So you had about 6 or 7 people and 4 or 5 vehicles, to do the work of two people and one vehicle.

I have a lot more from when I had to deal with unions when I worked at Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon) in Calif.
It was really difficult to do our work having to deal with them.
Can you tell I don't like unions ?

Glad you are up and running again, that had to be a nightmare. We were without a few years ago due to an ice storm and I thought I was going to need therapy. It was just shy of 48 hours. That is when I bought our generator.

Winter is the main reason I got a generator and a portable propane heater.  I got some snow (1/2") a few days ago and the electric heat pump ran all the time.  The temperature got down to 13 then and it is expected to get that low again today.  The local electric coop has spent the summer cutting a lot of trees around the power lines angering homeowners.  Last year this area had a record breaking snowfall that a lot of people lost power from. 

I am checking into getting a propane fireplace built into a media center.  I have an electric one now like that.  I want more dependable heat in case the power goes out.

Winter is the main reason I got a generator and a portable propane heater.  I got some snow (1/2") a few days ago and the electric heat pump ran all the time.  The temperature got down to 13 then and it is expected to get that low again today.  The local electric coop has spent the summer cutting a lot of trees around the power lines angering homeowners.  Last year this area had a record breaking snowfall that a lot of people lost power from. 

I am checking into getting a propane fireplace built into a media center.  I have an electric one now like that.  I want more dependable heat in case the power goes out.

I had a free standing gas fireplace/stove thing. I really liked it, it didn't put out the heat that the pellet stove I replaced it with does, but other than cleaning up the dust and a pipe cleaner through some of the orifices occasionally was about all the maintenance that was required. I replaced it because it was expensive to operate for what I got out of it. I guess I should have shopped for propane, but just went with the supplier I had always used for my gas stove.

It is 10 degrees here and we are without water because of a watermain break. Should not be without long.

It is snowing here and the temperature got down to 17 before it came back up to 19.  So far everything is still working.

Winter is the main reason I got a generator and a portable propane heater.  I got some snow (1/2") a few days ago and the electric heat pump ran all the time.  The temperature got down to 13 then and it is expected to get that low again today.  The local electric coop has spent the summer cutting a lot of trees around the power lines angering homeowners.  Last year this area had a record breaking snowfall that a lot of people lost power from. 

I am checking into getting a propane fireplace built into a media center.  I have an electric one now like that.  I want more dependable heat in case the power goes out.

I had a free standing gas fireplace/stove thing. I really liked it, it didn't put out the heat that the pellet stove I replaced it with does, but other than cleaning up the dust and a pipe cleaner through some of the orifices occasionally was about all the maintenance that was required. I replaced it because it was expensive to operate for what I got out of it. I guess I should have shopped for propane, but just went with the supplier I had always used for my gas stove.

Propane is the only option here in NW Arkansas.

Been looking at whole house generators.  From what I can tell, the ones in the 20kw to 24kw range take 2-3 gallons of propane to run an hour.  That would have cost about $400 for the 54 hours we were out.  Kind of ridiculous, as we could have stayed in a motel for $350 for the 3 days.  Now, granted we would have had to have the small generator going at the house to kept fridge and freezers going.  I had no idea it was so costly to run a propane generator.  Am now looking at a 17kw gas generator that could be brought up and plugged in if something like this ever happens again.  Would have to pick and choose what could run, but that would be easy.  The difference in the whole home is it would save food if it happened when we are on vacation, but to me that is a long shot when we have only had two 48+ hour incidents in 10 years!

Edit: I have looked at 15kw gasoline generators and they would cost about $120/day to run...so more cost effective to get hotel room and come back every 12 hours and gas up 4000 watt home generator!

When we lived in the NW (Kirkland, WA.) we lost power all the time, so the last house that I built there, 2004, I has an automatic generator built in. Whenever power went off, it was restored within 20 seconds. It was not all that expensive to have installed.