Contrary to blog etiquette, I intend to edit this post repeatedly as people hand over their photos.
The deluge
On Tuesday 2011-1-11, Karalee was flooded in. Most of the houses out our way were high and dry, but water came within a metre of the lip of the house yard.
There is only one road to the highway. This was cut in two places by water over low bridges, three and five metres deep.
It was still possible to get out over the high ground through private properties, but only if you had a jeep or a trailbike.
The darkness
Power was cut on the 11th and restored on the 16th. Cooking was no problem: everyone out our way has a gas barbeque and our house stove runs on gas anyway. (Except for the oven, which is electric. Why would anyone make a stove with gas rings that requires plumbed gas and has an electric oven? That’s stupid! We used the BBQ oven instead.) Hot water was no problem, we have a solar hot water system.
We should have had power during daylight, because we have a 3kW PVA on the the roof. But it seems that grid-tie systems are designed to shut down when the grid shuts down. This too, if you ask me, is bloody stupid. I mean, auto-isolate from the grid for sure, otherwise Energex can’t repair the distribution grid. But inside the house grid, that should be separately switched.
Industrial light and magic
This is going to change. It appears we will have to buy another inverter, and I will have to get a sparky to seriously rearrange our switchbox. Never mind what the regulations are, to address the real safety issues the switchbox needs a flashing LED sign that says PVA 240VAC ON, with one of those pull-out-handle rotary pin switches.
We also need a connector for a generator to feed the house grid. Terry (our neighbour) bought a colossal generator and we ran our house off that during the emergency, but I want my own, partly because he might not be present when power fails, and partly as a backup.
My friend Mark found one on eBay, a hefty 8kVA 3-phase diesel unit, properly silenced and with auto-switch-over, which is to say that it starts automatically when the mains power drops and switches the house from the main grid to the generator.
The emergency is over, but we’ve lost power three times in the last twelve months not counting the flood. Two of these incidents were for more than 24 hours. The grid is convenient, but it cannot be trusted. Nor can the people running it; any time they have a choice between my convenience and covering their own asses they will choose “safety”. Safety for themselves. We know in advance that they will behave like this. We can take steps or not. Either way, we get what we deserve.
Some people weren’t so lucky
