Blustery!

[elfs]

There is one sound guaranteed to wake me up in the middle of the night: the sound of the electromagnetic ram on the gasline failing. It's a very loud "Clunk!" sound, and it means that the power has gone out.

I awoke last night to that sound. It was pitch black, and the wind outside was really blowing. This morning powerlines were down throughout the county, but I have to give Puget Sound Energy kudos for getting us back on-line by 8:46am. According to LisaKit, it went out around 1:32am. I'm fairly happy with the notion that I slept through the night without the comforting backup of electricity.

But now there's all this debris in our yard. That'll be fun to clean up.

Comments

[tamino.livejournal.com]

"electromagnetic ram on the gasline"? I'm unfamiliar with such a device -- does it have to do with a specific appliance (furnace, etc)? Or is it house-wide? Is this is a northwest thing? (we have automatic gas shutoffs here in california, but they have to do with earthquakes, not power outages...)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

It's just a heavy weight that opens when the furnace wants gas, and is closed when the furnace is done. A powerful magnet pulls it open, and gravity shuts it, which is good because that means it shuts off automatically when the power goes out.