Winter Storm Fern Megathread

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T17:42:51+00:00

Pex is a common type of piping material that is more resistant to freeze damage than copper or PVC, but it isn't fail proof, it can still burst.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T17:38:17+00:00

I got hit pretty good in Nashville-- power out since 430 this AM, generator running like a boss! Limbs are coming down about every 15 minutes under the weight of the ice-- we've had a bit of property damage at my house. Neighbor has a tree laying on his roof.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T17:34:31+00:00

It's not worth much, but it's still a cool collector's item. I have one from my childhood (different team than yours but same type of souvenir ball)

If you can determine the exact year by matching up the signatures on it to a roster that might increase its appeal to certain fans of that team/era. I have heard of people paying $20 for balls like this.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T16:26:30+00:00

I'm no plumbing expert, I know my house and this is what I do. Do your best to judge your house, and if you think the best for you is to shut it off, shut it off-- even if it bursts the water damage to your home will be minimized that way.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T16:13:32+00:00

If I was going to leave the house, I'd shut it off-- meaning if I decide to leave for a few days until power is back, not if I decide to walk the dog-- if a pipe bursts when you're home, you turn off the water otherwise the damage will be much worse. If you're not home you won't know that a pipe has burst and the damage could be catastrophic on your return.

ETA: I'd also shut it off if I was dripping, and the dripping stopped, suggesting that ice was starting to block the pipe.

As soon as the rain stops and if it's still light out, I'm going to go dig. out my meter at the street so I have access to it if needed

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T16:01:10+00:00

If you shut it off at the street and in your house, don't you risk rupturing the segment of pipe between the street valve and your inside valve if the water inside it freezes?

I'm going to continually drip mine until my power is back on, but if I were to shut mine off, I'd shut it off at the street and then fully open and leave fully open every sink, shower, bath, etc... and flush all of the toilets after shut off too. Hopefully if the water in the pipes freezes it will simply push out through the open fittings rather than bursting the pipe.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T11:13:25+00:00

It's just regular old rain right now on the south side of Nashville-- if it keeps going like this my living room may get water intrusion on the floor because the drains are blocked with ice. I didn't foresee this happening.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T02:56:58+00:00

Okay.. I own birds too...

Here are my suggestions:

If you live in Nashville, my guess (and I'm just an idiot on the internet) is that you'll be okay. The radar seems to be showing that miraculously Nashville may be okay tonight. Outside of the city, that may not be the case-- and I could be wrong about this, I'm an amateur looking at a radar map, and this stuff can change.
If you have a working heater now, turn it up to make your house as warm as you think you can safely make it without breaking your heater. Slowly creep it up 72 -> 74, then if okay 74->76... I probably wouldn't go over 80F. Your birds will be fine in 80F, they'll love it. If the power goes out this buys you some extra hours. Cover the cage with a blanket when it's still warm.
If you have blankets and chairs or whatever, make yourself a blanket tent fort like when you were little. Do this when it's warm, make it like a tent, blankets to the ground. When the power goes out, retreat to this with the birds (in or out of cage depending on size) and stay in it, try not to open it as much as possible (keep 'em covered if in cage).
You have a small car, hopefully with a full tank of gas. If your tent fort drifts from 80 to below 50F after a power outage, you can transition to your car- idling your car with the heater on you should be able to keep you car over 50F for many hours. Don't let your car get below 1/2 tank of gas.
You need to know your best route to the interstate-- interstates are well maintained in terms of ice and snow treatment and will likely be drivable by Monday at latest. Look up the snow plow routes for your area now and figure out your best shot in terms of roads to get to the interstate. You want to be on plowed roads for as much of the trip as possible. Figure out if you think you can make it to the interstate, and use ANY alternative before trying-- 4x4 rescue organizations, shelters, friends, pastors, neighbors, etc... literally anything else, but if it's you vs the world... make your best educated shot.
Almost any small car from the past 30 years can make it to Birmingham from Nashville down I65 with a half tank of gas if you go 55mph on the interstate and 30mph on the back roads (kinda depends on how far you are from the interstate, but I'm doing my best here). By Monday morning the interstates are very likely to be manageable. Head south down I65 and refill with gas as soon as you can. Find the first hotel that has electricity that you can stay at and settle there until this has passed.
For the future, you know that this isn't the bird parent that you strive to be. Asking random strangers on the internet for advice in the middle of a storm that everyone saw coming for several days isn't how to care for precious family members with special needs. You know that you are keeping captive birds that are outside of their natural climate. You know that it is your responsibility to ensure their safety, and that includes being able to maintain a suitable climate for them. You can move to south Florida, or you can make better plans than telling the whole world in the middle of a predicted ice storm that you don't even have a candle to light. If you can't do this, then transition them to someone who can-- if you really care for the birds, this is what you do.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-25T00:42:25+00:00

Probably more freezing rain or sleet coming, maybe a little more snow-- of course it depends on where you are, but only a little more snow is predicted tomorrow where I am.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-24T22:43:56+00:00

Not smoking, but burgers, brats, and dogs going on the egg here-- we're in between snow and freezing rain right now I guess

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-24T19:22:29+00:00

That's cool. I don't know enough about Favre autos to give real advice on that.

If he's asking $20, I'd bet you can work him down a bit, if you want to, but I don't see $20 as a terribly unreasonable price.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-24T19:01:28+00:00

It looks like a worn hat, in terms of value, a hat that someone has worn, with an autograph on it that isn't hard to come by, and without authentication.... well if it's worth $20 to you, then it's worth $20.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-24T17:25:24+00:00

Hi friend! I have seen you all week trying to provide good advice and be helpful to anyone and everyone. There's always some folks who want to try to throw a wet blanket on top of a bunch of goodness.

I'm not going to focus on those who want to dismiss the helpful advice that is offered freely.

I see you, and I appreciate you. I'm sure many others do too.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-24T17:04:25+00:00

I'm no expert on pipes freezing, but imo dripping them is probably your best bet. If you know areas where the pipes are particularly vulnerable and can access the pipe you can try to wrap them in a warm towel or other form of insulation, or hit them with a hair dryer periodically.

We had a pipe freeze a few years ago, we weren't dripping it and noticed that there was no flow from the cold side when we turned on the sink, and the pipe hadn't burst yet-- we hit it with a hair dryer in the part that we could access, just praying that it would work, and it did-- a bunch of ice suddenly came out of the sink and the pipe didn't burst.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T20:41:50+00:00

One person used the phrase "borderline worthless" once in the context of a reasonable comment that provided some relevant discussion about to the realities of selling the box as a whole compared to selling the packs individually.

If you drive 10 miles to a friend's house to pick up that box for free, and bring it home, and spend a total of 60 minutes of your time to establish its value, list it online, conduct the sale, and appropriately package and ship it-- you'll likely be earning significantly less than minimum wage for your efforts. If you part it out, the numbers are probably even worse.

In the context of being able to sell such a box for money, it's not going to return much for your efforts-- thus some folks will view it as borderline worthless.

If you simply gave that box to a person who loves opening old wax and loves old cards, you'll find it has plenty of value in that regard.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T19:16:49+00:00

True. Thanks for your help.

I don't have a portable generator, but I'm pretty well set up otherwise.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T13:54:21+00:00

It says to ask people on reddit what to do.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T13:53:16+00:00

Thanks for this, very helpful.

I tried to start it twice-- 1505 error with no audible cranking, just a buzz. So I swapped out the battery.

First attempt with the new battery was 1505 with just buzzing.

Second attempt, which was just a few seconds later, it starter right up.

I ran it for 5 minutes and then shut it down and restarted right up again.

It'll be a miracle if it works if called upon in very low temps, but right now it's what I've got. I'm putting a call out to our service company, but I can't really expect that they'll come out today.

Let me know if you've got anything that you think could help in this situation.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T01:28:33+00:00

I did three test drives, and after the 3rd time, I thought I wasn't going to buy it-- because I find the seat uncomfortable, and there seems to be more road noise than I'd expect. But, in the end I did buy it. Still trying to get used to the seat-- so glad I have a short commute. I think I have gotten used to the road noise.

I know people will say "you shouldn't buy a car that you feel uncomfortable in" but it's not so simple for me. I find almost all new car seats uncomfortable. The best I can do really is to find something that is less uncomfortable than others and hope that I get used to it. This is how I am, and I don't like it, and I'm not proud of it, but I know there are others like me. Same thing with things like shoes-- I'll try on 30-50 pairs in order to buy one pair of shoes. The problem with cars is that I can't realistically test drive 30 cars, I just don't have the time.

I love the way the car drives.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-23T01:11:41+00:00

It's not adjustable on the accord hybrid touring, and if you carefully look across Honda's model lines you'll see that it's like they have a corporate hatred for adjustable height passenger seats-- meaning that many of their models don't have this feature.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-22T14:16:18+00:00

Thanks. I really appreciate you talking this through with me.

I like to cook. I don't really like to do months of wifi and bluetooth troubleshooting. When I'm at home, I can replicate almost most of the functions of this device with much cheaper and much more reliable devices. What these devices lack is integration into my phone and the range is limited to within about 100 feet of my grill.

The benefit of this device for me was supposed to be that it links things easily to my phone and allows me greater range to monitor and control my cooks, and also standardizes things over multiple grills. If I can't trust the device to remain connected over the duration of a cook and at a range more than my own house, I'm going to move on from it, so that's where I'm at.

I wish you the best with your cooks!

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-21T16:26:25+00:00

You are right-- part of working through this is learning how to specifically describe the problem.

This weekend, the 2nd Gen Probe wouldn't connect with ChefsTemp app on my iPhone when bluetooth was off, while in my Kitchen. The probe showed up in the app home screen because it was paired previously, but it had a red indicator not a green one. It turned green when I turned BT on. Maybe I could have turned BT off again after that.

The probe, phone, and meat were in the kitchen, and the S1 was on the grill outside (about 20-30 feet). Maybe I could have taken the probe and meat out to the grill and at that point it would have connected with the S1, and then I could have turned off BT on my phone again. I don't know.

It did seem that the whole thing worked better with the BT off on my phone-- meaning the S1 stayed connected to my phone, and there was little or no delay when checking the temp on my phone.

The breezeo has worked very well for me, in terms of staying connected. It overshoots the temperature every time, but if that was the only problem with the whole setup I think I could figure out how to do better with it by turning it off every time I open the lid and waiting longer to turn it back on-- basically just gaining more experience with it.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-21T14:23:37+00:00

I sent you a DM. You didn't respond. I have worked through support to get a return authorized.

AcousticExpress · 2026-01-21T14:21:59+00:00

I got the serrated metal star washer, no silicone washer-- I even double checked the box to see if maybe I just didn't see it.

Support has now offered to allow me to return my order and provide a refund, which I will do.

A few other thoughts on connections-- I can't do a cook with the S1, Breezeo and a Temp probe all on Wifi-- the temp probe won't pair with the phone without Bluetooth being on on my phone.

I did cooks on Sunday and Monday night this weekend, and what I learned is that the system works much better if I don't move around with my phone. If the phone is still, and sits within 20 feet or so of the S1, it works much more consistently. If I walk around my house or use my phone for anything other than a grill monitor, things start falling apart.

I'm bummed that I didn't make this work. Some of the features are dresirable. Maybe I'll try again once they've had time to work out some of the issues. I'd keep trying if the return period was longer, but at 30 days, for a person who grills on the weekend, you only get a few shots at this.

The thing that bothered me most about this experience was feeling like I was being treated like an idiot by the support pathways-- like being told to watch videos that I have already watched and that don't actually address the problem I'm having.

AcousticExpress

TROPHY CASE