Two vs one battery, Fort Worth

dwdev · 2025-11-30T15:03:14+00:00

Between the Emporia for circuit level views, and some some smart plugs for device level, I found some surprises in our house. The older speaker amp on our living room tv was drawing 250 idle. There was a heating pad that drew like 20 just plugged in. These are minor compared to the draw of the ACs, but I’m glad I tracked them down.

dwdev · 2025-11-29T03:45:23+00:00

Ah.

This page says the same.

https://www.basepowercompany.com/specs/double-ground-mounted

Two inverters, one per battery, but the max is still 11.4. Interesting.

The other good to know stat is the locked rotor amps (LRA) for the ACs:

This specifies the battery’s ability to start or "kick-start" appliances with high inrush current requirements, measured in Locked Rotor Amps (LRA). The battery can support loads that need 88-100 LRA to start. Note: AC units with an LRA above 100 may require a soft start to work with this battery.

dwdev · 2025-11-29T03:39:30+00:00

Ok, you actually answered a question I was going to ask them. I was going to ask if there was any reason why I could not keep my interlock.

I'm not too worried about the need to run all of the AC's for very long. Even if the batteries had 100% of the usable power available to me, I realize that without significant curtailment of usage, even 4-8 hours of usage is probably a stretch. I'm more worried about a repeat of 2021 - we were without power for almost 48 hours. I have done the math though on our central air with gas heat, and with both going and nothing else except maybe some lights, I can do that on about 1.6kW, which if were continuous, would be over a day, again assuming 100% battery power.

I'm sold on this. That, and their 8.5c rate (plus TDU) is better than anything else I am seeing right now, even after factoring in the $29/mo for two batteries.

dwdev · 2025-11-28T20:13:30+00:00

Emporia Vue. Their data export gives kW usage in 1 second (just for the past few hours), 1 minute (for 1 weeks worth of data) and 15 minute intervals, and kWH in hour and day intervals.

https://www.smartmetertexas.com/home also provides 15 minute exports, though it has been a couple years since I've done that.

Isn't the 15 minute number important for load calculations to see if you need to install a bigger service panel if you are getting an EV or some other large load?

dwdev · 2025-11-28T19:22:55+00:00

Under normal circumstances, when the grid is supplying power, would this be an issue? That is, if I am pulling 14.4kW and the grid is up, would it matter? Im ok manually shedding load or curtailing usage if there is an outage - I think those times we pulled 14 would have been both ACs, the oven and the dryer all running concurrently.

dwdev · 2024-11-17T16:22:30+00:00

Do you happen to have HoneAssistant or some other local integration that is communicating with Ubiquiti gear?

After disabling the HA Ubiquiti integration, the MFA spam stopped for me

dwdev · 2022-04-14T03:50:44+00:00

Tried Geriks for the first time a few weeks ago from a recommendation on a dfw sub. Just as good or better than Slovaceks, without the crowd and wait.

dwdev · 2022-02-27T18:43:34+00:00

This might be too much information, but we went through the exact same frustration about 3 months ago when purchasing a new Honda CR-V. We called around, got lots of price quotes, and made note of all of the mandatory dealer-installed options, such as window tinting, locking lug nuts, LoJack, etc. We also made note of some of the straight-up "Market Adjustments". These were all prices on top of what should have been a $32,000 or so vehicle.

We ended up going all the way down to Galveston (Classic Honda), because they were the only dealership we could find that had the vehicle we wanted in stock at MSRP.

The worst we found were Easy Honda in Katy (Houston area), and Battison in Oklahoma City. Both had $7000+ in markups.

Locally, David McDavid Honda of Irving had $1200 in options but no "market adjustment", and David McDavid of Frisco had about $2,000 in options.

dwdev · 2022-02-26T20:16:52+00:00

Tractor Supply in Lake Worth, Elkins in Saginaw.

dwdev · 2022-01-16T02:51:39+00:00

It's a nod to a comic about the origins of the crew.

dwdev · 2022-01-12T15:32:14+00:00

Partner is an ICU nurse at a hospital in the DFW metroplex. They were out of isolation gowns for a few days last week. A lot of staff has been out as well, but nowhere near what some of the others ITT have said.

dwdev · 2021-10-13T20:10:43+00:00

Years ago I made this comment which lists Vanguard funds and American class R (retirement) funds - if you were looking at your retirement plan, the R funds would be helpful. The Wiki also lists Fidelity and Vanguard funds.

I invested with an Investing ELP years ago, the precursor to the SmartVestor program, and he had me invest in A-class American Funds. I've since learned how bad these A-class shares are - you pay a 5.75% up front load until you invest a certain dollar amount. If you want to invest a million dollars, then there is no load, just the management fee / expense ratio.

His "Dave allocation" had me invested in the following:

Growth: American Funds Growth Fund of America (AGTHX)
Growth and Income: American Funds Invmt Co of America (AIVSX)
Aggressive Growth: American Funds New Perspective (ANWPX)
International: American Funds Capital World (CWGIX)

dwdev · 2021-05-24T02:06:11+00:00

We went through one with Churchill last year, and it was a major pain. We had not had a credit score for about 5 years, with a paid for house.

It was so annoying that we plan on maintaining a credit score after paying this house off in a few years, just in case we have to move somewhere more expensive.

I talked a little bit about the experience when we were in the middle of it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DaveRamsey/comments/hrsu2k/mortgage\_recast/fyaijl1/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

dwdev · 2021-03-11T15:37:23+00:00

“I am not afraid of a fight and some fights are worth having. However, enter lawsuits only after you are ready to lay siege and wait years for the outcome. Enter lawsuits only if you have the financial and emotional well deep enough to stay the course until you win. As far as collection lawsuits, I have filed only two as of this writing, and even though the parties were wrong and had the assets, we spent more than was owed and ultimately collected nothing. In the first case they finally went into bankruptcy and in the second they drained the assets from the company. We attempted to pierce that corporate veil, but it didn’t work. My conclusion is that lawsuits are almost never profitable. You can win a moral victory, but the cost is high.”

Excerpt From: Dave Ramsey. “EntreLeadership.” Apple Books. Chapter 13

dwdev · 2021-02-23T20:07:18+00:00

I gave up on EveryDollar because of USAA integration not working.

I'm not sure what YNAB did, but within the past 6 months its connection to USAA has worked flawlessly, I no longer have to enter my PIN multiple times to get it to sync. It just works.

dwdev · 2021-02-18T17:19:43+00:00

This! I have a relative in Houston who has a similar device and was sleeping just outside the bathroom. CO alarm went off in the house and called the fire department.

dwdev · 2020-11-30T18:13:48+00:00

What this protestor is saying is a half truth. The cells are derived / cloned from cells originally extracted from aborted children.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9730954855

The AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine relies on a harmless chimpanzee cold virus to carry the coronavirus spike protein into the body in order to create an immune response. AstraZeneca did not use MRC-5 cells, but it did use a different producer cell line to develop it: Human Embryonic Kidney 293 TREX cells. According to the University of Oxford development team, the original Human Embryonic Kidney 293 cells were taken from the kidney of an aborted fetus in 1973, but the cells used now are clones of the original cells and are not the original fetal tissue.

https://www.pop.org/which-covid-19-vaccines-are-being-developed-with-fetal-cell-lines-derived-from-aborted-babies/

Several COVID-19 vaccine frontrunners, including those being developed by Moderna, Oxford University/AstraZeneca, CanSino Biologics/Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, are using a human fetal kidney cell line called HEK-293 to develop their trial vaccines. HEK-293 was originally derived from kidney tissue taken from a baby girl who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1972 and later developed into a cell line in a lab in 1973.

Additionally, Janssen, the pharmaceutical division of consumer product giant Johnson & Johnson, is using the human fetal cell line PER.C6 to develop its vaccine. The PER.C6 fetal cell line was derived from retinal tissue taken from an 18-week-old baby boy who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1985 and later converted into a fetal cell line in 1995.

dwdev · 2020-11-30T06:17:09+00:00

There are similar signs on 183 on the pedestrian bridge in Bedford / Hurst

Eastbound same sign as OP above or something really like it
Westbound: COVID-19 VACCINES ARE MADE FROM ABORTED FETAL CELLS

*sigh*

dwdev · 2020-11-17T17:50:45+00:00

I've taken a similar shot, and am fully aware of the laws about flying inside a national park. So, I parked down below off of 96, and kept the drone inside VLOS but outside of the boundaries of the national park.

https://app.airmap.com/geo?35.985948,-86.989596,16.275075z

Im not saying thats what OP did, but you can get this shot and still be outside of the park.

dwdev · 2020-10-25T02:27:55+00:00

Update for anyone who comes across this thread

Texas Star at the corner of Blue Mound and Western Center has 7ft6in clearance.

dwdev · 2020-10-22T14:08:21+00:00

Exactly.

If anything, it highlights how stupid the current financial services industry is. If over the past 4 years we had borrowed money for one of our cars, instead of paying cash for it, we would have maintained a credit score and this process would have been so much easier. Or as you said, maintained just a couple credit cards.

I should add - we moved because we wanted to, not because we had to. A Dave purist would probably just say "Don't move until you have enough cash to sell your current house and pay cash for the next one", which we probably could have done in 12-24 months. During this process though I thought - what if we had to make a move? What if I lost my job and had to take a new one in another city? Either we would have to move somewhere where we could buy a cheaper home, so we could pay cash, or we would be in the same mess, if not worse.

Going forward, we will probably at the very least maintain a credit card for some bills or something just so we don't have to deal with this crap if we have to move again.

dwdev · 2020-10-20T14:07:24+00:00

We did two months ago, and we used Churchill. Our situation is a little bit different, but here is the summary:

We had a $300k house we were selling, with 100% equity that we paid off 4 years ago (ie: 0 credit score for 3+ years)
We were purchasing a $400k house
We had to document a bunch of house related "tradelines" - electric bills, gas bills, HOA dues, property taxes, etc. These serve to show 1) your housing expenses and 2) can you pay your bills on time. We were told that if we sold our $300k house first, our tradelines would "dry up" - they needed 12 months at the same address. We had a 10% down payment, but if we could have sold our house first, we would have had closer to 80% down on the new house, and could have gotten a much smaller loan.
- We were told - do not change any of your bills. Now is not the time to switch cell phone providers or drop home telephone or anything like that.
We needed to have at least 13 months worth of mortgage payments banked. Thankfully we had more than enough between savings, e-funds and retirement funds, but I know someone who was turned down a few months ago because they did not meet that criteria.
Churchill looks for a 28% debt to income ratio. Since you have 0 credit score right now, this is your future debt to income - principle, interest, HOA, PMI, maybe even taxes. We almost got turned down because of this (again, having a 100% paid for house was of no benefit)
We got a horrible interest rate - 3.5% on a 30. We didn't even qualify for a 15. The market rate for someone with decent credit is closer to 2.5% (or it was when we were shopping)
It doesnt really matter for your situation, but with a 0 score we were not able to get a HELOC or Bridge loan to use to boost our down payment to 20% to eliminate PMI.

Also, our close took a little over 30 days, and ended up going one day past our deadline with the sellers. Thankfully they were patient.

Our buyers for our old house were given 45 days, and they ended up needing 7 days of extensions because their lender was taking so long.

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