The seemingly endless heatwave is now showing up in resident’s electric bills. At least one neighborhood is suffering through brownouts as well
by Timothy Rutt
After weeks of hot weather, now it’s time to pay the piper — in higher electric bills as residents desperately try to cool down.
In the President Streets neighborhood, Lisa Gibson is dealing with a $700 electric bill. Yes, that’s one month’s bill.
“We have three window air conditioners and two of them were on low during the day for the dogs,” she emailed us this week. ” All of our lights were off. We are all gone during the day. I can’t believe this.”
In the neighborhood news groups, neighbors are sharing tales of “sticker shock” when they open their electrical bills and find them doubled, or more, because of the extra juice needed to keep the house livable.
Meanwhile, one neighborhood in northeast Altadena has been coping with brownout conditions ever since temperatures started rising.
Susanna Dadd, who lives on East Loma Alta, where she and husband James Griffiths produce the Folly Bowl series of concerts, writes “we have experienced these brownouts for at least two weeks, almost every day. I had guests for dinner the other day and had bought frozen shrimps from TJs a week ago. When I opened my freezer I found that all the food in there looks very odd – full of frost, even though some of it has only been in there a few days. I am sure this is due to all the power cuts, One, well over a week ago, was about four hours in the night and I didn’t know about it, but for the pool timer and phone machine.”
Some of the more tech-oriented residents have been measuring the voltage going into their homes, and have found them to come up wanting: instead of the standard 120 volts, they’ve come up with readings as low as 98 volts.
The seemingly endless heatwave is now showing up in resident’s electric bills. At least one neighborhood is suffering through brownouts as well
by Timothy Rutt
In the President Streets neighborhood, Lisa Gibson is dealing with a $700 electric bill. Yes, that’s one month’s bill.
“We have three window air conditioners and two of them were on low during the day for the dogs,” she emailed us this week. ” All of our lights were off. We are all gone during the day. I can’t believe this.”
In the neighborhood news groups, neighbors are sharing tales of “sticker shock” when they open their electrical bills and find them doubled, or more, because of the extra juice needed to keep the house livable.
Meanwhile, one neighborhood in northeast Altadena has been coping with brownout conditions ever since temperatures started rising.
Susanna Dadd, who lives on East Loma Alta, where she and husband James Griffiths produce the Folly Bowl series of concerts, writes “we have experienced these brownouts for at least two weeks, almost every day. I had guests for dinner the other day and had bought frozen shrimps from TJs a week ago. When I opened my freezer I found that all the food in there looks very odd – full of frost, even though some of it has only been in there a few days. I am sure this is due to all the power cuts, One, well over a week ago, was about four hours in the night and I didn’t know about it, but for the pool timer and phone machine.”
Some of the more tech-oriented residents have been measuring the voltage going into their homes, and have found them to come up wanting: instead of the standard 120 volts, they’ve come up with readings as low as 98 volts.