I would turn my thermostat down if it wasn't turned off. I do have the luxury of living in the country and having a catalytic wood stove for our main heat, with propane for times when we can't tote wood.

Remember when TVA used to promote insulating and heating efficiency back when it served the people instead of the energy cartels.

Didn't I see a headline a few weeks ago saying TVA might be hurting financially because of reduced demand!? Which is it? Can't they handle increased demand? A few days like this shouldn't be that big a deal.

Sorry, I don't plan to give up "cooking equipment" for the duration. Maybe I make up for it by setting my thermostat at 67 during the day and 64 at night every winter.

Yes, they are cutting staff because of a "lack of demand". The have also been bragging about cutting executive pay, all while the CEO makes exactly double his predecessor.

My solution is to keep one little room toasty warm for me ant the ancient dog. There is a radiant under floor heat pad under the desk and that is a bonus.

If you peruse the tiny house blog you'll see examples of entire homes that are 120 sf. Having a warm room that size doesn't feel like a burden. I can heat up the kitchen pretty quickly with the stove if I need to do kitchen-y things.

That way the heat pump can take a rest. No way is it going to pump heat out of this frigid air anyway.

We have natural gas heat and it is keeping up. It doesn't even run continuously. Guess we have adequate insulation. I'm still not looking forward to the bill.

We also have a programmable thermostat but we've been manually overriding it to lower the temp.

Thankfully no busted pipes so far, knock on wood.

Don't know what we'd do if there was an extended power outage. We have a gas fireplace in the living room that would still work, but I've read they can actually draw heat out of the room. We have south-facing windows that can warm up the living room by a few degrees when we open the blinds in the afternoon, but it wouldn't be enough.

Guess we would head south and look for a hotel.

Not sure what they mean by "cooking equipment." I assumed they meant non-essential stuff like crock pots?

Do I win the cold house contest? I just noticed frost on the INSIDE of the windows in my BR and back office. And they are double pane windows. Now I love the view back there but Brrrrr. In a few weeks the windows will start to get good afternoon sun and that will be a compensating factor.

The problem with central heat is it blows air in to the center from any outlying cold zones. My next heat system will be a mini-split in the center of the house and I will just open the doors to the rooms i want to heat.

I'm calling for a Congressional investigation into this artificially created energy shortage just before TVA starts aggressively making the public case for small nukes.

I called TVA public relations to ask about "cooking equipment" and spoke with Travis, who said that they indeed meant your stove/oven and suggested using a microwave instead because it uses a lot less power. I asked about crock pots, toaster ovens and the like, and he said they, too, would use less power.

He also noted that the advisory has been lifted for now, but they are preparing for another round next week. I asked him why they didn't do something about that because I'm tired of this cold weather. He laughed and said he wished they could, and that they are keeping their thermostats low in their building and his office is cold.

Anyway, here's a link to the latest status update...

...a giant electric utility like TVA would have a grasp on a simple concept like oscillation in a control system, and how this relates to having a certain amount of resources on hand (labor and power capacity) to deal with peaks and troughs.

(link...)