Quote:
Originally Posted by gearhead
There's a lot that went into this catastrophe..
Heavy industry is not built for extended sub freezing conditions in Texas, and not likely anywhere else in the south. Maybe a bit more weather protection in the Texas panhandle though. Power plants, refineries, and gas plants are built for 99% of what conditions they will see. Is a refinery in Houston built different than in Wyoming? I would imagine so. Same thing with power plants. Same with wind turbines. Same thing with home building. Is that right, or the correct way of doing business? Maybe, maybe not.
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Just looking at "home building", most houses around Louisiana (and I suspect Texas) are constructed with 2x4 exterior walls and aluminum "double pane windows". All of that is covered with 1/2" foam sheeting and then bricks with a 1" weep space between the foam and the bricks. Our contractor, when we built our house in Pineville was adamant not to use 2x6 exterior walls and fiberglass windows/doors. His response to my concerns: "Hell, we don't do things that way around here". My response: "Then maybe I need to find a new contractor because I'm paying you to build what I want, not what you want.".... Our house had 2x6 exterior walls and special order windows/doors... That meant R-19 wall insulation not R-13, just as a start.
According to the people who bought our house when we moved up here, theirs is the only house in that sub-division that didn't have water leaks and frozen pipes this past week. Other houses are flooded with walls "flowing water and ceilings falling in"...
The excuse I got from the contractor was, "That'll cost way more than any house in this area to build".
I'd suspect it's no different in building a refinery, a generating plant, a pipeline pumping station or any other part of the industrial complex. It looks like much of the "southern industry" didn't invest the extra expense to protect against that "100 year disaster"...
Right or wrong, everybody in Texas is being affected by the "investment strategy" the energy industry used. Big question, I suppose, is what they do to fix it or if they decide to "just live with the risk and hope for better weather for the next 100 years"..... Certainly, there's no easy answer....
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