I realize, even in the United States, this is a privilege. But even this privilege has quirks.
You may recall that we had solar panels installed last summer, including a backup battery. (I did incorrectly say we weren’t pushing power back into the grid.) On Saturday morning, as I lay in bed cuddling the cats and scrolling my social media feed, I heard the power go out, and immediately kick back in. As is customary when our power flickers noticeably, our 2.4 GHz network dropped, sending a notification from our thermostat app that it couldn’t communicate with the thermostat. (The thermostat and printer only work on the 2.4 GHz network; almost everything else runs on the 5 GHz.) When I eventually got up, I knew I’d need to reset it through the admin portal.
When I did get up, my first responsibility was to feed the cats. This is where I noticed things being weird – one of the lights in the kitchen weren’t working, others were fainter than usual, and on one, two of the three bulbs weren’t lit. I wondered what sort of power outage would knock out some – but not all – of the light bulbs. This was before caffeine and it didn’t click yet that the power was still out.
While taking my morning shower, the water pressure dropped. That worried me – the well circuit was supposed to be on the battery, so why hadn’t it come back on? (Noting that the circuits were supposed to be accurately labeled shortly after I bought the house; now I’m fairly sure the “well” circuit is actually the water softener’s outlet.) After my shower, I scrambled to check the circuit breaker and the reset by the well. You may recall I gained some experience with our water pressure about a year and a half ago, when a pipe rusted through on Christmas Day. All I was sure of at that point was that the water pressure was really low, and it was way too early to call anyone to help troubleshoot it.
Eventually, I looked at our solar battery and realized that the blue icon I was seeing was not its normal display. Annoyingly, I couldn’t find anything online explaining what the different icons are. That display combined with having to manually light the gas stove are what made me realize that our power was still out and the solar battery was working as designed.
I made myself a micro breakfast to minimize water usage – I had water in the kettle from Friday and grabbed a snack bar. About twenty minutes after I finished, the power kicked back on with all the normal beeps and clicks that come with a power flicker. Including the need to reset the 2.4 GHz network again.