During a normal power outage, you're right. That does keep you isolated on your own island. But in a case like this, the voltage is likely to spike to incredibly high levels on wires that aren't meant to carry it and cause arcing and possibly fires. That's why you want to be physically disconnected.
That's known as a grid tie system and my edit mentions that. The only way it's going to help is if the grid is physically disconnected from the building as in the wire is not connected to the building at any point.
I'm glad this threat is at least starting to be taken seriously. As an amateur radio operator, I got incredibly interested in how the weather on the sun affects radio propagation and power management here on Earth.
Better a CME than an EMP just simply because there is at least some time to prepare for a massive CME. Whereas an EMP has absolutely no warning whatsoever.
In the event of a massive CME off-grid homes and buildings are likely to fare much better because they are not connected to the power grid. The problem comes with long transmission lines where incredibly large charge differentials can build up over distance. shorter wires can't build up nearly the same amount of charge differential.
Edit: I feel it's important to mention that grid tie systems are going to be just as vulnerable as on grid because you still have the grid actually physically connected to the building.
If I'm given the option, I always choose to reject all. I don't know if the company behind it actually sees that or not, but it makes me feel better anyway.
The problem is that it never turns off. So if I have it set, the compressor will kick on and off, but the fan stays on 24-7 and would stay on 365 days per year unless I went and manually turned it off. But the compressor and or fan is always running. No matter what you do, it never actually shuts itself off entirely.
Oh duh, I totally forgot about that. There is a knob to regulate the temperature, and that will kick the compressor off. Currently I just have it set to as cold as it will get and then cut power to the unit itself with the plug. It stays off for a good 40 minutes at a time, which is plenty of time to drain the pressure properly before starting up again.
Okay, that's fine. I can totally do that.
I can't do that. Without doing it myself, the compressor will absolutely never turn off. Unless I manually flip the switch. There was another commenter below that said that it wasn't a problem as long as you didn't try to start it up again too quickly and I don't so that's all right
Band openings are heat inversions where the atmosphere higher up is warmer than it ought to be. Normally, as you go higher up, you would expect the temperature to cool. And in most cases, that is true. But in the case of a band opening, there's a warm layer sandwiched between two cooler layers of air.
Unfortunately, it's got no kind of remote at all. It's a physical dial to turn it on to high low or fan high low and a physical dial to turn up or down the temperature setting.
That's why I got a smart plug for it to begin with because there were times when I would fall asleep at like 10 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. with the damn thing still running.
It is only a 550 watt unit, but I was not aware that hard power cycling it like that would eventually hurt it. So at least thanks for that information.
Not yet. I'm thinking about modifying it, but haven't done so. Quite yet.
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The voltages involved are more likely to cause the transformers to explode rather than just tripping the breakers.