I guess it all depends on the emergency. I keep a landline in part because we were living in DC on 9/11 and cell phones were often jammed--landlines were too. Dh and I were in separate locations for most of the day and switched back and forth to talk depending on what was working at the moment. I also keep one for teenage babysitters as a back up for when their cell phones die and they don't have chargers with them.

crl - my sister has kept her landline for exactly the same reason. She and her husband were in DC on 9/11 and could not contact each other via cell phone. The Metro was shut down and they both are in wheelchairs, so it took them hours to get home, both frantic with worry for the other. But their land line worked the whole time.

We have a "land line", too, though it's currently run by the cable company. Our cable service was out for a week after Irma, so no land line. We keep ours for our home alarm system. We're not willing to pay ADT the much larger fee they want for their "whole house" cell-based service. Just the basic monitoring seems pretty expensive, since they don't even call any more when the alarm goes off, unless it's going for more than a certain length of time.

Donna

Sorry, I guess I should have specified that I was talking about landlines, not VOIP, which is something quite different, even if the handsets look similar.

But it's true that it can be useful to have a mix of stuff. I'm just saying that the idea that your landline will keep working after a storm is an idea from days gone by, alas. ATT has made it abundantly clear that they wish all their landline customers would just go away, and I probably will, if I can figure out what to do about the few customers I still have who like to fax.

The traditional land line from ancient history relies on telephone poles. So does most of the VOIP installed today. When all the poles are laying sideways with wires broken, dangling, or laying on the ground, you cannot expect any of the pole based phones to work. We have a condo in Rockport, so we were about 2 weeks ahead of y'all. Utility crews came from as far as Kentucky to reset the poles. We had power and land lines 2 weeks later. But some cell phone service was available almost the next day. Sprint was down for weeks, but ATT was up right away.

Whatever the problem is with your shower it has nothing to do with the faucet. The faucet part should run cold water and cold "hot" water all day long. It could be the tankless heater has cut off the water, but the faucet has nothing inside that will stop the water from flowing.

Whatever the problem is with your shower it has nothing to do with the faucet.

Well, no and yes. The fact is that many of the mixing-valve type faucets are set to run with a certain amount of hot water even on the colder settings, so there's no such thing as a true cold shower when using them. I have one like that myself and hate it, since I can't use just cold water even for rinsing out the tub and suchlike.

But when the flow is that restricted with a heater that stops the water passing through it when it stops working, no water at all comes out, just the kind of brief dribble you get when the water has just been shut off. This also due in part to the drop in pressure from the water system running on their backups, which reduces the overall flow to begin with. Then when the hot water stops altogether instead of just running cold….

I don't believe this happens with all brands, but anyone buying a tankless would do well to find out what happens when it stops working; whether you get cold water or no flow through it.

Going through Irma, it was much easier to report our power outage using our land land ( with Frontier battery box) then using our cell. Even though our cell phones were registered on our Electric account, not a huge deal but it was faster. And a little less irritating.

My daughter lived in New Orleans, and during a post-Katrina hurricane/tropical storm (Gustav, I think) her landline worked and cell didn't because the electricity went out and she couldn't re-charge. She lives alone, was new to the city, and would have been terrified during the storm itself without the connection.

Right, indygo, and after Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma it was the same here. But that was then.

Now when the power goes out for a prolonged period over a wide area, it seems that so does the landline, even if you have an old-fashioned phone that draws no power on its own. That's what I'm saying. They evidently no longer maintain sufficient backup power to keep things running unless the outage is very local, or, more likely, just never bothered to upgrade anything as their power needs have increased. Whatever the reason, you can't rely on that anymore the way you used to be able to.

ETA I got my phone back last night, but people in Palm Beach and Brevard counties are still out. I'm assuming much of Miami is, too.

Good to know writersblock. I am always worrying about worst case scenarios and was dead set against giving up our land line. My DH just went ahead and got rid of it - I almost had a panic attack, but so far we've been fine and you've helped to put my mind at ease.

We still get cold water when out tankless heater goes out. Stupid thing turns itself off sometimes. And of course the kid taking a shower when the power went out was very vocal about it getting cold after it got dark...

Sounds like a good thing to check before it catches you off guard though!

You need not only a cordless landline phone, you also need a corded phone. That is because if the power goes out, a cordless landline phone will not work. A corded phone will work when the electricity goes out.

Yes, Fori, I thought they all worked like that, but evidently not.

LucyStar1, that's what I'm saying. When there's an area-wide power outage for sufficiently long, even a corded phone is useless because the lines themselves do not work.

Thank God for generators!

Only if you're the one who has it, CindyMac. The rest of the world hates you more than you would believe while you prevent them from sleeping for days on end. I don't understand why they have to be that noisy.

They dont, but then the design is for working construction persons and has not evolved to this market you complain about because it costs a few dollars more for a better muffler.

I remember well that sleep can be elusive, regardless of the noise. The stifling heat & humidity aren't conducive to sleep no matter how silent the neighborhood.

They don't hate you when you serve them fresh brewed coffee, offer the use of your washer & dryer, and a cool place to sleep (albeit on a blow-up mattress).

Our generator is 10 years old and very noisy. I think the newer ones have come a long way in that department.

No they have not. I was considering having multiple after a line was cut, so that our ac would work. you can have 160 amps for 1200 bucks these days but its all small engine crap.

Actually, trickyputt, by far the worst of all were the whole-house Generacs, much, much worse than the most annoying HD special. Generacs ought to be able to have some kind of noise reduction in their housing.

CindyMac, judging by my brother's neighbors, the new ones are not a whit quieter.

Luckily, I live where nobody has a generator so we do just fine and continue to get along (although not having water is pretty bad), unlike my friends further south in single-family developments where tempers flare after a few sleepless nights.

We have a corded landline that was usable for the entire time our power was out (6 days). It's now packed back with other storm preparedness supplies.

Everyone hates generators until they have one on their own.

You were lucky, maddielee!

It probably depends on who maintains the landline systems. In my area, Centurylink has an ad campaign pushing keeping the landlines. I am guessing the reason is for them to make more money. I have a landline because I am not buying cell phones for my kids at this point and I want them to be able to call me if there is an emergency and I am out and about. However, I get quite irritated when reviewing the bill and all of those extra taxes and fees associated with the landline. It is getting to be absolutely ridiculous.

Well, you know, tishtoshnm, ATT pretends to encourage people to keep landlines while actually switching them to VOIP. I noticed that in an ad just this morning, where they were talking about how if you bundled your services you would get special additional features on your phone.

At no point did they mention that they weren't talking about your old landline, just about moving that number to a VOIP service, so be very careful to check exactly what they're really pushing.

A surprising number of people have no idea of the difference between VOIP and a landline, and the telecoms make much use of that.

During sandy's weeks long power outage my neighbors all made calls from my house's corded land line for cell service was out for days too. Our power was out due to flooding of power stations not wind so phone poles were very less affected. My thermostatic valve still provides cold water only when electric is off but water pressure is far less in the showers with mixing valves.

Is your water heater tankless, roarah? There's no issue at all with tank heaters that I ever heard of.

Writersblock, here is an article on their current campaign: JACK can help! I am guessing it is for a true landline as there bundling is for things like DirecTV. Most of our phone stuff is in the ground in my area and our natural disasters tend to be in the form of wildfire (no sticking around for that) and occasionally snow. I just hate spending $50+/month on a landline that is used very little but I guess I will have to suck it up for the next 10 years or so. It is definitely a rip off but in this area is rather dependable.

That's very interesting, tishtoshnm. Around here ATT also offers a bundle: internet, direct TV, home phone, and they make it sound like the phone is a landline, but it isn't. Since their internet also uses the phone outlets, although they have to be changed for fiber, it's easy for them to pretend the phones they push are landlines.

I know what you mean about the price. It's absurd what my landline costs these days, but I do occasionally need to fax, so I have to keep it. Also, cell reception is iffish here.

Writersblock, i have a tankless with a gas boiler system and it does need electricity to fire.

The only reason we have a landline is for our security system. When we signed up with the security company six years ago, you could only get the service if you had a landline. Things have changed since then but we still keep the landline out of habit.

One of the big reasons for the landline to go down is that the phones still run off of overhead wires rather than buried wires. We saw plenty of telephone wires dangling from poles after the hurricane.

Even though we have a landline it isn't exclusively a landline because our messages are housed on a server somewhere and not in the phone itself (like in the olden days).

Writersblock,

I also have a tankless water heater that needs electricity to fire. It was not correctly added to the sub panel so when power went out for a few hours last year, i was without hot water. This did not stop the thermostatic valves in the shower from giving me hot water. What type of thermostatic valve do you have? I also have one handled faucets and had no issues with cold water at all. Also, during the installation of the water heaters, the plumber turned off the hot water line and the shower worked fine just on cold water only.

For power outages, I have a small Honda generator (Honda EU3000is) that I have to go outside and start. It is very quiet. Most people walk by my home and are usually surprised that I have power but it is just the generator running to provide enough electricity for the needed loads - lights (all LEDs), water heater, HVAC heat, Internet, TV etc. The gas fireplace can be started with batteries. The unit does not run the AC but I have ceiling fans and they work well enough even when we had a power outage in July for 7days.

I am looking into a Tesla power wall and a small solar setup to limit the use of the gas generator. The Honda was not cheap but it works wonderfully and is super quiet to use.

Hi, homepro. Well, it's not my house, but I believe they are basic builder grade Moens from the early 90s. I have noticed in the past that they are set to have too much hot in the mix so that there is not even a cool setting. When you take a shower there, as soon as the hot water reaches the shower head, it's a warm to hot shower even at the coldest setting, and I suspect that may be the problem, but it's their house so there's not much I can do about it, unfortunately. I wish I had thought to try the two-handled hot faucets at the sinks to see if there was water flowing through those.

As for where I live, I at the moment I rent, so I can't do anything about how things are set up. There's a miserable GE water heater that's so tenuous I don't even dare change the temp setting on it. I would not be surprised if the valve is a PF with moen trim if that could be cobbled together somehow. At best it's a bottom of the line HD plastic parts moen, probably installed by an amateur plumber.

I would love to have a Powerwall someday. It encourages me that some municipalities in FL are beginning to require solar in new construction.

I've heard that the Hondas are quieter than other generators, but I don't think I've ever actually seen one, since everyone I know either puts in a big Generac or waits till the last minute and buys whatever cheap thing HD hasn't yet run out of.

We have a honda generator and they are much quieter.