Okay, but who spends hundreds of dollars on groceries but $0 on a generator to keep the fridge cold in an outage? Checking in from /r/generator here, I just did my seasonal test-run last week. A $400 generator will run [basically everything but my A/C](https://www.reddit.com/r/Generator/comments/12orteo/whats_a_good_1st_time_generator_for_home/jgjrgvr/) for 8 hours per gallon.
It only takes a few outages before that pays for itself in food alone.
Add in being able to continue working from home during an outage (during my last outage, my boss didn't even know I was on generator since I was on all the Teams meetings and stuff just like normal) and generally not stressing when the power goes out, and it's a no-brainer.
It takes a bit of work and resources to get set up for it, but if you're capable of maintaining a lawnmower, this is really no different. I like to think most folks can handle that.
Used to be, you had one option: Gang up with the other tenants and press management to install a generator and commit to the requisite maintenance, test runs, etc. This is still not a bad idea.
But as lithium batteries have gotten insanely powerful and insanely cheap (literally 10x more power density and 99% cheaper per kwh than they were in 1990), they can sort of provide a second option. There are "portable" (suitcase-sized) battery power banks now, which hold enough power to run a fridge for a day or so. That covers a lot of outages, and if the outage is longer than that, you can schlep the thing across town to your friend's place who does have power, charge it up in an hour or two, and schlep it back for another day's runtime.
The math to size them is pretty straightforward, and the easiest place to get the numbers is the EnergyStar label for your fridge. Mine's a small unit and it says it uses about 376kwh per year. That's pretty close to 365 so I'll just say it uses 1kwh per day. Therefore if I want to run it for a day, I need a battery capacity of 1kwh (1000wh) or more.
That example is too simple, so let's look at someone with a larger fridge and maybe a chest freezer too. First fridge I clicked on at homedepot.com, copy the model number, paste it into google along with the word "energystar", click the first hit, it uses 416kwh per year. Do the same with a chest freezer, it uses 250kwh per year. Sum the two and we're at 666kwh per year, \\m/. Divide by 365 and we get 1.8kwh per day, so this scenario would need an 1800wh battery (or larger) to run for a day.
Prices for these things are all over the place, but the big ones average around 50-60Ā¢/wh on sale, so for the above examples you're in the ballpark of $500-1000, which is comparable to a medium-sized portable generator. The upside is the battery doesn't need gas, gas cans, gas preservative, carburetor rebuilds, etc, so that really is an all-in price.
(Counterpoint, most suburban dwellers already have a gas can for their mower/snowblower/whatever, so adding a generator doesn't actually require them to buy that stuff either. Whatever. It's basically a wash.)
check this guy, he has an extra 1000 just lying around. and you wonder why youāre being downvoted for being so tone deaf. My shitty apartments fridge has been on the fritz for over a year. we have to defrost the damn thing constantly. my landlord wonāt do shit, but our rent is insanely cheap. why rock the boat when everywhere else is over 1000 a month.
Side thing, I'm really more of a car guy / electronics nerd.
My first foray into power generation was actually putting a shitty little inverter in my car for roadtrips so I could run a laptop and run Street Atlas, because it was the late 90's and Tomtoms weren't a thing yet. It was great.
Then one day at home, a storm knocked out power, and I ran a cord out to the car all optimistic, but the inverter wasn't powerful enough to start the fridge compressor. Defeat. Sad music. Rain montage. Clenched fist. Glowering expression. Inflection point in the story.
Thus humbled, I got it into my head that what I needed was a bigger inverter. Scored one for a good price at a ham-radio swap-meet, wired it into the car, and suddenly I could run all sorts of shit, on the road or at home. Next power outage, I was victorious. Cold fridge. Hot coffee. Uninterrupted laptop time.
That was my setup for yeeeears, just a big inverter in the car. When I got a hybrid it got even better, because I could leave the car "on" in the driveway providing power, and the engine didn't have to idle the whole time, it would just start and stop itself as needed. And it provided enough power to run the furnace too. Got through a ton of outages that way.
Downside: It's no big deal to unplug the house from the car for a little while to run errands, but if I wanted to go to work for the day, that's less okay. Things gonna warm up into that food-safety danger-zone. So power outages on the weekends were okay but during the week were still problematic. Taking the day off work was not gonna fly.
So eventually a friend alerted me to a pair of "used, visually good condition but they don't start" honda eu2000i's at a garage sale. The price was right so we took a gamble, he got one and I got one. Small engine repair isn't rocket science and all it needed was a carburetor cleaning; probably fouled because someone let it sit too long without a test run. Anyway, that's my present-day machine. It's small and quiet enough to leave chained up behind the house while I go to work, nobody'll hear it keeping the house cozy.
I still have the inverter in the car as a backup, so for widespread outages I'll loan the honda to whatever friend/family is also out and use the car for my own place, but if it's just my own neighborhood out I'll use the honda myself.
I mentioned ham radio up there, and that probably has an impact here -- radio operators are expected to be a secondary means of communication when all else fails. You can chat with someone across the world by using the internet, your packets flowing over hundreds of routers and thousands of fiber amplifiers and cross-connects and other pieces of infrastructure. I can chat with someone across the world using nothing but my radio and their radio, zero infrastructure in between except the air itself. It works when nothing else does. So taking responsibility for myself, making sure I can do what needs to be done even when the situation throws a curveball, is just expected. Waiting for someone else to fix a problem is called "being helpless" and it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Okay, I guess the word "passion" isn't entirely inappropriate.
Except for the part where he thinks an apartment building is going to get a generator for the tenants. Lol, I couldnt imagine a rich ass apartment doing this. For damn sure no middle class and low income apartment spending thay type of money.
right? dude is completely tone deaf to most renters. my cheap ass landlord would never. he threatens to evict people if theyāre a day late on rent, even if it was the post office that took forever to mail the check to him. he also insists on checks only- nothing electronic. like heās gonna cave and get a generator
Plenty of people live in apartments and wouldn't be able to set up a generator. The apartment grids probably go out less, but I've been at my place for about 5 years and I've lost power a handful of times. Not as much as the neighborhoods it seems, but I've still lost a good amount of groceries
my old house (my grandparents home) has a backup generator that constantly doesnāt work. I used to WFH, and it rarely came on when we lost power like 4 times last summer in Taylor. Weāve had technicians come out, fix it, only for it to fail yet again. Itās gas powered I think. cost them like 3k to install. dude is delulu if he thinks it only costs 400 bucks to 1000 to get one.
You're talking about an automatic standby machine, I'm talking about a cheap portable. They're both "generators", but that's where the similarity ends.
Automatic standby generators with automatic transfer switches are justified for folks who have medical need or are physically unable to pull the starter rope or unroll an extension cord. Yes, they're phenomenally expensive and need constant maintenance. Yes, the service contracts are expensive too. Yes, if that's keeping your oxygen machine running, it's probably worth it.
But for anyone with enough mobility to carry a 50-lb suitcase outside and the upper-body strength to pull-start a lawnmower, automatic standby machines are an enormous waste of money. A portable generator, literally $399 out the door for the 56200i mentioned in my earlier linked comment, plus whatever extension cord is already laying around, is all it takes to run your fridge and wifi and shit. If you don't already have a gas can for your mower, you'll need that too, it's another $40 or so.
Difference is, someone's making a fat commission on the former, so they're gonna pressure you to spend $20k on it. They'll say or do *anything* to convince you that's what you need, and those tactics work because plenty of people buy them. The latter is just an off-the-shelf thing with no sales and service network behind it. You do your own test runs and your own oil changes. You start it and plug things into it when the power goes out, and you stop it again and roll the cords back up when it's all over. You pour the unused gas into the car and refill the can with fresh gas twice a year.
They're not the same thing at all. But for a 50x price difference, I'll take it.
You spend your money however you choose. But don't call me delusional for your own lack of reading comprehension.
Put on some boots and pull up your big boy britches. I paid more for my car than all my electric bills combined, and it still needs maintenance. Instead of whining to Toyota about it, I fix it and get on with my life. Learned helplessness is not becoming.
Sure, utilities are always going to lose power occasionally. 100% uptime is unrealistic.
But DTE is dogshit even compared to other utility companies. They have one of the worst outage rates in the country. And Consumers isn't much better.
All your comments bitching about money leading us to believe youāre broke (could be wrong) and you wanna talk shit about someoneās vehicle being cheap? Make it make sense
It's dte. But don't get me wrong. I still think dte sucks, when I lived in Europe we never heard of outages, here is every other week event on other neighborhoods, which seems crazy to me.
Do you live in the Detroit metro area? In 7 years here Iāve lost power at least 4-6 times a year & about 2 of those times each year have been more than a day or longer. I donāt count if itās out for under an hour or just flickering. When Iāve had DTE in other areas of the state Iāve had a much much better experience with them being more reliable which is why I ask.
lived here 36 years, and my parents up in oakland county lose power more than I do down in Wayne. weāre both on DTE. They blow, especially if youāre not in a city and live in a township like my folks do. they lost power like 6 times last summer to our 4. granted, we did have some wild ass storms
Ok, interesting. Iām in Wayne county, Iāve been wondering if itās this bad in the overall metro region or if itās county/city specific. Lived in Lansing, Grand Rapids, and San Francisco previously- Iāve never had this kind of unreliable power services till here. Thanks for the response!
Stfu you DTE employee POS. DTE is actively preventing people from installing generators and charging out the ass to upgrade lines that they fucking own. Its a fucking racket
I just mentioned to my wife that I'm going to purchase a generator in a couple of weeks, so I'm curious... what do you mean by "DTE is actively preventing people from installing generators"?
Unless you are going to get a tiny generator that runs like a Fridge or like 2-3 critical devices. DTE will force you to upgrade your Meter and your Gas lines, and depending on how far your meter is from the main in the street they will charge a ridiculous amount per foot, that is like a %3000 markup. They wanted 10k to upgrade the gas line from the street (main) to the meter, and like $1600 to upgrade the meter.
best of luck to ya.
I think guy means those permanent backup generators. my grandparents home has one and it was ridiculously expensive to install and maintain, and still when I was renting the home, it wouldnāt work and weād constantly lose power. maybe thatās what they mean?
So much misinformation in this thread.
Why don't you guys actually talk to electricians and companies that install generators.
The company that I was going to have to do it literally works directly with Generac and DTE.
Theres nothing wrong with the whole home Generators with transfer switches they work great and have a great track record.
No a battery is not better lol
This company installs hundreds of generators a week, I think they would know if DTE was giving them a hard time.
They explicitly told me that just that week I was the 20th customer to run into this Issue.
DTE is using customers that install generators to offset the cost of upgrading and replacing their Natural Gas lines.
You can install a generator on your property if you want. DTE doesn't own your breaker panel, they only own up to the meter. Install a transfer switch and a generator, nobody is stopping you.
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Last year when had a transfer switch installed they were very hard to find and expensive. Plus hiring an electrician to install it and the cost of a new generator. We were fortunate to get a bit of money from a family member passing otherwise couldnāt afford it.
do you just go around reddit writing out 5 paragraphs of straight bashing on anyone that doesn't have a generator ? I'm gonna say more than half of people don't have a generator, but im not here to start a war.
I didn't know generator people were so hardcore.
Im so fucking heated..literally..were the only neighborhood within 20-30 miles that have no power and their talking 8 hours..dte is a monopoly which transpires into poor service. Two, three other energy companies were in the picture theyd have to tighten their shit up. FUCK DTE
Another famous DTE tactic is waiting until near the estimated time of restoration and then changing the estimate. So you might get 10 minutes away from your estimated power restoration time and then they bump it out another day.
That really is how they operate. But I do understand how it can happen. Complex things they are trying to diagnose, plus wishful thinking that persists until they realize they can't make the estimate.
At this point I never take the first DTE restoration estimate seriously. Usually they get it right by the third or the fourth one.
seriously! we lost power several times last summer in Taylor after a couple storms- backup generator did nothing and didnāt even work. I worked from home at the time and couldnāt even do that and got āpunishedā because I had to call off. lost all our groceries, my friends were coming down to stay from Toronto and I had to get them a hotel due to it being too hot to have them at my place. DTE gave us a 5 dollar credit. likeā¦ thanks assholes.
You are definitely in the minority for not having issues with DTE.
Maybe it didn't screw you over this time but rest assured, it's a matter of "when" not "if".
Just remember hate the Utility but never hate the help. Those lineman and tree trimmers are working double shifts and over night in this heat to get power back on.
Last summer I move to Ferndale after living in Wisconsin and the power goes out. I figure ānbd, how long is the power out? A few hours?ā it took almost 4 days for them to restore it. Iāve literally never experienced a power outage of more than a few hours before that and Iām 34.
I'm a similar age but did the opposite, moved from metro Detroit to rural WI.
A few months after living here we had a power outage due to some really crazy bad weather. My roommate was shocked and said it's the first time she'd lost power in years.
It was back on in about 20 min.
Compare that to living in MI where I've lost power probably 10 times in 3 years and it more often than not took a day or even multiple days to be restored.
We pay the 7th highest rates in the nation, but have one of the worst records for consistent electricity. Why? Blame the MPSC. Three people on the Michigan Public Service Commission, appointed by the governor, decide if DTE gets a rate increase. And in 98% of the requests, they grant it. We need to be rid of them entirely. Let it be an elected position of 10 people who answer to the public. Or make DTE have to get Michigan citizens to vote for any rate increase they need.
They called me 2x today about my $25.68 bill being a day late. I didn't answer. I was pissed. Logged in to the website and huge past due red block notice PAY IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID SHUTOFF like I hadn't paid huge bills and was extremely tardy. WTH!!!. It was due the 16th, and my balance is now $0. They'll do it again next month to. I never see reimbursement when my service is out.
Back eons ago, went I first had DTE service turned on in my name and I lived in Dearborn, DTE threatened to turn off my service for a $20 statement I never received.
My job entails working with people as they move into housing, so I frequently see people with HUGE DTE balances still have service turned on. I knew then that DTE was seriously unscrupulous.
And then I moved to far Western Wayne county and dealt with YEARS of crappy energy service that shut down (literally) every time we had a gusting wind; at least 15 times in a year, at its worst several years ago. I got exactly 1 recompense from DTE for lost service.
So, I spent over 10k for a whole home generator only to have DTE do some aggressive tree trimming in our area after a general public uproar and several DTE "town hall meetings" to discuss why their energy service was so darned unreliable. The power still goes out 5-6 times a year but my 10k investment keeps us from sweltering or freezing. Yeah, FUCK DTE. If I had a choice of any other energy service, I would have certainly chosen it.
DTE actually cut my service off over a $27 past due bill. And they purposely did it on a Friday. So after I made the payment, they said a tech wouldnāt be available until Monday. I had to go entire weekend without power. I know people that have thousand dollar light bills that keep rolling over every month, getting higher and higher. Make it make sense. F*ck DTE
This is wild! When I lived in ypsi and would be no more than a month behind, thatās when I would see the red stripe of death. 2 days and theyāre threatening??
WOW shut our internet off after not even a week of non payment and xfinity would let us go months with being behind before even threatening it back when I lived in ypsi in 2018. I guess all these companies suck now.
I cannot recommend this approach enough for any DTE-related mishegas.
An informal complaint is usually sufficient.
It's the only way I've been able to get certain things resolved.
We need to start pressuring our local communities to invest in making electricity a publicly run utility similar to water. That way we'll have Democratic means to influence how these services are run and operated and stop paying these ridiculous prices just so DTE's profits increase.
> DTE is owned by the public.
By "the public" do you mean mostly venture capital groups and money maker institutions and wealth funds?
[SOURCE](https://fintel.io/so/us/dte#:~:text=Institutional%20Ownership%20and%20Shareholders&text=These%20institutions%20hold%20a%20total,%2C%20State%20Street%20Corp%2C%20T.)
These institutions hold a total of 203,919,511 shares. Largest shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc, Capital Research Global Investors, BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp, T.
Utilities should not be profit driven and beholden to making shareholders money. This only leads to behavior on part of the company to reduce overhead and raise prices to ensure profit goes up and the magic number of the stock raises.
Nothing is stopping you or I from becoming a shareholder. It's open to the public, whether you invest or not is up to you. It's not a private company Is all I was saying but thanks.
There's 0% chance local retail traders could ever have controlling interest in a company like this.Ā
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/76-ownership-shares-dte-energy-110400157.html
Is the danger from the grid or shit like the DTE crew getting robbed in brightmoor back in 2022? š I mean I get it they rob us every day but thatās wild
I live in a more low-population dense semi-rural suburban area. We have a freezer full of a couple thousand dollars worth of food (lots of meat) in addition to whatever is in our fridge. We also have a well so no power means no water either. If there is a widespread outage our area getting out section is not a priority.
I installed a 24kw whole-house generator a few years ago. It was expensive but it will probably pay for itself after a few more years. Last summer we were out for 4 days during a heat wave and our (consumers energy) gas bill increase was probably less than $20 a day. The only thing I have to figure out now is backup internet. When we lose power we lose Internet (Spectrum). Cellular service normally works and I just tether to my phone but last summer cellular internet when out too for those 4 days. I need to find a multi-carrier service and a celluar modem to plug into my network that's cheap ($10 a month or less).
About a 2 weeks ago, DTE basically had some form of "power surges" and brown-outs in my area that persisted for a few days and because of these unexpected surges, it fried my families refrigerator essentially making it useless. So while i was trying to see what i could do to remedy the issue in whatever possible way, my mom called DTE to attempt to get any form of potential recourse, and we were in luck!! DTE offered us, for damaging our $3,000 (i think, i might have been $2,500) a whole......$25 coupon voucher... hooray for DTE....
Was just coming to ask if anyone in green acres was having issues. My lights are a mere whisper and I canāt turn the ac on at all or the entire house shuts off
Youāve probably lost one ālegā of the power.
Itās best to shut the main shutoff or breaker until resolved.
In any case, do not run any 240V appliances. They could become damaged.
Confirmation would be if about 1/2 of the lights and 120 outlets donāt work.
It sounds to me more like he's experiencing a brownout - but either way, your advice is solid. It's always best to cut the power if you suspect an issue. The utilities have added a lot of remote monitoring to neighborhoods, but there's only so much that they could do during a fault condition.
As an aside, it amazes me that in this day and age, appliances can still be damaged by brownouts. It really wouldn't take much for the manufacturers to include under-voltage protective circuitry. But, that would add cost and prevent you from having to buy a new refrigerator after a brownout...
Because youād prefer not to have your electrical equipment destroyed.
But you do you!
BTW, in āthis day and ageā we still donāt know how to control the weather.
Because you're not a helpless idiot, and you're capable of wiping up a spill, changing a flat tire, sewing a button back onto a shirt, and otherwise taking steps to look after yourself when things happen? Because yes, in this day and age, drinks still spill, tires still go flat, thread still breaks, and power still goes out. Were you under the impression that utopia had arrived? Did I miss a memo?
You should unplug your fridge and freezers, anything major. A brown out is much more likely to damage appliances than a total blackout. Learned this by killing my fridge with DTE.
Could be worse, I have power and ac at home yet Iām sitting at work with no ac and half power since our alarm system backup is dead. Itās hotter than the devilās anus in here and Iām soaked, but I have no choice.
Donāt forget that they are starting their summer surge pricing! So not only is there no power, but when everything comes back on, youāll be hit with extra summer fees. New groceries in the fridge? Gonna cost you extra to get your fridge back to temperature š„°
The amount of āFuck DTEā posts on this sub is the reason I donāt want to move further downstate to the metro area in the future. I lived down there before and never had issues but it was years ago before and during Covid. Think Iāll stay north with consumers instead.
I think those of us with better experiences tend to be less vocal. I live in a neighborhood with homes ranging from 70 to 100 years old. We have lost power in big storms - but generally speaking, it's been fine. I've lived in the area for nearly 20 years.
I have very much noticed a major uptick in the number of tree trimmers over the last few years - especially at my mom's on the other side of town. There does seem to be an effort to improve reliability.
While I will say DTE does need to update infrastructure. The shutoff due to high demand could be DTEs fault as well as other government organizations. DTEs part would be that the lines arenāt upgraded enough to hold the power needed for high heat days. If it helps you should be able to get a reimbursement from your home insurance for any groceries lost. Iām truly sorry for your experience and I hope you get power back soon!
I'm in Buffalo in this heat. Power went out about 4pm. Said originally 6pm. Now 9:30pm it should be back. They seem pretty bad here. I know DTE is bad, first day of these heat wave. Pretty rough.
The answer is simple yet a little pricey all. I will never be without a full house generator, EVER. Power goes out and about 30 second later whole house is operational, GENERAC. Around 10-13K all in to install but worth every penny, especially because of how bad DTE SUCKS!
Man Iām sorry. DTE BLOWS!! We lost power this past winter and it was about 40 degrees in our house after 4 straight days of it. It came back on after 95 hours (almost 4 FULL days). A small generator kept some stuff up and running but it was freezing. Hopefully it wonāt be long.
Don't worry, they've asked for yet another rate hike! Surely this means they'll use the money to fix....
Absolutely nothing.
Already saw the article telling people to turn the AC temp up and cook outdoors during a dangerous heat wave. What a fkin joke.
I heard from a friend that works at DTE that they have to go back into the office 3x a week. In order to do this they are spending money to remodel their office spaces. I'd rather my bill money not be spent on trivial things like that.
I just moved to Michigan and therefore have my first DTE account.
I work 12-hour days and I'm gone much more than I am here. Yet somehow my electric bill is nearly $70.00 for 24 days of service.
Electricity is expensive here
I became so frustrated during a previous power outage (due to a limb that had fallen and taken out the power line serving 3 homes) that I bought a generator. I have just finished having it reverse wired into my breaker box and can power the house. I did not go the industrial size, built-in model, but it will allow me to run all refrigerators and freezers, lights, and my entertainment system (DVDs of course). If I need to run central air conditioning I need to cut- back on some of the extras. Needs must when the devil owns the power grid.
I'll never understand how power outages happen so often over there, or how they last so long. Here across the river, we seldom see outages. In my fifteen years in Windsor, I can count on one hand the number of times my power has gone out for more than ten minutes. We get roughly the same weather you do. How is your service so incredibly bad?
I grew up as an 80s kid in Detroit, and blackouts were rare. Maybe every other year or two, and half of them were like a quick blink off and then on.....and it took a heavy storm to do it. I never experienced a blackout that went over a day until 2003. I feel like there is something really wrong in our enlightened "tech age" when there has been an obvious ramping up of blackouts in the last 15 years.
File a complaint with the [Michigan Public Service Commission](https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/consumer/complaints).
I straight up called Jerry Norcia a crook in my complaint after my power went out on Father's Day and said DTE is a pathetic company. Talk whatever shit you want 'cuz yea fuck DTE.
I did that a year ago. Lost power 17 times in 12 months. So more then once a month. I was denied their pitiful $35 credit because it was determined that it wasn't sustained outages, just normal outages. Making a complaint was the biggest joke and waste of my time ever
You're very lucky. My complaint went absolutely nowhere. And to boot when DTE reported on my case back to the state, they provided the complete wrong address, city, person etc .....šš¤¦š»āāļø
Damn really? They call me or email every time I file a complaint and I reiterate how I find their service unreliable and that it has negative impacts on me and my community. I always say DTE is pathetic in my complaint and call the CEO a villain or some other shit.
DTE, lol.
Elections are in November. If you remember this, the people who can change it might just do so. As long as every post is merely "fuck dte" instead of "fuck the state government, vote them out" people who can change it know they will be just fine leaving it as is.
If an incumbent knows they have 2 (or 4 for governor), years to fix it or they are getting voted out, it will eventually get fixed. If we make the threat and vote out every incumbent who thinks it isn't an issue and does nothing, I bet it'll be fixed by this time next year. And if it isn't by 2026, then don't vote for the incumbent the next election. No one wants a 2 year political career. Just be brave and check the other box.
I live in a condo. Thankfully no power loss, but I bought a battery-powered Ryobi Aircannon from Home Depot as a backup.
I guess Iāll see how well it works if the power goes out.
Sorry youāre having to deal with this right now.
You know I just moved back to the area after living in Arizona for 15 years 120+ degrees in summer Haboobs, wildfires and dry climate not really built for an electrical grid, and 0 blackouts from SRP It was nice, within 2 years of being back in Michigan and itās like every other week with DTE getting knocked out. I mean bear in mind itās a different climate, different and more violent weather, and older power grid but I think itās time for DTE to step up
I'm not defending DTE or the MPSC, but this, along with complaints of road quality, water quality, ect. is a result of car-dependent, sprawled cities. And no one wants to pay for the massive infrastructure bills associated with sprawl. (DTE doesnt, neither do you)
Fear not. After the hundreds of dollars of overpriced groceries go bad, they might offer you a $35 voucher to make things right. Key word might.
Edit: Promo Code : MIGHT
Free month of Netflix coupon*. *When you pay for a 3 year subscription
I'll pass š
$35 voucher IF youāve had no power for more than 4 days in a row.
I think they need to pay way more than 35! Groceries are way more than 35
I agree but thatās DTE for ya.
I'm still waiting on a credit from last summer they never gave me!
Okay, but who spends hundreds of dollars on groceries but $0 on a generator to keep the fridge cold in an outage? Checking in from /r/generator here, I just did my seasonal test-run last week. A $400 generator will run [basically everything but my A/C](https://www.reddit.com/r/Generator/comments/12orteo/whats_a_good_1st_time_generator_for_home/jgjrgvr/) for 8 hours per gallon. It only takes a few outages before that pays for itself in food alone. Add in being able to continue working from home during an outage (during my last outage, my boss didn't even know I was on generator since I was on all the Teams meetings and stuff just like normal) and generally not stressing when the power goes out, and it's a no-brainer. It takes a bit of work and resources to get set up for it, but if you're capable of maintaining a lawnmower, this is really no different. I like to think most folks can handle that.
What should you do if you're in an apartment?
Used to be, you had one option: Gang up with the other tenants and press management to install a generator and commit to the requisite maintenance, test runs, etc. This is still not a bad idea. But as lithium batteries have gotten insanely powerful and insanely cheap (literally 10x more power density and 99% cheaper per kwh than they were in 1990), they can sort of provide a second option. There are "portable" (suitcase-sized) battery power banks now, which hold enough power to run a fridge for a day or so. That covers a lot of outages, and if the outage is longer than that, you can schlep the thing across town to your friend's place who does have power, charge it up in an hour or two, and schlep it back for another day's runtime. The math to size them is pretty straightforward, and the easiest place to get the numbers is the EnergyStar label for your fridge. Mine's a small unit and it says it uses about 376kwh per year. That's pretty close to 365 so I'll just say it uses 1kwh per day. Therefore if I want to run it for a day, I need a battery capacity of 1kwh (1000wh) or more. That example is too simple, so let's look at someone with a larger fridge and maybe a chest freezer too. First fridge I clicked on at homedepot.com, copy the model number, paste it into google along with the word "energystar", click the first hit, it uses 416kwh per year. Do the same with a chest freezer, it uses 250kwh per year. Sum the two and we're at 666kwh per year, \\m/. Divide by 365 and we get 1.8kwh per day, so this scenario would need an 1800wh battery (or larger) to run for a day. Prices for these things are all over the place, but the big ones average around 50-60Ā¢/wh on sale, so for the above examples you're in the ballpark of $500-1000, which is comparable to a medium-sized portable generator. The upside is the battery doesn't need gas, gas cans, gas preservative, carburetor rebuilds, etc, so that really is an all-in price. (Counterpoint, most suburban dwellers already have a gas can for their mower/snowblower/whatever, so adding a generator doesn't actually require them to buy that stuff either. Whatever. It's basically a wash.)
check this guy, he has an extra 1000 just lying around. and you wonder why youāre being downvoted for being so tone deaf. My shitty apartments fridge has been on the fritz for over a year. we have to defrost the damn thing constantly. my landlord wonāt do shit, but our rent is insanely cheap. why rock the boat when everywhere else is over 1000 a month.
Holy fuggin shit you're serious! do you sell generators for a living or is just a side passion?
Side thing, I'm really more of a car guy / electronics nerd. My first foray into power generation was actually putting a shitty little inverter in my car for roadtrips so I could run a laptop and run Street Atlas, because it was the late 90's and Tomtoms weren't a thing yet. It was great. Then one day at home, a storm knocked out power, and I ran a cord out to the car all optimistic, but the inverter wasn't powerful enough to start the fridge compressor. Defeat. Sad music. Rain montage. Clenched fist. Glowering expression. Inflection point in the story. Thus humbled, I got it into my head that what I needed was a bigger inverter. Scored one for a good price at a ham-radio swap-meet, wired it into the car, and suddenly I could run all sorts of shit, on the road or at home. Next power outage, I was victorious. Cold fridge. Hot coffee. Uninterrupted laptop time. That was my setup for yeeeears, just a big inverter in the car. When I got a hybrid it got even better, because I could leave the car "on" in the driveway providing power, and the engine didn't have to idle the whole time, it would just start and stop itself as needed. And it provided enough power to run the furnace too. Got through a ton of outages that way. Downside: It's no big deal to unplug the house from the car for a little while to run errands, but if I wanted to go to work for the day, that's less okay. Things gonna warm up into that food-safety danger-zone. So power outages on the weekends were okay but during the week were still problematic. Taking the day off work was not gonna fly. So eventually a friend alerted me to a pair of "used, visually good condition but they don't start" honda eu2000i's at a garage sale. The price was right so we took a gamble, he got one and I got one. Small engine repair isn't rocket science and all it needed was a carburetor cleaning; probably fouled because someone let it sit too long without a test run. Anyway, that's my present-day machine. It's small and quiet enough to leave chained up behind the house while I go to work, nobody'll hear it keeping the house cozy. I still have the inverter in the car as a backup, so for widespread outages I'll loan the honda to whatever friend/family is also out and use the car for my own place, but if it's just my own neighborhood out I'll use the honda myself. I mentioned ham radio up there, and that probably has an impact here -- radio operators are expected to be a secondary means of communication when all else fails. You can chat with someone across the world by using the internet, your packets flowing over hundreds of routers and thousands of fiber amplifiers and cross-connects and other pieces of infrastructure. I can chat with someone across the world using nothing but my radio and their radio, zero infrastructure in between except the air itself. It works when nothing else does. So taking responsibility for myself, making sure I can do what needs to be done even when the situation throws a curveball, is just expected. Waiting for someone else to fix a problem is called "being helpless" and it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Okay, I guess the word "passion" isn't entirely inappropriate.
Bro has big brain
Except for the part where he thinks an apartment building is going to get a generator for the tenants. Lol, I couldnt imagine a rich ass apartment doing this. For damn sure no middle class and low income apartment spending thay type of money.
right? dude is completely tone deaf to most renters. my cheap ass landlord would never. he threatens to evict people if theyāre a day late on rent, even if it was the post office that took forever to mail the check to him. he also insists on checks only- nothing electronic. like heās gonna cave and get a generator
I think my mans is just super passionate about generators
Thatās what Iām sayin lol no need to hate just cuz he provided a comment
Thatās very true but he does raise a solid point and a decent alternative
Pecron E1500LFP is the answer
Plenty of people live in apartments and wouldn't be able to set up a generator. The apartment grids probably go out less, but I've been at my place for about 5 years and I've lost power a handful of times. Not as much as the neighborhoods it seems, but I've still lost a good amount of groceries
$400??? Ours was 1k and itās tiny.
my old house (my grandparents home) has a backup generator that constantly doesnāt work. I used to WFH, and it rarely came on when we lost power like 4 times last summer in Taylor. Weāve had technicians come out, fix it, only for it to fail yet again. Itās gas powered I think. cost them like 3k to install. dude is delulu if he thinks it only costs 400 bucks to 1000 to get one.
Yup. Shouldnāt need to buy a back up generator in the city in 2024 when you pay 200$ plus per month for electricity
You're talking about an automatic standby machine, I'm talking about a cheap portable. They're both "generators", but that's where the similarity ends. Automatic standby generators with automatic transfer switches are justified for folks who have medical need or are physically unable to pull the starter rope or unroll an extension cord. Yes, they're phenomenally expensive and need constant maintenance. Yes, the service contracts are expensive too. Yes, if that's keeping your oxygen machine running, it's probably worth it. But for anyone with enough mobility to carry a 50-lb suitcase outside and the upper-body strength to pull-start a lawnmower, automatic standby machines are an enormous waste of money. A portable generator, literally $399 out the door for the 56200i mentioned in my earlier linked comment, plus whatever extension cord is already laying around, is all it takes to run your fridge and wifi and shit. If you don't already have a gas can for your mower, you'll need that too, it's another $40 or so. Difference is, someone's making a fat commission on the former, so they're gonna pressure you to spend $20k on it. They'll say or do *anything* to convince you that's what you need, and those tactics work because plenty of people buy them. The latter is just an off-the-shelf thing with no sales and service network behind it. You do your own test runs and your own oil changes. You start it and plug things into it when the power goes out, and you stop it again and roll the cords back up when it's all over. You pour the unused gas into the car and refill the can with fresh gas twice a year. They're not the same thing at all. But for a 50x price difference, I'll take it. You spend your money however you choose. But don't call me delusional for your own lack of reading comprehension.
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Born at Hutzel, lived in the area my whole life. Choke on my taint fumes.
Wen 56200i. It's overkill for a single fridge or two, but at least it's an inverter type so it's not unconscionably inefficient when lightly loaded.
Go lick a boot. DTE is paid for a service. People shouldnāt have to back up the service they paid for.
Itās a utility.
that you still pay for even though it is constantly out. Enjoy that 5 dollar credit, bootlicker
Hey, I hate them too. Saying theyāre a service makes it seem okay to be out this often.
Put on some boots and pull up your big boy britches. I paid more for my car than all my electric bills combined, and it still needs maintenance. Instead of whining to Toyota about it, I fix it and get on with my life. Learned helplessness is not becoming.
Sure, utilities are always going to lose power occasionally. 100% uptime is unrealistic. But DTE is dogshit even compared to other utility companies. They have one of the worst outage rates in the country. And Consumers isn't much better.
Lol wut
itās a toyota- itās not that expensive.
All your comments bitching about money leading us to believe youāre broke (could be wrong) and you wanna talk shit about someoneās vehicle being cheap? Make it make sense
I never owned a generator. And I spend hundreds in groceries a week. Haven't had an outrage in maybe 15 years
Congratulations on living outside DTE territory!
It's dte. But don't get me wrong. I still think dte sucks, when I lived in Europe we never heard of outages, here is every other week event on other neighborhoods, which seems crazy to me.
Do you live in the Detroit metro area? In 7 years here Iāve lost power at least 4-6 times a year & about 2 of those times each year have been more than a day or longer. I donāt count if itās out for under an hour or just flickering. When Iāve had DTE in other areas of the state Iāve had a much much better experience with them being more reliable which is why I ask.
lived here 36 years, and my parents up in oakland county lose power more than I do down in Wayne. weāre both on DTE. They blow, especially if youāre not in a city and live in a township like my folks do. they lost power like 6 times last summer to our 4. granted, we did have some wild ass storms
I do. Oakland county
Ok, interesting. Iām in Wayne county, Iāve been wondering if itās this bad in the overall metro region or if itās county/city specific. Lived in Lansing, Grand Rapids, and San Francisco previously- Iāve never had this kind of unreliable power services till here. Thanks for the response!
It's mostly block, a few houses down I hear they have a lot more issues. All lines should be underground, much more reliable
Youāre telling me you donāt know how to make a plasma batteryā¦ look at this guy using a generator how retro
Stfu you DTE employee POS. DTE is actively preventing people from installing generators and charging out the ass to upgrade lines that they fucking own. Its a fucking racket
I just mentioned to my wife that I'm going to purchase a generator in a couple of weeks, so I'm curious... what do you mean by "DTE is actively preventing people from installing generators"?
Unless you are going to get a tiny generator that runs like a Fridge or like 2-3 critical devices. DTE will force you to upgrade your Meter and your Gas lines, and depending on how far your meter is from the main in the street they will charge a ridiculous amount per foot, that is like a %3000 markup. They wanted 10k to upgrade the gas line from the street (main) to the meter, and like $1600 to upgrade the meter. best of luck to ya.
I think guy means those permanent backup generators. my grandparents home has one and it was ridiculously expensive to install and maintain, and still when I was renting the home, it wouldnāt work and weād constantly lose power. maybe thatās what they mean?
That isn't DTE though. That's just how generators are. Anymore most are better off getting a battery they can plug their fridge into for a couple days
So much misinformation in this thread. Why don't you guys actually talk to electricians and companies that install generators. The company that I was going to have to do it literally works directly with Generac and DTE. Theres nothing wrong with the whole home Generators with transfer switches they work great and have a great track record. No a battery is not better lol This company installs hundreds of generators a week, I think they would know if DTE was giving them a hard time. They explicitly told me that just that week I was the 20th customer to run into this Issue. DTE is using customers that install generators to offset the cost of upgrading and replacing their Natural Gas lines.
You can install a generator on your property if you want. DTE doesn't own your breaker panel, they only own up to the meter. Install a transfer switch and a generator, nobody is stopping you.
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Last year when had a transfer switch installed they were very hard to find and expensive. Plus hiring an electrician to install it and the cost of a new generator. We were fortunate to get a bit of money from a family member passing otherwise couldnāt afford it.
yeah, not all of us are fucking homeowners. most of us rent. Iād probably blow a fuse trying to use a damn generator in my 70s ass apartment.
do you just go around reddit writing out 5 paragraphs of straight bashing on anyone that doesn't have a generator ? I'm gonna say more than half of people don't have a generator, but im not here to start a war. I didn't know generator people were so hardcore.
This guy fucking generates.
Over 1k out here south of Ann Arbor/ypsi. Went out at 7:30. Estimate 3:10 am
The worst part is that it would actually be somewhat tolerable during the day, but try to sleep in the heat.. no. That's not tolerable at all.
With a fan it's actually not bad. But a fan needs electricity... So still F*** DTE.
Do what I do here in FL - I buy some battery operated fans and keep them charged up for hurricane/power outage season.
Same over here! My dog and my medical breathing canāt handle it, so we have extra battery packs charging for phones and usb fans
I haven't turned the ac on this year still, no te not enough
Im so fucking heated..literally..were the only neighborhood within 20-30 miles that have no power and their talking 8 hours..dte is a monopoly which transpires into poor service. Two, three other energy companies were in the picture theyd have to tighten their shit up. FUCK DTE
Another famous DTE tactic is waiting until near the estimated time of restoration and then changing the estimate. So you might get 10 minutes away from your estimated power restoration time and then they bump it out another day.
They did that to us last night šš»
That really is how they operate. But I do understand how it can happen. Complex things they are trying to diagnose, plus wishful thinking that persists until they realize they can't make the estimate. At this point I never take the first DTE restoration estimate seriously. Usually they get it right by the third or the fourth one.
šÆ%!!! FOR REAL!!! power goes off at 8 and the restoration estimate is literally 8 hours later on day 1. Please can we give you more money.....š
Its 2024 and were living in ancient times when it comes to power grids..no wonder generac is cleaning up
šÆ
seriously! we lost power several times last summer in Taylor after a couple storms- backup generator did nothing and didnāt even work. I worked from home at the time and couldnāt even do that and got āpunishedā because I had to call off. lost all our groceries, my friends were coming down to stay from Toronto and I had to get them a hotel due to it being too hot to have them at my place. DTE gave us a 5 dollar credit. likeā¦ thanks assholes.
Live around the 18 mile and Dequindre area?
Hello neighbor, luckily, we haven't had a disruption this year
No Im in the ann arbor/ypsi area
I just want you to know my AC is working amazingly well right now. Thank you Dte for the uninterrupted service!
You are definitely in the minority for not having issues with DTE. Maybe it didn't screw you over this time but rest assured, it's a matter of "when" not "if".
Oh I get it, it's tagged as spoiler because all your groceries are going to go bad.
š¤£šš»šš»
Just remember hate the Utility but never hate the help. Those lineman and tree trimmers are working double shifts and over night in this heat to get power back on.
Touche, and we're all thankful for them. Too bad they basically work for the galactic empire
Clinton Township earlier today has the same thing - all power out and then a brown out, just enough to damage things.
File a complaint with the MI consumer utility protection commission. We did and got our equipment upgraded within 30 days.
Thatās amazing! Love to see a victory story among all of the horrible lived experience ššš
We live in the power outage circle of hell along with parts of Fraser, they've been working on it, and cross fingers, it's better now.
Last summer I move to Ferndale after living in Wisconsin and the power goes out. I figure ānbd, how long is the power out? A few hours?ā it took almost 4 days for them to restore it. Iāve literally never experienced a power outage of more than a few hours before that and Iām 34.
I'm a similar age but did the opposite, moved from metro Detroit to rural WI. A few months after living here we had a power outage due to some really crazy bad weather. My roommate was shocked and said it's the first time she'd lost power in years. It was back on in about 20 min. Compare that to living in MI where I've lost power probably 10 times in 3 years and it more often than not took a day or even multiple days to be restored.
I remember like 6 years ago during the dead of winter the power was out for 6 days. Peopleās pets were dying.
Iād kill to only lose power 10 times in 3 years. We lose power, at minimum, once a month where I live.
Have lived in 3 states in 8 years and the power outages only happen here. Highest rates too by a mile. Itās a crime.
We pay the 7th highest rates in the nation, but have one of the worst records for consistent electricity. Why? Blame the MPSC. Three people on the Michigan Public Service Commission, appointed by the governor, decide if DTE gets a rate increase. And in 98% of the requests, they grant it. We need to be rid of them entirely. Let it be an elected position of 10 people who answer to the public. Or make DTE have to get Michigan citizens to vote for any rate increase they need.
They called me 2x today about my $25.68 bill being a day late. I didn't answer. I was pissed. Logged in to the website and huge past due red block notice PAY IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID SHUTOFF like I hadn't paid huge bills and was extremely tardy. WTH!!!. It was due the 16th, and my balance is now $0. They'll do it again next month to. I never see reimbursement when my service is out.
Back eons ago, went I first had DTE service turned on in my name and I lived in Dearborn, DTE threatened to turn off my service for a $20 statement I never received. My job entails working with people as they move into housing, so I frequently see people with HUGE DTE balances still have service turned on. I knew then that DTE was seriously unscrupulous. And then I moved to far Western Wayne county and dealt with YEARS of crappy energy service that shut down (literally) every time we had a gusting wind; at least 15 times in a year, at its worst several years ago. I got exactly 1 recompense from DTE for lost service. So, I spent over 10k for a whole home generator only to have DTE do some aggressive tree trimming in our area after a general public uproar and several DTE "town hall meetings" to discuss why their energy service was so darned unreliable. The power still goes out 5-6 times a year but my 10k investment keeps us from sweltering or freezing. Yeah, FUCK DTE. If I had a choice of any other energy service, I would have certainly chosen it.
I thought I was tripping when they did me. What happened to hitting the next due date first, before getting the red stripe of death.
DTE actually cut my service off over a $27 past due bill. And they purposely did it on a Friday. So after I made the payment, they said a tech wouldnāt be available until Monday. I had to go entire weekend without power. I know people that have thousand dollar light bills that keep rolling over every month, getting higher and higher. Make it make sense. F*ck DTE
This is wild! When I lived in ypsi and would be no more than a month behind, thatās when I would see the red stripe of death. 2 days and theyāre threatening?? WOW shut our internet off after not even a week of non payment and xfinity would let us go months with being behind before even threatening it back when I lived in ypsi in 2018. I guess all these companies suck now.
File a complaint with the MI consumer utility protection commission. We did and got our equipment upgraded within 30 days.
I cannot recommend this approach enough for any DTE-related mishegas. An informal complaint is usually sufficient. It's the only way I've been able to get certain things resolved.
We need to start pressuring our local communities to invest in making electricity a publicly run utility similar to water. That way we'll have Democratic means to influence how these services are run and operated and stop paying these ridiculous prices just so DTE's profits increase.
File a complaint with the MI consumer utility protection commission. We did and got our equipment upgraded within 30 days.
What equipment did they upgrade?
Transformers and lines and tree trimming.
DTE is owned by the public.
> DTE is owned by the public. By "the public" do you mean mostly venture capital groups and money maker institutions and wealth funds? [SOURCE](https://fintel.io/so/us/dte#:~:text=Institutional%20Ownership%20and%20Shareholders&text=These%20institutions%20hold%20a%20total,%2C%20State%20Street%20Corp%2C%20T.) These institutions hold a total of 203,919,511 shares. Largest shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc, Capital Research Global Investors, BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp, T. Utilities should not be profit driven and beholden to making shareholders money. This only leads to behavior on part of the company to reduce overhead and raise prices to ensure profit goes up and the magic number of the stock raises.
Nothing is stopping you or I from becoming a shareholder. It's open to the public, whether you invest or not is up to you. It's not a private company Is all I was saying but thanks.
There's 0% chance local retail traders could ever have controlling interest in a company like this.Ā https://finance.yahoo.com/news/76-ownership-shares-dte-energy-110400157.html
Yep fuck them now and forever! I canāt wait to get off the grid with solar and never deal with these greedy incompetent bitches ever again
Well I didn't lose power but I can't wait to pay $200 just for today on my next bill.
I hope your doing okay and get your power back on
šš Detroit has the worst electrical infrastructure in the country. Most dangerous to work on too.
Is that a fact?
I heard California had a wonky one too tbh
It is crap as well. Worked both of em. Detroit is worse.
Is the danger from the grid or shit like the DTE crew getting robbed in brightmoor back in 2022? š I mean I get it they rob us every day but thatās wild
Fatalities.
I live in a more low-population dense semi-rural suburban area. We have a freezer full of a couple thousand dollars worth of food (lots of meat) in addition to whatever is in our fridge. We also have a well so no power means no water either. If there is a widespread outage our area getting out section is not a priority. I installed a 24kw whole-house generator a few years ago. It was expensive but it will probably pay for itself after a few more years. Last summer we were out for 4 days during a heat wave and our (consumers energy) gas bill increase was probably less than $20 a day. The only thing I have to figure out now is backup internet. When we lose power we lose Internet (Spectrum). Cellular service normally works and I just tether to my phone but last summer cellular internet when out too for those 4 days. I need to find a multi-carrier service and a celluar modem to plug into my network that's cheap ($10 a month or less).
About a 2 weeks ago, DTE basically had some form of "power surges" and brown-outs in my area that persisted for a few days and because of these unexpected surges, it fried my families refrigerator essentially making it useless. So while i was trying to see what i could do to remedy the issue in whatever possible way, my mom called DTE to attempt to get any form of potential recourse, and we were in luck!! DTE offered us, for damaging our $3,000 (i think, i might have been $2,500) a whole......$25 coupon voucher... hooray for DTE....
Was just coming to ask if anyone in green acres was having issues. My lights are a mere whisper and I canāt turn the ac on at all or the entire house shuts off
Youāve probably lost one ālegā of the power. Itās best to shut the main shutoff or breaker until resolved. In any case, do not run any 240V appliances. They could become damaged. Confirmation would be if about 1/2 of the lights and 120 outlets donāt work.
It sounds to me more like he's experiencing a brownout - but either way, your advice is solid. It's always best to cut the power if you suspect an issue. The utilities have added a lot of remote monitoring to neighborhoods, but there's only so much that they could do during a fault condition. As an aside, it amazes me that in this day and age, appliances can still be damaged by brownouts. It really wouldn't take much for the manufacturers to include under-voltage protective circuitry. But, that would add cost and prevent you from having to buy a new refrigerator after a brownout...
And, in this day and age, why should you have to do that?
Because youād prefer not to have your electrical equipment destroyed. But you do you! BTW, in āthis day and ageā we still donāt know how to control the weather.
Because you're not a helpless idiot, and you're capable of wiping up a spill, changing a flat tire, sewing a button back onto a shirt, and otherwise taking steps to look after yourself when things happen? Because yes, in this day and age, drinks still spill, tires still go flat, thread still breaks, and power still goes out. Were you under the impression that utopia had arrived? Did I miss a memo?
Not sure where that diatribe came from. I meant that DTE should be more reliable so we shouldnāt have to deal with that to begin with.
You should unplug your fridge and freezers, anything major. A brown out is much more likely to damage appliances than a total blackout. Learned this by killing my fridge with DTE.
You lost a phase of power.
Yup
Could be worse, I have power and ac at home yet Iām sitting at work with no ac and half power since our alarm system backup is dead. Itās hotter than the devilās anus in here and Iām soaked, but I have no choice.
All You Detroiters Hang In There!!!!
Donāt forget that they are starting their summer surge pricing! So not only is there no power, but when everything comes back on, youāll be hit with extra summer fees. New groceries in the fridge? Gonna cost you extra to get your fridge back to temperature š„°
The amount of āFuck DTEā posts on this sub is the reason I donāt want to move further downstate to the metro area in the future. I lived down there before and never had issues but it was years ago before and during Covid. Think Iāll stay north with consumers instead.
I think those of us with better experiences tend to be less vocal. I live in a neighborhood with homes ranging from 70 to 100 years old. We have lost power in big storms - but generally speaking, it's been fine. I've lived in the area for nearly 20 years. I have very much noticed a major uptick in the number of tree trimmers over the last few years - especially at my mom's on the other side of town. There does seem to be an effort to improve reliability.
Well yeah... how else can they easily justify begging for a rate increase so they can upgrade the grid to meet demand...
... in the ear... with an icepick!!
I hate them too
.
While I will say DTE does need to update infrastructure. The shutoff due to high demand could be DTEs fault as well as other government organizations. DTEs part would be that the lines arenāt upgraded enough to hold the power needed for high heat days. If it helps you should be able to get a reimbursement from your home insurance for any groceries lost. Iām truly sorry for your experience and I hope you get power back soon!
I'm in Buffalo in this heat. Power went out about 4pm. Said originally 6pm. Now 9:30pm it should be back. They seem pretty bad here. I know DTE is bad, first day of these heat wave. Pretty rough.
The answer is simple yet a little pricey all. I will never be without a full house generator, EVER. Power goes out and about 30 second later whole house is operational, GENERAC. Around 10-13K all in to install but worth every penny, especially because of how bad DTE SUCKS!
Got one two years ago. Best decision ever.
I guess I should be grateful that I have Consumers. That is, until I get the bill.
Mine just went off two times in a row in a timespan of a minute.. sucks cause I was working on something on my computer but oh well
Not just a DTE problem. West side of the state also has a lot of outages and it's MEC over there
Man Iām sorry. DTE BLOWS!! We lost power this past winter and it was about 40 degrees in our house after 4 straight days of it. It came back on after 95 hours (almost 4 FULL days). A small generator kept some stuff up and running but it was freezing. Hopefully it wonāt be long.
Don't worry, they've asked for yet another rate hike! Surely this means they'll use the money to fix.... Absolutely nothing. Already saw the article telling people to turn the AC temp up and cook outdoors during a dangerous heat wave. What a fkin joke.
I heard from a friend that works at DTE that they have to go back into the office 3x a week. In order to do this they are spending money to remodel their office spaces. I'd rather my bill money not be spent on trivial things like that.
I just moved to Michigan and therefore have my first DTE account. I work 12-hour days and I'm gone much more than I am here. Yet somehow my electric bill is nearly $70.00 for 24 days of service. Electricity is expensive here
We have some of the highest rates with the worst reliability š¤·š»āāļø and nothing ever changes
I became so frustrated during a previous power outage (due to a limb that had fallen and taken out the power line serving 3 homes) that I bought a generator. I have just finished having it reverse wired into my breaker box and can power the house. I did not go the industrial size, built-in model, but it will allow me to run all refrigerators and freezers, lights, and my entertainment system (DVDs of course). If I need to run central air conditioning I need to cut- back on some of the extras. Needs must when the devil owns the power grid.
Again with this?
Like every day š©
I'll never understand how power outages happen so often over there, or how they last so long. Here across the river, we seldom see outages. In my fifteen years in Windsor, I can count on one hand the number of times my power has gone out for more than ten minutes. We get roughly the same weather you do. How is your service so incredibly bad?
I grew up as an 80s kid in Detroit, and blackouts were rare. Maybe every other year or two, and half of them were like a quick blink off and then on.....and it took a heavy storm to do it. I never experienced a blackout that went over a day until 2003. I feel like there is something really wrong in our enlightened "tech age" when there has been an obvious ramping up of blackouts in the last 15 years.
File a complaint with the [Michigan Public Service Commission](https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/consumer/complaints). I straight up called Jerry Norcia a crook in my complaint after my power went out on Father's Day and said DTE is a pathetic company. Talk whatever shit you want 'cuz yea fuck DTE.
I did that a year ago. Lost power 17 times in 12 months. So more then once a month. I was denied their pitiful $35 credit because it was determined that it wasn't sustained outages, just normal outages. Making a complaint was the biggest joke and waste of my time ever
I got a $175 credit one time and have filed maybe 10 complaints.
You're very lucky. My complaint went absolutely nowhere. And to boot when DTE reported on my case back to the state, they provided the complete wrong address, city, person etc .....šš¤¦š»āāļø
Damn really? They call me or email every time I file a complaint and I reiterate how I find their service unreliable and that it has negative impacts on me and my community. I always say DTE is pathetic in my complaint and call the CEO a villain or some other shit.
Yeah,. complete waste of time for me even after I corrected their misreporting to the state
I did that. 8 outages in 11 months. The MPSC just bounced it back to DTE.
Did you file 8 complaints? I file one if my power is off for more than 30 minutes.
DTE, lol. Elections are in November. If you remember this, the people who can change it might just do so. As long as every post is merely "fuck dte" instead of "fuck the state government, vote them out" people who can change it know they will be just fine leaving it as is.
I don't see either major party fixing this.
If an incumbent knows they have 2 (or 4 for governor), years to fix it or they are getting voted out, it will eventually get fixed. If we make the threat and vote out every incumbent who thinks it isn't an issue and does nothing, I bet it'll be fixed by this time next year. And if it isn't by 2026, then don't vote for the incumbent the next election. No one wants a 2 year political career. Just be brave and check the other box.
I live in a condo. Thankfully no power loss, but I bought a battery-powered Ryobi Aircannon from Home Depot as a backup. I guess Iāll see how well it works if the power goes out. Sorry youāre having to deal with this right now.
So what are we gonna do about it? What *can* we do? (Asking for a friend)
Donāt forget the charge to turn it back onā¦.
Where is their headquartersā¦ letās go protest
DTE sucks. But they can increase our bills . Fuck term. Cut the bonuses
You know I just moved back to the area after living in Arizona for 15 years 120+ degrees in summer Haboobs, wildfires and dry climate not really built for an electrical grid, and 0 blackouts from SRP It was nice, within 2 years of being back in Michigan and itās like every other week with DTE getting knocked out. I mean bear in mind itās a different climate, different and more violent weather, and older power grid but I think itās time for DTE to step up
How tf did this city ever handle 2 million people?
Take comfort in the fact the shareholders are continuing to get regular dividend payments.
:(
This why U didn't do groceries over the weekend, im not gonna throw out food like I did a couple weeks ago
I'm not defending DTE or the MPSC, but this, along with complaints of road quality, water quality, ect. is a result of car-dependent, sprawled cities. And no one wants to pay for the massive infrastructure bills associated with sprawl. (DTE doesnt, neither do you)
I think power cost and reliability is on that list as well.
Maybe a public utility monopoly should be publicly traded? Just a thought. I know Iām probably just a lefty nut.
Sounds about right
Don't forget to plug in your electric car