With winter weather continuing to blast Fayette County, a Dayton Power & Light (DP&L) representative this week explained how they approach the snow and ice and shared some important tips to keep residents warm and safe this season.
“DP&L monitors the weather year-round and when we say monitor, it is looking at the forecast to make sure that we are staffed accordingly, that the supplies are on the trucks to handle the worst scenario possible…you know check all of those boxes,” Mary Ann Kabel, director of corporate communications with DP&L, said this week. “It is not just the line crews, it is all the people that are staff to take those calls from the dispatch center or pick them up from the website when people report their outages. That is imperative on our part.”
Kabel said that for DP&L, snow is not the worst part of the winter weather, but rather the ice that forms and weighs down branches and causes potential for something to fall onto power lines. Along with the ice, they also watch out for high winds as the combination of those two increase the chance for power outages.
“There are some things that people can do,” Kabel said. “Number one, you are going to use more electricity as temperatures are sub-zero for extended times or even when it is in the teens and low 20s. So investing in a smart thermostat that is behavioral, that knows your patterns at home to making sure that when the sun shines you let it help warm the house and for colder days you want to keep that heat inside. The other thing is when people look at their thermostat and then shoot it up really high. All of a sudden your furnace has to work harder to get there. And then they lower it in the evening. Overall you want to keep it at a reasonable, consistent level. You don’t want that fluctuation all the time, so we encourage people to keep their thermostats at 68, but that may be cold for some so keep it where you are comfortable, but the point is to keep it consistent.”
Kabel went on to say that for those that are looking to decrease their energy consumption, changing lights in the household to LEDs could make a big difference. Kabel explained that LED light bulbs are much more efficient and could help many save money on energy bills. She also said to ensure that the registers and furnace filters are clean.
“Now we are coming up on spring, believe it or not, and those things are great for people to do when the weather breaks because about 55 to 60 percent of your utility bill is cooling and heating, so anything you can do in that space will put money back into your pocket,” Kabel said.
Finally, Kabel encouraged customers to stay informed about the weather. Knowing when issues could pop up will give people time to prepare for the potentially bad weather.
According to weather.com and as previously reported, Friday and Saturday are currently forecasted as cold days, but should overall not have much if any precipitation. High temperatures are expected to be around the low 20s and low temperatures in the single digits with winds blowing between five and 15 miles per hour,
Sunday could see more snow/rain mix during the day and could turn into snow accumulation during the night hours with temperatures expected to be right around the mid 30s.
The information in this article was provided by Mary Ann Kabel, director of corporate communications with Dayton Power & Light and weather.com.
Reach Martin Graham at (740) 463-9684 or on Twitter @MartiTheNewsGuy.
