'Bout to get reeeaaaaal cold, who's ready?

Supposed to be 20 below here tonight and until noon tomorrow morning with 25 mph winds. Never had temps this low with the stove before. I anticipate the forced air will supplement. Almost hope it does. Been in the house for about 7 years and have never been tested this cold yet. Basement stays about 55 - 60 on normal days. Will likely dip into the 40s tonight with the winds. Forced air should keep it in the 50s though. No frozen pipes.

It is the winds that are concerning. I have seen -30 here before just not with the heavy winds like this. It is what engineers design the bottom end of a system at. Like Backwoods said, will be quite testing.

Except for you Alaskan folks. Your probably laughing at me right now.

Although barrow Alaska is going to be a "balmy" -6 tonight.

I almost sweat my cahones off bringing in the wood this afternoon in preparation for the next blast of cold air (should arrive in New Jersey Tuesday night)-right now it's damn near 40 and will hit 50 tomorrow. I let the fire burn out in the Englander for the first time in five days. Weather report says we're supposed to get thunderstorms tonight-can't make this stuff up...

Yep, temp drop tomorrow from 45F to 0F here tomorrow night to the next morning.

Loaded the house

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

If the broom fits, ride it.

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Almost bizarrely warm out there tonight, considering what we've been thru the last 3 days. Everything is sweating and dripping, like a warm and rainy spring evening. Current temperature = 36F, which is too cool for spring, but too warm for a January night.

Joful said:

Almost bizarrely warm out there tonight, considering what we've been thru the last 3 days. Everything is sweating and dripping, like a warm and rainy spring evening. Current temperature = 36F, which is too cool for spring, but too warm for a January night.

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Let it melt. We're going to need melting tomorrow !

I have -22 now it will drop another 15 degrees yet tonight.

We hit -2F on Friday, which is cold for us, but not entirely uncommon. Memory is a funny thing, but I seem to remember slipping below 0F a few nights most years in the past.

I do remember showing up at elementary school one day and it was -6F when the school bell rang in the morning. They huddled us all in the gymnasium, since the boiler had gone out, and sent us home after an hour. I lived a mile from school, and so there was no bus serving my neighborhood, my brother and I walked. We weren't dressed for it, as being that damn cold, mom had driven us to school that morning.

We walked the mile home, and found mom must've gone to do her shopping after dropping us off at school, as the house was locked and no one was home. Me at age 7 or 8 and my brother two years younger, stuck outdoors at -6F. Several other kids got dropped back off at their bus stops, and found their parents not home as well, after the bus had pulled away. Man... the principle caught hell from the parents on that day!

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

Yep, temp drop tomorrow from 45F to 0F here tomorrow night to the next morning.

Loaded the house

View attachment 123042

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Same situation here. 45F today and 0F tomorrow night. The boy and I moved a lot of wood today. And cleaned out the ecobricks at tractor supply.

BrotherBart said:

Ouch. We will see 0 for the first time in twenty years tomorrow night. I remember the last time. Me and my neighbor were down at the end of my driveway out in it at midnight with strong wind trying to clear snow. He went to his truck and came back drinking a beer, with ice on his stubble, and when I gave him a look he said "Either you are a beer drinker or you're not!".

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I can remember glasses of beer in hand on a weekend night clearing the driveway. Ice on top of the beer. My neighbor across the street and I were sure some beer drinking fools back then, I did refrigeration work and I had a commercial beer Meister in the heated garage the I fixed for cheap, hence the neighbor was there quite a bit!

Dropped to -5 where I am at - that seems so tame compared to what some of you facing tonight. Keep the coals stoked everyone !

Now its -30 and my propane pressure has dropped low enough that the furnace wont run. Its happened many times before but it was really tough before I got the wood stove put in!

50°F here this AM! Unbelieveable. Cross country yesterday. Today all the snow will be gone, or if not, totally messed up when the temps go below zero on Tuesday. Ach, such is the Northeast.

hermancm said:

Now its -30 and my propane pressure has dropped low enough that the furnace wont run. Its happened many times before but it was really tough before I got the wood stove put in!

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I am wondering if this is what happened to our ventfree-it cut out on Friday night sometime, which is when it was reading -8 on our weather station. It's just one 100lb tank so it might have been too cold and couldn't draw. Either that or it ran out. Until we finish getting the place sealed it's nice to have when it gets in the teens or lower.

It's amazing with a stove rated for 1200-2000 sq ft that we even need it in our 700 sq ft, but it's just what we get for living in an old cottage I guess, lol. I can say this-I am glad we've got seasoned wood this year the way the weather's been!! I do wish we had a bit more hardwood though, so I wasn't up every night for a middle of the night reload (pine burns well, and for the most part I like it, but with these rediculous temps we just can't hold an all night burn and have house temps above 60 in the am).

Had a duh moment this am and will be loading up the sunroom with more wood when I get home, unless DH decides to do it during the day. I've been looking for a spot for extra wood storage and although we've finished the room more than before we could still get away with temp wood storage in it...it's got more work needed before it's usable in the winter anyway. -2 predicted without the windchill tonight, then by the weekend, 40's. My head is killing me now, this is going to be a long week (migraines).

Joful said:

We hit -2F on Friday, which is cold for us, but not entirely uncommon. Memory is a funny thing, but I seem to remember slipping below 0F a few nights most years in the past.

I do remember showing up at elementary school one day and it was -6F when the school bell rang in the morning. They huddled us all in the gymnasium, since the boiler had gone out, and sent us home after an hour. I lived a mile from school, and so there was no bus serving my neighborhood, my brother and I walked. We weren't dressed for it, as being that damn cold, mom had driven us to school that morning.

We walked the mile home, and found mom must've gone to do her shopping after dropping us off at school, as the house was locked and no one was home. Me at age 7 or 8 and my brother two years younger, stuck outdoors at -6F. Several other kids got dropped back off at their bus stops, and found their parents not home as well, after the bus had pulled away. Man... the principle caught hell from the parents on that day!

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Good story. I think we were a bit more bulletproof when we were kids. I wish I still had some of that stuff, now that I'm an old(er) fart. I used to spend hours out in the cold (street hockey, walking to the toboggan hill, etc.) and had to be dragged inside, and we did get some nasty cold winters (this year is kinda like what we saw 20 or 30 years ago). Man, I'm out in this cold now, waking the pup around the block in the morning before work for 10 minutes, and I'm totally wimping out. Granted, it's somewhere between -30 and - 40 with the windchills on the colder days, and nobody should be out too long in the deep freeze, but it does hurt a lot more now than it used to back in the day...

eclecticcottage said:

I am wondering if this is what happened to our ventfree-it cut out on Friday night sometime, which is when it was reading -8 on our weather station. It's just one 100lb tank so it might have been too cold and couldn't draw. Either that or it ran out. Until we finish getting the place sealed it's nice to have when it gets in the teens or lower.

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hermancm raises a good point. I have a Rinnai direct vent propane unit - so far it's been working well - typically I run it on the lower settings so it doesn't have to suck as much gas which may be helping with low pressure issues up to a point. But I noticed the furnace will actually make an intermittent / slight "whistling" sound in the low fire mode when the temps outside are extremely cold e.g. @ -30. The manufacturer issued a tech bulletin attributing this harmonic noise more typically to differences / changes in gas composition. I believe the unit is more likely reacting to extreme temps with changes (decline) in the supply gas pressure. They have a fix (minor air shutter and manifold pressure adjustments). But it's mostly a nuisance and not a safety issue, and I'm not a gas fitter, no manometer etc. so I won't tinker with it. Would have to pay a gas fitter 3 or 4 hours time to drive all the way out, adjust, test, etc. Once I have the stove rolling, the furnace gets a break anyway.

I think the guy who installed the tank said something about -42 deg being the propane boiling point., so as the temps drop you could have some pressure related problems, to the point of failure when there's no pressure at all.

But here in central Kentucky, getting a 70 degree delta doesn't happen often..



Just happy to be warm.. and spending no money to do it..

OK,OK, I know *some* money was spent.. gas and oil for the saw ain't free.

But my meter ain't out there trying to pull itself off the wall from centrifugal force..

If the forecast is even remotely correct, we'll have gone from a low of -1F Saturday morning, to a high of 58F this morning, back to zero gain tonight. When they talked about climate change, I didn't realize it was all going to happen within 72 hours!
Stay warm.

TE

These temps have been soooo strange. It was -15F two nights ago and today it is 60F here in MA. By 10pm it is going to be in the 20's with a low of 10F tonight. Tomorrow wont get any warmer either.

In a sick sense I kind of wish I was experiencing the -30F temps....only to see if my Englander 30 could keep up!

eclecticcottage said:

I am wondering if this is what happened to our ventfree-it cut out on Friday night sometime, which is when it was reading -8 on our weather station. It's just one 100lb tank so it might have been too cold and couldn't draw. Either that or it ran out. Until we finish getting the place sealed it's nice to have when it gets in the teens or lower.

It's amazing with a stove rated for 1200-2000 sq ft that we even need it in our 700 sq ft, but it's just what we get for living in an old cottage I guess, lol. I can say this-I am glad we've got seasoned wood this year the way the weather's been!! I do wish we had a bit more hardwood though, so I wasn't up every night for a middle of the night reload (pine burns well, and for the most part I like it, but with these rediculous temps we just can't hold an all night burn and have house temps above 60 in the am).

Had a duh moment this am and will be loading up the sunroom with more wood when I get home, unless DH decides to do it during the day. I've been looking for a spot for extra wood storage and although we've finished the room more than before we could still get away with temp wood storage in it...it's got more work needed before it's usable in the winter anyway. -2 predicted without the windchill tonight, then by the weekend, 40's. My head is killing me now, this is going to be a long week (migraines).

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Propane boils at -44. the colder it gets the lower the pressure it has and a large evaporation surface helps the gas vaporize in cold temps, which a 100lb tank doesn't have so that may be the problem for sure

TradEddie said:

If the forecast is even remotely correct, we'll have gone from a low of -1F Saturday morning, to a high of 58F this morning, back to zero gain tonight. When they talked about climate change, I didn't realize it was all going to happen within 72 hours!
Stay warm.

TE

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Well that sucks ha? Not! and it is the Arctic here!

NWS says it's 1F outside, supposed to get to -5 tonight, that's cold for us. Even when the temps are warm in here, you can feel the battle that's being waged with the cold.
Temps like these make it a lot easier to find leaks with the IR gun.

Taken a few minutes ago, on the mantel and on the wall in the hallway. I think my outside temp reading is off.