I Sit Here And Am So Thankful For 30 F

We finally got into the 20s yesterday!

It has been brutal. I just checked, and November through January had a 22% (!) increase in heating degree days over the same period last year. What I can't fiigure out is why I seem to be on pace for using the exact same amount of wood as last year. I didn't change anything with the house. My wood in general is a bit older than last year's, so maybe that's it. Another case for having dry wood!

It's not just the cold here, either. Where I live has been hammered by snow this year. We got over 80 inches just in December! You've got to love the lake effect. I'm running out of places to put snow to keep the driveway open.

"Yelling at the wind".......hilarious.
Waulie, I had a very good sense that our HDDs were up (I'd have to be dead not to), but didn't know how much. Been much colder since back in Nov.
We're already over 8500 in a normal year, so .........wow.
You're on the west side in TC area, right?

Dixie, I'm just about jumping out of my boots with joy at the 20s we're starting to get. 30s ought to feel almost like summer.
You know something's wrong when you can go to the stack/shed for wood in your normal attire.........when it's 10°.
Speaking of the shed........it's emptier than it should be, but we're warm.

We're at just north of 2100 HDD this year, compared to 2300 in 10-11. We had a couple of warm snaps though too, so maybe we've had more absolute cold, but a bit warmer overall.

Saying we may hit 50 on the Island today probably a little west where they are playing tonights game. Wacky.

The wide spread cold blast has left shortages and suppliers out of propane here in Ohio. Over $5 a gallon with 200 gal limits and so on…
Never thought I would use 2 stoves as much as I have, sure feel for those people out of propane due to shortages with no secondary heat source. Yes I am ready for spring !

Mid 40's yesterday so I hand washed the road salt of the truck. Just in time for next snow fall tomorrow. Looked kinda weird garden hose and snow together.

I have less than 3 weeks of wood left, but I'm not in a panic. I'm always as happy to see the end of my burning season as I am the beginning of the next, whether it coincides with the weather or not. T'would be nice if it wasn't -2F when I run out, tho...

Well, I`m glad we`re in the 20s and 30s this week. Got a nice 6 inches of snow last night. It took me 2 hours to push the snow with the blade on my ATV, and then used the snowblower to get rid of it. This winter has been one of the coldest ever! Winter started in October and hasn`t let up. I`m on my 5th cord. i`m just prayin`for some sun to warm my face.

Joful, yep, except here, for me, running out is not an option I'd care to experience.
Hasn't happened yet.

Was 57F here yesterday, back in the 30s now. I restocked my wood on the rack on the front porch and inside yesterday. As I was stacking it, I noticed a lot of traffic.
Seemed like a lot of people were out enjoying the weather. It made me feel like one of the 3 little pigs. Everyone out having fun will have to deal with the wolves of winter...heating costs.
It made me grin for a bit.

Bagelboy said:

Oh well, thank God we all have sources of heat to burn. Some people are going to owe the oil man for a long time!

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Even with all the problems I've had this heating season. (I know they are all temporary problems easily solved next winter).
I'm sold on wood for that reason alone. Finite resources are going to continue to go up and up...Especially with increasing Asian demand.
The natural gas is expected to last and be cheap in this state for something like 40 years (lots of reserves), but the forests aren't going anywhere. The forests aren't going anywhere. Even the West Fork Fire, at 150+ sq mi burned, was a drop in the bucket compared to the whole forest in the state.
Wood is sustainable.
Like I read somewhere, the sun gives us energy...And nature stores it for us as batteries in the form of wood.
Mother Nature always impresses me.

We got too much wood in this state, forest hasn't been properly tended for a generation, nor was it allowed to burn naturally...
So as cold as it's been (warmer than you guys, still colder than normal for us {with sunless days being the big culprit...When it doesn't shine in Colorado, you notice.}, the radiant heat is making me feel warmer than the pellet stove ever did, even when the room is a couple degrees colder. Worst case, I want to get warm, I sit by the stove. Pellet stove you had to hope it was running, or up the thermostat. And you'd have to stand right infront of the blower, as radiant value was low.
Happy to be getting these learning problems done in the rental at least, so when I do install my own, I'll do it right the first time.

jatoxico said:

Depends on how they figure that too. We had a warm stretch after the first polar vortex so the avg goes up but 2 or 3 long cold snaps this winter so far.

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Statistical distortion.
The warm has been warm, the cold been colder. The average probably higher, but it is easy to forget the spring week here and there that bumped up the numbers.
Global warming is supposed to make weather more erratic, not necessarily warmer.

blades said:

Won't be too bad Sunday night only down to -20 with windchill now Wed night forecast as -30 with wind chill, in between it warms a bit just so we can get another dump of white stuff.

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You're right, blades...not too bad. That's just a cool fall day in Brew Town. I can remember one day it was -25, -75 wind chill, and blizzard conditions (rare when it's that cold.) So I packed two women and a kid into a rental car and drove to IN. Finally got out of the blizzard around Indy, driving on I-65, which they had closed hours earlier. Hard to believe there was a time when I was actually dumber than I am now. Then on the way back, we hit an ice storm in Chicago, 25 mph on the Dan Ryan. I astounded a couple of Hoosiers by not touching the brakes and threading the needle when cars started spinning out left and right in front of me. I was the last one to make it through....total wreckage ensued behind me.

OK, time to lock this thread; It doesn't belong here anyway.

PapaDave said:

"Yelling at the wind".......hilarious.
Waulie, I had a very good sense that our HDDs were up (I'd have to be dead not to), but didn't know how much. Been much colder since back in Nov.
We're already over 8500 in a normal year, so .........wow.
You're on the west side in TC area, right?

Dixie, I'm just about jumping out of my boots with joy at the 20s we're starting to get. 30s ought to feel almost like summer.
You know something's wrong when you can go to the stack/shed for wood in your normal attire.........when it's 10°.
Speaking of the shed........it's emptier than it should be, but we're warm.

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I live in the "pinky". We don't usually get much of the brutal cold since the lake keeps us warmer for a good chunk of the winter (relatively speaking, of course). The bay froze the other day. That's the first time in I think 8 years.

Woody Stover said:

I astounded a couple of Hoosiers by not touching the brakes and threading the needle when cars started spinning out left and right in front of me. I was the last one to make it through....total wreckage ensued behind me.

OK, time to lock this thread; It doesn't belong here anyway.

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Well, that's the best way to handle it. When people spin out in front of me, my first thought is 'how do I get around this a-hole.'

The cold has been brutal up my way . Every time we get a reprieve it is just for a day , then back to zero and below . Have had a hard time keeping a steady heat going with my scheule . On my 4th cord of wood and have still gone through 200 gallons of K1 . But would have been 4-500 gallons were it not for the wood stove.

Everyone I know that burns wood is getting low . And good luck finding any for sale that isn't completely green .

Yeah, I noticed the zephyr breezes as I was reloading the woodshed...again. Upper 30s here and it sure felt nice. Put in new windows and insulation this summer, so I was a bit bummed to be loading in my fourth cord, but it sounds like I'm not alone.

I guess the only accurate way to judge winter cold is by measuring degree-days. That'd be hard to estimate subjectively, since it depends on the number of hours at a given temperature. We humans tend to remember the really cold days, but aren't very good at subjective averaging...

Yeah Dan, that's what I was saying in our neck of the woods. 2397 HDD from 11/1/10-2/2/11. This year 11/1/13-2/2/14 = 2142. January was a bit colder this year, but 12/10 was much colder than 12/13 (and colder than 1/14, believe it or not). The difference was 2 warm snaps that we had in the beginning and ending of the month; 18 GDD in 12/13 v. 2 in 12/10. Wow, can't imagine how boring this is to 99% of people

Mainewoodchucker said:

Everyone I know that burns wood is getting low . And good luck finding any for sale that isn't completely green .

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I haven't seen kiln dried firewood in Colorado, but I have seen it out east on the net. Not cheap, but there. One in Long Island was advertising 1/4 cords for $160. Not sure how that will compare to oil.
Saw there is a place in Maine advertising 'kiln' dried.

It's an option available to you East Coast guys.

Kosmik said:

. . .Global warming is supposed to make weather more erratic, not necessarily warmer.

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Yeah, ~70° here yesterday. ~2° a few days ago.
Crazy $#!+, and IMO, humans are crazy for trying to live in it. Sure, we are capable of fighting Nature, but look at how much time and energy/fuel it takes to do so. Other primates don't stray from the warm regions. . .Japanese snow monkeys being the notable exception, and they have an angle.

We've had the warmest stretch of winter weather that I have ever seen. I don't know exactly but it was a month or better of 35-50 deg. All the snow around my house is completely gone, the feline willows and other plants started budding. It will be interesting to see how some of the plantlife does in real spring if they already used up their buds early. Some people were saying some of the wildlife was acting funny as well, don't have any knowledge of that though. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the hibernating animals woke up.

I just started burning and collecting firewood in October so I don't burn unless I go and fetch beetle kill. Our temps are back to normal 10-20 or so and I have less than a weeks worth of wood, guess I better get a couple truckloads this weekend.

We all are suffering this cold, some hate it some love it. You all have heard what they say about the weather here in the Midwest. "If you don't like the weather now, just wait and hour it will change." I hope there aren't any of us here that will be complaining come July. "It's so hot I hate this heat and humidity" Only us humans can be such complainers. Yeah I have been burning wood like a drunken sailor spends money on shore leave. It will change...........
Stay warm and be safe in the outdoor temps.

Eater309 said:

We all are suffering this cold, some hate it some love it. You all have heard what they say about the weather here in the Midwest. "If you don't like the weather now, just wait and hour it will change." I hope there aren't any of us here that will be complaining come July. "It's so hot I hate this heat and humidity" Only us humans can be such complainers. Yeah I have been burning wood like a drunken sailor spends money on shore leave. It will change...........
Stay warm and be safe in the outdoor temps.

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Depending on where you live I suspect this is the saying everywhere . . . seeing as I have heard it here in Maine and in at least one other region of the country.