Looking like Shoulder season is month early

[peakbagger]

After the cold snap last weekend the NOAA long range forecasts for my area (Northern NH) is showing a 33 to 40% chance of warmer than normal temps for the rest of the heating season. I am in the temp range now that I can run my minisplit most of the time and skip the boiler. Longer days also means more production from the solar panels so with net metering its "effectively "free". The trade off as I have described before is mini-split heat is not as good as baseboard heat and noisier so for now I will probably switch over to running the boiler every other evening to keep the storage warm and supplement with the minisplit. I have solar hot water panels but currently the outdoor temps are just bit low for them to supply all my hot water so for now so I will continue to use the wood boiler to heat up an external hot water heater with an internal coil that is downstream of the solar storage tank.

This is definitely a month early. The snow pack in the woods is also pretty skimpy. My guess is lots of good sales on winter gear coming up on Presidents Day week.

 

[Garbanzo62]

59 in central CT at the moment.. First year with wood and my supply was not what I would like it to be so I'm grateful for the warmer winter. Letting the coals burn down in the insert right now so I can do a clean out. Might not even run it tonight it is only suppose to get into low 40s.

 

[GrumpyDad]

After the cold snap last weekend the NOAA long range forecasts for my area (Northern NH) is showing a 33 to 40% chance of warmer than normal temps for the rest of the heating season. I am in the temp range now that I can run my minisplit most of the time and skip the boiler. Longer days also means more production from the solar panels so with net metering its "effectively "free". The trade off as I have described before is mini-split heat is not as good as baseboard heat and noisier so for now I will probably switch over to running the boiler every other evening to keep the storage warm and supplement with the minisplit. I have solar hot water panels but currently the outdoor temps are just bit low for them to supply all my hot water so for now so I will continue to use the wood boiler to heat up an external hot water heater with an internal coil that is downstream of the solar storage tank.

This is definitely a month early. The snow pack in the woods is also pretty skimpy. My guess is lots of good sales on winter gear coming up on Presidents Day week.

My friend loves telling me about his free solar power.
He paid $25k for his solar array. His bill was an avg of $150 a month on electric.
It will be 15 years before he makes a profit...

Hopefully you got a better deal on your array.

 

[thewoodlands]

After the cold snap last weekend the NOAA long range forecasts for my area (Northern NH) is showing a 33 to 40% chance of warmer than normal temps for the rest of the heating season. I am in the temp range now that I can run my minisplit most of the time and skip the boiler. Longer days also means more production from the solar panels so with net metering its "effectively "free". The trade off as I have described before is mini-split heat is not as good as baseboard heat and noisier so for now I will probably switch over to running the boiler every other evening to keep the storage warm and supplement with the minisplit. I have solar hot water panels but currently the outdoor temps are just bit low for them to supply all my hot water so for now so I will continue to use the wood boiler to heat up an external hot water heater with an internal coil that is downstream of the solar storage tank.

This is definitely a month early. The snow pack in the woods is also pretty skimpy. My guess is lots of good sales on winter gear coming up on Presidents Day week.

Usually for our area when we have a warmer February means that March and part of April will be colder than normal. Lately we go from winter to summer and just skip spring.

 

[begreen]

Meteorologists are watching the behavior of the northern stratospheric polar vortex. If it warms up, it may disrupt the tropospheric polar vortex in an unkind and chilling way for the eastern US and northern Europe. We should know more by next Wednesday.

 

[Garbanzo62]

Yeah my wife keeps saying we should look into solar, but My roof is 29 years old so I need to shell out 20K for a new roof first. Then by the time the cost savings each month cover the outlay to install solar, you have effectively reached the End of Life of the system. Until the cost comes down to install and the life expectancy of the system goes up (or electric rates go high enough to reduce the ROI period) I probably won't install.

 

[begreen]

Solar system pricing and ROI is a good topic for another thread. With the cost of electricity in CT, it is definitely worth running the numbers and getting multiple quotes. There are good companies installing these systems and some complete ripoffs. So caveat emptor.

 

[thewoodlands]

Meteorologists are watching the behavior of the northern stratospheric polar vortex. If it warms up, it may disrupt the tropospheric polar vortex in an unkind and chilling way for the eastern US and northern Europe. We should know more by next Wednesday.

It sounds like March and April some people on the east coast will be dealing with a Nor'easter or two, that should be the report on Wednesday.

 

[peakbagger]

My friend loves telling me about his free solar power.
He paid $25k for his solar array. His bill was an avg of $150 a month on electric.
It will be 15 years before he makes a profit...

Hopefully you got a better deal on your array.

Far better, I traded sweat equity for dollars out of pocket on my three arrays by designing and installing them myself. Array #1 is over 20 years old and it was learning experience, that was partially how I switched careers from a dying industry to energy related fields, the payback on that is a lot,probably a couple of hundred K over the rest of my career. Array 2 and array 3 were built with panels from Tier 1 companies that got out of solar so I paid considerably less than the retail at the time for them. They predate rapid shutdown rules so they are lot more basic than a typical home system would be today (unless it is not mounted on a house). The current power rate in my area is 20 cents per KW energy charge and 10 cents for transmission if I needed to buy power.

 

[EbS-P]

It’s warm here today. 75! There will only be couple of handful of nights and mornings cold enough to warrant a fire. Might freeze next weekend. It’s hard to get up early and light a stove when I know the temps will be over 50 in 6 hours!

Trying to add up how much I burnt this year. Not even a cord. Put more through the basement stove this year to 20-30 loads.

It was so warm the two days before the cold snap and then after it really didn’t take much wood to get through it.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Far better, I traded sweat equity for dollars out of pocket on my three arrays by designing and installing them myself. Array #1 is over 20 years old and it was learning experience, that was partially how I switched careers from a dying industry to energy related fields, the payback on that is a lot,probably a couple of hundred K over the rest of my career. Array 2 and array 3 were built with panels from Tier 1 companies that got out of solar so I paid considerably less than the retail at the time for them. They predate rapid shutdown rules so they are lot more basic than a typical home system would be today (unless it is not mounted on a house). The current power rate in my area is 20 cents per KW energy charge and 10 cents for transmission if I needed to buy power.

I'm jealous!
I have some experimental stuff laying around , most r/d stuff but nothing worth putting to use.
I only run two disaster relief panels currently.
If I lived in a sunny region I'd go crazy with arrays.

 

[peakbagger]

I'm jealous!
I have some experimental stuff laying around , most r/d stuff but nothing worth putting to use.
I only run two disaster relief panels currently.
If I lived in a sunny region I'd go crazy with arrays.

You think northern NH is sunnier than Maryland

 

[GrumpyDad]

You think northern NH is sunnier than Maryland

It's never sunny where I live. The clouds just linger and linger. Long ago, it was great for snow. They skied in July w/ no snowmaking.

 

[Newbie78]

That's why you're grumpy 😉

 

[Garbanzo62]

The back of my house faces Southwest, so I have a good roof for solar, but The 29 yr old roof is holding up so until it Needs to be replaced no reason to consider solar

 

[GrumpyDad]

That's why you're grumpy 😉

Well that and, I dont have anyone interested in buying my stove because people arent thinking about stoves, they are thinking about the nice weather they are (or were) having. It's back to cold again!
Trout season feels like it is right around the corner, we've got another 2+ months to go.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

There’s always lake trout!

 

[Dix]

I am NOT changing my "close to the house" from winter to Spring mode yet.

I refuse to schlep fire wood in the snow/rain/cold

 

[EbS-P]

Valentine’s Day flowers! Not early down here. In fact lower soil temps have kept the daffodils in the ground longer.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Well, I’m going to try to go ice fishing this weekend, lol. Not sure if that’s going to be possible.

 

[Garbanzo62]

It is not supposed to drop below 50 here until Friday night. Absolutely unheard of in Central CT in Mid February. Letting the coals burn out in the Insert today and probably won't light one for a few days. My wood reserves are dwindling so going to husband the resources for a few days.

 

[GrumpyDad]

It sounds like March and April some people on the east coast will be dealing with a Nor'easter or two, that should be the report on Wednesday.

Well it's Wednesday. This time last year I had about 15" of ice on the pond. I bought string lights to go around the skating/hockey area. They sit in a box untouched.

 

[blades]

around 43+F here. lot of wind from SW. From now to the middle of May anything is possible. I have had the pleasure? of plowing snow in nasty blizzards dumping 2 ft snow at this time of year and then there is the drifting which is worse. About like pushing wet cement.

 

[Garbanzo62]

We have had about 4 inches of snow Since Mid December. Lots and Lots of rain. If it was colder we should have had feet of snow. But I have also seen a foot of snow come in April so not ruling anything out yet. It has just been really warm

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Even if we get a foot of snow now, the ground isn’t frozen. It won’t stay around long.