Posted on 12/24/2022 7:45:31 AM PST by Lazamataz
I live in an early-60's-build house. For the most part, it's wonderful, but it has very little insulation. I've been meaning to rectify that, but didn't yet.
So, after spending a warm night buried under blankets, I wake up to a shivering-cold set of rooms, all under 60 degrees F.... even though me and the missus set all the baseboard heating to max and left both space heaters going.
So, I decide to go to Walmart. I find two pallets of space heaters, one of them Infra-red, and one of them Oil-radiant. Both are electric.
I go ahead and put one of each in my cart, get a few food items, then decide to pick up one more Infra-red heater.... maybe 5 minutes later.
BOTH PALLETS ARE CLEANED OUT... when I get to the register, everyone had a pair of those heaters in their cart.
WHAT?!!!
The property had electricity from the late 30's until the early 50's. After my great-grandfather died, my grandfather received an electric bill for $2 with no usage.
The REMC told him that this was a "connection" fee and that he had to pay it if he wanted to be connected to the grid, so Grandpa solved the problem. No one lived here until I retired a few years ago and I the figired that the rule never to cross my grandfather still applied.
Well God Bless ya ...... Merry Christmas
“”Grew up in the Twin Cities area, and we had no garage, so on the coldest night’s my father would put a pan of hot charcoal briquettes under the front of our car.””
I grew up in Houston and didn’t know a lot about Minneapolis cold when I lived there so when the news said it was going to be a sub-zero (-mid 20s) record breaker, I was really worried about my old pick-up and used the charcoal trick to protect my engine.
The difference between me and normal people was that I slept on the driveway in front of my truck to guarantee its safety, (which was really just an excuse to have a new camping experience).
It got down below 30 in the Orlando area last night. Tonight will be just as bad, worse even in that there will be little wind to inhibit frost formation and the ground has lost warmth. A freeze warning is in effect.
Recipe for such events ......
Glass Door Wood Stove with at least 6 cords of hickory. (light & heat)
A recliner to sleep and surf the internet in .
A full pantry.
A “hotspot wifi link” at the minimum ....
Charge your laptops and 2 smart phones while warming up your vehicles , shoveling snow hauling cordwood etc ... also a few of the juice power 24,000mAh portables charged up or the or UPS backup for pellet stove or Desktop Computer.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you, too, Squantos!
It was way colder in North Dakota.
After all he killed 16 Czechoslovakians.
10 degrees. Snow up to my waste. 9 years old. Walking to my cousins apartment 5 blocks away I run into a pack of stray dogs. It’s common in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and I still have nightmares of the experience. I started running and some man pulled me over the gate onto his property before the dogs can get me. 53 years ago.
I have a stand-alone garage with a dedicated bathroom (basically a toilet and sink). I have an oil-filled radiant heater for the bath and a ceiling mounted electric for the main bay. I only run the bathroom heater when temps dip into the teens.
I turned it on to its lowest setting on Tuesday and let it go, coming back to it this morning. With the thermostat turned all the way down my bath is right around 62 degrees. I’d love to drop that by 10 or 15 degrees more. Working darned near perfectly for my needs!
My daughter had the same problem - no covered parking where she lives. I had given her a portable battery pack and had her take that along with a hair dryer to defrost the driver door of her car. It worked great!
:-)
Aga Stove? Approximately $6,000.00+.
I’m on an EMC at the new place. Rates are decent. I’ll be curious to see how much the emergency strip heat on the heat pumps runs me. I’ve got pretty good history from last year, the renovated house I bought was well-insulated with spray foam, and energy performance has been good. But good is relative, with weather like this.
Congratulations!
Your actions made it warm there this Winter!
Pat yourself on the back.
I have a similar story about ending a drought when I put in a rain collection system with a large tank so I could wash cars and irrigate plants. The skies promptly opened up, within 2-3 months all the reservoir lakes were full, water use restrictions ended.
Link to the outdoor wood furnace?
I am intrigued.
I’m in NY state and it’s 9 degrees right now. When I sit for awhile, I use a heating pad or heated throw. I hate winter.
Fuel oil and on Social Security. 64 is what I can almost afford. If I turn it up to 66 I'll burn through 200 gallons of fuel oil in 4 to 5 weeks.
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