Hope you are all keeping warm in North America!

[richardc1983]

Looks cold especially in Chicago!

I was wondering how your heating systems are bearing up? If you have air conditioning heat pumps or mini splits (ductless) systems, how are these faring?

Richard.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Richard, Thanks for your concern. A friend with a heat pump who lives halfway between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland told me that, during the last cold snap, he measured the temperature of the air at the register and it was 73F. He switched on the emergency (resistance) heat and it was at 118F in 3 minutes. As with anything else, builder grade equipment probably does not perform as well as state of the art, very high efficiency equipment.

 

[sudsmaster]

It's quite mild here in California in the SF Bay Area. Temps in the 50's (F) at night and 60's days. It's scheduled to dip in to the 40's nights next week, but still not too bad.

Since you asked, it's natural gas heat in this house, forced air system located in crawl space under house. I'd guess most heating in the Bay Area is natural gas. Older homes and apartments might have wall or floor heaters. Some newer homes, especially to the east where the summers can be 10 degrees or more hotter than by the bay, may have heat exchangers that can do double duty both for heating and cooling. Some may have gas boost for heating, as well. But these are relatively rare around the Bay, which has what natives refer to as "natural air conditioning"...

 

[vacerator]

Minus 6 f.

currently. Wind chill is -27 f. here in the south eastern mitten. Could be colder, we're not in Alaska or the Yukon.

 

[Taurn67]

colder in the yukon? chilly yes, colder, not so much

29f in Whitehorse this morning...(-2c)

 

[norgeway]

Our house as a new

High Efficiency propane furnace, it does fine no matter how cold it gets, its 26 out right now but we are have 25 to 50 mph wind gusts so it feels much colder, but our old house had a 30 year old oil furnace that also heated great and cost much less to run than the propane one did!

 

[thomasortega]

Here in California it's HORRIBLY cold this morning.

It's exactly 61°F right at this moment. Hahahahahahahahahaha

 

[kb0nes]

Woke up to -30F actual air temp. At 1:30pm have likely reached our high for the day, -17F so it is all downhill from here

But luckily it's a DRY COLD lol My wool socks have been trying to electrocute me for the past couple days.

Need another 50 feet hydronic baseboard, even 240+ degree system water temperature isn't enough to hold the house at normal temp with the wind.

Hopefully I look annoyed enough in the photo. One more trip to -30 tonight then it will bounce back to 40 degree (!!!) temps this weekend. #globalweirdness #newnormal

 

[richardc1983]

Thanks for your replies all, I have been reading in the news that Chicago was getting it really bad.

I think ductless split units that are big over in Europe and Australia are starting to catch on in USA. They work down to -20c without dropping output.

 

[vacerator]

Variable speed 2 stage burner

Lenox 95% plus efficient. Have set at 70f.

 

[DADoES]

 
The humidity is much lower than usual.  The auditoriums are reading 35% humidity and lower ... with resistance heat running so there's a large drying effect from that ... but typical humidity in there during summer months is 78% to 67%.

 

[kevin313]

Here’s the current temp in Detroit!

Nothing else to do but make a big pot of soup and snuggle!

 

[twintubdexter]

I get cold taking ice cream out of the freezer

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">It would be very easy for me to take the current outside temperature and throw it in everyone's face, but that wouldn't only be rude, it would be incredibly stupid. Those cold record temps I see posted on the news must be horrible to deal with, regardless of your super-sonic heating system. Authorities are telling people to avoid taking deep breaths and limiting your outside time to a few minutes. Getting to and from work must be awful. And then when things finally warm up you have all that snow, ice and slush to deal with...mercy! No wonder people on the East Coast and in Midwest are tough.</span>

 

[maytag85]

It’s been kind of warm here in Sunny Southern California, but it is still a little damp here from the last rainstorm. We might get some more rain here soon, but I am enjoying the weather before it rains again

 

[xraytech]

Current temp in Pittsburgh is -4 F with the wind chill feels about -20 F
I’m running a 1995 Gas forced air furnace, but supplementing with a wood fired Englander blast furnace that keeps the house quite toasty and keeps the furnace from kicking on very often.

The wood stove is not connected to the ductwork, but from running the blower on it, and keeping the cellar door and the laundry chute door open the hot air naturally rides and warms the cellar as well as the upper 2 floors

 

[norgeway]

Oh how i love

Cold cold cold weather, I can shiver much better than sweat!!!

 

[norgeway]

Its supposedto be

Around 18 tonight, would suit me if it was 18 below, might kill off some of those terrible mosquitos we had last summer, they absolutely ate everyone up, you couldn't walk to the mailbox and back without getting swarmed,,,i hate summer!

 

[wayupnorth]

Had 6" of cement last night that HAD to be cleaned up by hand today before it froze solid and double digit negative readings with wind chill tonight right into the weekend. Hate this time of year. But latest forecast is for us to go to the 40's starting Monday, very strange winter this year, never seen any winter like this with no fluffy, easy to clean out snow, not this constant cement and then freeze solid to ice. Its just 39 days to change the clocks and hopefully it will be better...[this post was last edited: 1/30/2019-19:21]

 

[gusherb]

Made it to -21°F this morning around 7 AM. Winds sustained around 20 MPH gusting to 40 MPH. Two gas furnaces here, the downstairs has been set to 72 and started not keeping up around 2 AM and the house had dropped to 69 by 8 AM. Power flashed off 3 times overnight and lots of strange noises heard throughout the house from contraction and “ice quakes” outside. Made it to about -10° on the thermometer at home today and the heat caught up right around 10 AM. Supposed to dip down even colder tonight. Have a fire going in the fireplace right now to supplement the heat, furnace is still running continuous in first stage though. Once the fire dies out it’ll kick up to second stage and eventually start failing to keep up, though maybe not as much since the wind has died down.

 

[kate1]

We scraped by with nothing more than a bit of a cold snap, nothing like what the Midwest is seeing. Temps got down to low single digits and dipped into the negatives here and there, now they’re actually coming up and we’re seeing low teens. I rely on my own body heat and layered clothing during the day, I get the pleasure of spending my days outdoors. Our home has a gas furnace that keeps up nicely with the weather. Mini split and ductless systems are really rare here and most people only use them for cooling and supplemental heat rather than relying fully on one.

 

[arris]

-25 here

With the wind chill it's -25.... took my furnace apart this fall cleaned everything..... working fine, having a Humidifier putting moisture in the air helps with the comfort level... house is around 71-72, added more foam insulation in the walls this summer, 3/4 of the house has it the other 1/4 is fiberglass....That's made a HUGE difference on my heating bill, as well as the warmth of the house, with the wind just need to make sure the power does not go out... if so I'll have to fire up the Generator otherwise doing fine here, supposed to be back in the 40's this weekend......I make sure the birds have food and the squirrels have plenty of unsalted peanuts....

 

[combo52]

7 Degrees Here Now

Just got out of the hot tub, very refreshing, I love a really good cold snap [ it resets the earth around us ] but don't want to live with it all winter, they say it should be in the 40s-50s this weekend.

 

John L.

 

[firedome]

ductless split...

is the trend, we had one installed 2 yrs ago in our Vermont place, which is basically a summer house and not well insulated, as in none in the ceiling/roof, R-19 in the walls. The roof is galvanized steel Fabral, eventually we plan to insulate it. Our son has been living there last 2 winters while building a new house on his acreage outside Burlington. The Mitsubishi Ductless Split works amazingly well, he told us last night that it's been -10 to -12 at night and the Mitsu has been keeping it at 60F, even with the lousy insulation. Unlike the old heat pumps these will put out heat at minus 15, they'e come a long way!

 

[toploader55]

Mitsus...

Are amazing in the quality heat they throw out. I turned the bedroom on just to get the temp up quick and in 20 minutes it was 73 with outside temp at 7 above.

 

[petek]

-23c last night and got up to -15c. during the day but very sunny so it wasn't all that bad.. I'm about 60 mi north of Detroit on the Canadian side. Our house still has its original 1958 boiler and baseboards, nice and cozy and quiet. I have it set at 72f. . I don't think the circulation pump has stopped though in the last 24 hrs.

 

[iowabear]

I set my thermostat to 68F and left it there during the cold snap to protect against pipes freezing.  It's never happened before (frozen pipes) but I'm not into taking chances.

 

Way too warm for my liking, especially at night when I usually set it back to 57F.  Glad not to have to worry about it now.

 

[jeb]

Temps

Last night -8 wind chill -40 talk of many buss. and school cancelled, and talk of no mail delivery. A lot of advertising new animal cruelty laws and threats about police coming to your house if they get a report you left animals out in it, along with horrifying pictures of frost bit dogs and cats with their ears breaking off and their paws black with frost bite.

 

[twintubdexter]

Jim (arris)...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Very cool for you to feed the birds and squirrels during this cold snap. When you do good for someone or something it comes back to you, in this case probably more substantial than unsalted peanuts. Buy a lottery ticket.</span>

 

[vacerator]

Thursday morning temp was Minus 14f.

at 7 a.m. Wind chill was Minus 37f. I still went to the gym. There was only 10 people there.

 

[askolover]

All the news stations were predicting snow and ice for us, there wasn't a loaf of bread or carton of milk left in Kroger or Walmart since we get snowed in for such extreme lengths of time here (insert sarcasm).  It dropped to 19F overnight and we had one or two snow flakes.  I drove the 4x4 to work for nothing.  Oh well, I'm not going to complain.  I hate driving in the slush on Nashville roadways!  Here's what a typical Tennessee snow day is like...here in the morning and gone by noon.