How Is Everyone Keeping Warm?

[swestoyz]

Waterloo broke the record low for the day, which was only set back in 1974, this morning. And that is air temp, not wind chill, which was hovering in the -40 range.

To say it was a cold NYE here in the Cedar Valley is a slight understatement.

 

[appnut]

It's currently 25.  It got down to 18 just before 8:00 when the sun was coming out. 

 

[volsboy1]

Mitsubishi Hyper (Heat Pump) These Heat pumps kick ass . It got down to 9 or 10 here and 67 inside  degrees was nothing for it .

Up here in  the sticks heating has always been a issue. Propane is a pain to deal with so we have always had heat pumps in this house and they used to suck soo bad. 

These things keep working until - 13 F and the air is HOT that comes out of there.

 

 

[gusherb]

My car said -3 driving around just a little bit ago. Got home and that thermometer says 0. My car battery has just about had it and needs replacing.

 

[washman]

gusherb

I heard good things about Deka auto batteries. 2 neighbors use them and speak highly of their performance and longevity

 

[pulltostart]

In Mobile, AL

the temp is currently 30 and going to go down to 23 tonight.  For us - that's freakin cold.  My house has a gas furnace and can keep up (as long as I can pay the bill), BUT, I have a rental unit which is currently unoccupied and the last (POS) renter moved out last week, after having Alabama Power turn off service on December 11 for lack of payment.  So, the unit sits without power or heat (totally electric).  Power is scheduled to be restored tomorrow, in my name (as landlord) so if I can get the unit through tonight I'll be ok.  I was over there this afternoon changing the lock on the front door and adding security to the sliding glass door, and it was getting a bit nippy in there.  There's a unit on both sides of my townhouse and no plumbing on an outside wall, so I'm hoping tomorrow will be the beginning of something better.

 

BTW, anyone interested in an investment property in Mobile, Alabama???

 

lawrence

 

[abcomatic]

Supersuds

Hi John, Thanks for the compliment. One of these days it will be spring and all of this will be forgotten. Gary

 

[appnut]

Wes, I'm quite pleased with my current two stage/multi-speed air handler Trane Heat Pump.  The Ruud that came with the house had to finally be replaced in 2002.  I knew I wanted Trane--I'd had problems with the Ruud.  My sister in Dallas was still in marketing & PR for their electric company at the time.  She told me to select a dealer/contractor that had a certain designation at the time that ensured the highest caliber of conducting business and customer satisfaction.  That's how I selected the contractor I have had since 2002.  I looked for Mitsubishi Diamond dealer/contractor in my zip code and the only one for my area is my current contractor and there's only one in Waco too.  So that right there makes me feel very good about who I've dealt with for the past 15.75 years.  Mitsubishi offers replacement products for ducted air handlers/central system.  So when the time comes for replacement, I can look into Mitsubishi Hyper  products. 

 

[appnut]

Well it reached a high of 30 about 4:00 and is already back down to 28.  Low of 19 tonight, high of 31 tomorrow, and 17 tomorrow night. The all-time record low for December is -4 and that was around December 22nd to 24th 1989, thus I was living here.  I tried auxiliary heat at some point during that time and it couldn't keep the house at 64 or 65 so I switched back to heat pump mode and it seemed more comfortable.  (probably cost me less that way too). 

 

[lakewebsterkid]

0F

Our 95 Lennox heat pump has run constantly for the past few days. Auxiliary heat has ran a few times today. I try to make as many hot meals using our stove, crock pot, toaster oven, etc. as possible to raise the temp in the house as much as possible. If it really cold in the house I will try to clean to warm myself up. We would love to use our fireplace, but it has a crack in it.

 

[lorainfurniture]

It’s about 8 degrees

My lochnivar boiler can barely keep up. Too many drafts in my house. I’m getting insulation blown in ASAP. My house was built 1908

I plugged in 2 of my Bitcoin miners in my basement and the temps down there went from 58* to 65 in 12 hours. Hopefully it continues to rise

 

[sudsmaster]

Oh, there's an 80% efficient forced air gas furnace in the crawl. I turned it on in early November, cranked it up to 68 for the afternoon/evenings, lower at night and during day. However by Christmas I had rediscovered my sweater/pullover collection and now the stat is set to 66F, and I feel just fine... most of the time...

What brand furnace? I forget, and I'm not about to go spelunking to find out again. Let's just say it's about 37 years old, and going strong. Yah, I have CO detector in bedroom, it never goes off.

About R45 in the attic (added about 15 years ago) helps keep the warm in (and the hot out in the summer). Have about R20 under most of the flooring, but ran out of it halfway through and don't think I'll be adding more any time soon. I did add extra insulation to the forced air ducting, including the return duct, which helped to quiet it down. And of course I sealed off as many drafts as I could. Major draft was from the kitchen cooktop hood - it had no damper whatsoever. Easy and cheap fix for that. You do what you can.

This was a fairly hot summer in the greater SF Bay Area, and it was quite a transition from short sleeves and shorts, having to button up the house with shades drawn during the days to keep the heat out, to all windows open and fans blasting (hopefully) cool night air through the house at night, to securing all doors and windows all the time and drawing the shades/curtains at night. I only had to run the portable A/C unit for about a week total. It's got a heating mode but it fills up its drain tray after about an hour in that mode, so I don't bother trying to use it to heat.

At least it's not snowing. Some rain would be nice, though.

All things considered, life is beautiful.

 

[lordkenmore]

What brand furnace? I forget, and I'm not about to go spelunking to find out again.

 

What?!? You're going to deprive us of this vital information, as well as photos and maybe a video of it running?!?


 

LOL

 

Seriously, I don't blame you for not wanting to go spelunking.

 

The house I grew up in had an oil furnace in the crawlspace. We never used--the house was converted to electric heat before we lived there--but we knew that that furnace was down there. I never really thought about it, but when the house was sold, the buyer commented about what a terrible location for a furnace. As he pointed out, oil furnaces need maintenance, and it was less than convenient crawling under the house. As that buyer commented, that furnace--at least as far he was concerned--would never be used again. (The electric furnace we used still worked...but electricity was expensive enough that one might wish to consider other options.)

 

[DADoES]

 
Auxiliary on the Carrier is locked-out (except for defrosting) until (current setting) 20°F ambient.  It's maintaining 70°F and cycling without effort.  Runs longer toward continuous when the weather is wet/freezing vs. dry/freezing.

 

[gusherb]

Temps today peaked at 3° and sunny. It was below zero just past 4 and already -6° as I type. The downstairs furnace has run most of the day, started running in second stage about an hour ago and back into first stage since the stove has been on.

 

[wayupnorth]

The past 7 nights have been below zero, some way below. Not to figure in wind chills. My boiler runs more than it shuts off and the baseboard units keep their constant tick tick and I know heat is coming, Chewing up oil like crazy. This is turning into a winter we wished never happened and its just beginning, then a big snowstorm Thursday, back in the deep freeze to clean it up. Global warming is certainly welcome to come around here.

 

[johnb300m]

Eeeesh, it's been a rough 48hrs going from '17 to '18.
-10F tonight.
My fairly new variable speed Trane XR80 has been running constantly.
I'm on a cement slab so all all the negative degrees these few days have been radiating right in.
And whatever few little leaks I have, have been severely exploited with little drafts and ICE forming everywhere around the windows and doors. Even on parts of walls near the floor.
I've lowered my humidistat as low as I can tolerate for sleeping.

I've also kicked the fan on RUN because the cycling was getting crazy.
I'll say this, it's been in Low stage for 95% of it! So not too shabby.
I'm still going to fear the next gas bill though......

 

[gusherb]

The XR80 is a single stage 80% furnace with a PSC blower. They have a few models with variable speed blowers, like the XV80, XV95, XC95 etc. So I'm not sure which one you meant to say.

It was -10° by the time I got to bed. According to the thermostat logs it reached -12 between 6-7AM. The run time has increased dramatically between 12/22 and 1/1, and then the total run time for the month of December. That's just the upstairs furnace! The downstairs one doesn't have these logs.

 

[johnb300m]

XV.
I meant XV.

 

[potatochips]

It's been about -10 Celsius here in Nova Scotia. My house uses electric heat but I offset it with one of these bad boys.