Well I officially wimped out this afternoon. I turned on the furnace here on Flannery Bay. It will now be gulping along until April, sucking up that very pricey LP. This is just about as late as I can remember for kicking on the heat. The past two weeks of warm, sunny weather have provided sufficient solar gain to make the house tolerable. But two days of 40*, rain and cloud cover have made it too cold to handle.
I have hot water in floor heating. You don't just flip a switch and get hot air blowing around in a few minutes. The entire granite covered concrete mass on the first floor has to be warmed to get heat moving into the house. This is not the kind of system that you can twist the thermostat a few degrees because you feel a chill. Of course late this afternoon the tile floor in the master bath was a toasty radiator to my stocking shod feet.
I am going to have an interruptable electric heating system installed soon. The current LP system will then become backup if the cheap electric service is strained and cut off. I don't anticipate that happening too often, given that the service has only been interrupted 5 times in the past 4 years and then the longest period was 4 hours. Then that large heated thermal mass will keep me warm until the electric is restored.
Mr. Flannery
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4 comments:
I live in Louisville KY and I have not turned on the heat yet. It's not been colder than 37 at night here yet. Today it was near 80 and that's preducted for the rest of the week.
When we get a freeze overnight I usually still don't turn on the heat. I'll use a small electric heater near where I work and have it on in the evening turning it off when I get under the comforter.
I can understand heat being necessary in MN. Whoa, why do people live in MN anyway? SMILE
Charlene - I keep the thermostats at 62* (or less in the rooms that I don't use too often). The space heater under the desk in my office and the electric mattress pad are two of my best friends. I left the pad on and the cats have now congregated on my bed spread.
As for why MN, because its home, I guess. Great summers and falls. Same climate as western Siberia, and my people came here voluntarily, oh my!
I often wondered why people would stay in places it freezes...and why do I stay in the heat and humidity with the bugs etc. But home is home !
We are still having 89* plus weather and at 62* we bring out sweaters :))
ugh
double ugh
i'm jealous.
;-D
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