Colder here. What's your temp? What ya burnin?

Nope not on my diesel, but I have one on the wife Yukon.

 

Like Glen said! The pad is direct contact and transfers the heat way better. The magnetic has a gap between the heater and the pan, because of the magnets. I have a 300 watt mag, for emergencies. If you stick it to something where you can see well you will se the gap between the unit and what its stuck to. They make pads that are both adhesive and non. Like Glen mentioned use RVT to adhere the non. I think the non's are half the price of adhesive. You can get them in a variety of watts. I have 25 watts on my snow machine trans case's. I have seen up to 500 watt pads. Lots of options.

 

A foot of snow already, dang Glen. I hope you don't have the power outages that you had last month. Take care and be safe.

 

Look at that awesome. T-shirt weather, going to be hot in the morning getting some water after shift.

 

50 cents a kwh . Wow how much is gas up there. Sounds like great way to deal with rigs.
Need one on hydraulics on tractor and tranny on truck.

Heat550

Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk

 

Not a bad idea, those components with thank you. Trans with shift like a nice summer day when its -50*. Fuel was 3.19 for 87 and 3.24 for D1 when I came into work. Glen is 150 miles from me and his fuel us usually higher by a little.

 

Morning, 4* here now. Hard Maple is providing the heat.

 

8F this am, burning down a pile of coals with some dimensional pine

 

I am in NO WAY saying it gets as cold here as it does where Rope and Cold Trigger Finger live, but here are a few tricks I learned to keep my electricity costs down and still keep things moving when I need too.

1. If you routinely use your tractors or equipment at a certain time, a 120 volt timer will pay for itself about the first day. I set mine up so my tractor comes on at 8 am and go off at 10 am, by then I am either going to use the tractor or not. If my routine changes, I can just direct plug it in to warm it up. That saves a lot of electricity.

2. For some hydraulics, in the winter I switch to ATF. My log loader, with its tiny 3/8 inch hydraulic lines and 90 degree bends just does not like cold oil. I could heat it, but switching to automatic transmission fluid is just easier and cheaper.

3. Block heaters work, spit swappers work better. It takes some effort to hook them up to your truck, and they must have the same antifreeze, but after 20 minutes there is no question on whether or not a diesel engine will fire...any one will when the engine is 180 degrees. It is also portable since you can be out in the bush and still start a diesel engine. (If your equipment has a tranny cooler located in the engine radiator like my dozer, it will also preheat the tranny oil)

4. Good batteries is half the battle of starting anything. Spinning the engine over fast is what really starts a diesel engine, and that takes cranking amps. Keep them up by keeping the battery warm; either through heaters or trickle chargers.

5. 911 is the best anti-gel conditioner I ever found. It costs money, but nothing is colder than diesel fuel soaked hands when it is zero degrees out or below, so it is well worth it in my opinion. When in doubt, use it...a lot of it.

6. When a person has equipment, they ARE going to pay for a shop; either in extra maintenance and repair costs, or just building one outright.

 

Zero degrees here and burning Spruce and Ash in the pot bellied stove.

 

LodgedTree has brought up a good point with timers. Most of use them here especially with our high electricity rate. At 0* is my cutoff to using a timer. At this temp I want mine plugged in for 8 hours. If I am not using then I will unplug, but as the temp approaches -50* I want 12 hours plugged. The kissers (#3) I would use if the equipment was not at the house. My tractor is in the garage most of the times so I don't worry. I don't condition D1, I have talked to a few guys that work at the refinery, and do not need to treat anymore. If it gels, that a different animal to deal with. You need to know what fuel you have and deal with it accordingly. One interesting note they spoke about was some of the OTC anti-gels causes the fuel to be dry for lubrication purposes. I do have 911 for emergency purposes. In the 18+ years I have lived where it gets below 0* I have only gelled once, was -69* was fine driving, but when I came to a stop, bam.... 911 in the tank, drove the last few miles to work, changed the filter-all was well with the world.

Funny how problem, proved future solutions. We are going to pay one way or the other, question as stated in (#6) is how are we going to pay?

 

7f this morning. Nice and mild!

Should see a little snow also.

 

Currently minus 10 burning ash. Careful Guys its chilly out there.

Edit car says 14 below bringing daughter too school at 8

 

0 degrees here in the city with no pity ... testing some saws and freezing my bar nuts off !!!

 

looks like greenhouse

 

You forgot a heater for the heater!

 

Up to 10* now, with the sun shining. Good cutting weather.

 

About 22 here now. Temp is supposed to start falling this afternoon all the way down to 0 overnight.

Got a few chunks of oak in the stove now, need to clean out ashes later before putting an entire hedge tree in there for the overnight burn.

 

You were correct with corrugated plastic. They are the sheets that Lowes sells. I enclose my porch with them to keep snow and rain out during the six months of the worst weather. Underneath the porch is where all my firewood is stacked in the fall. So it helps keep firewood dry and significantly decreases the shoveling/sweeping we have to do on porch. Works well and still lets the light in.