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

Well that makes sense. You have alternatives everywhere my major uses are.

My summer time AC bills approach $350

Many folks even down on the coat in charleston where they had snow on found for a week this year which kept their temps lower than ours, many people had electric bills approaching $1000 that month, because heat pumps suck and can't make heat at the lower temps.

 

Are you living in an insulated house??????

 

In SC (Spensive Cooling)

 

About 32 here at 10 tonight. Little rain right now. Probably going to turn to snow and then quit by midnight. Maple in the boiler and keeping things comfy at 72 in the living room.

 

32° snowing like a mofo since about 1 pm today. Burning table legs.


Lol

 

Don't forget about the cabinet doors!

 

Fortunately the furniture is spared. Locust and cherry in the quadrafire tonight.

 

It takes awhile for our lakes to get warm for swimming and many just get to the tolerable level. Like many places we have some swamp bass sloughs outside of the mountains that no one swims in but the leaches and the bass but for the most part we have cool deep lakes. We have a nice little lake (see below) that we visit during the early swimming season and then in late July, early August just before the nights start cooling off we go to a few of the bigger ones. We can get summer days to 36c/96f and on the extreme hottest days of the summer 45c/113f (not very frequent thankfully). These temps are seen an hour from us which is a bit out of the mountains and lower elevation but an area where many of us go for summer fun. The big thing that keeps our lakes cool is the low temperatures at night. If I remember correctly we have about 90-100 frost free days a year here which makes it tough to do many garden crops.



I took a picture of this unfortunate creature that didnt survive the winter. Who know what took it down, winter, old age, cougars, wolves?

This lake is about an hours drive from home. You can see in the distance the mountains a bit closer to where I live. Every spring we do a walk around it and return in the summer for some swimming. These were taken on March 29th so Im sure its melted some since then but I hear people are still ice fishing in that area.

 

-1c/30f under clear skies tonight. I loaded the stove to the gills with larch and doug fir half an hour ago so we should be nice and toasty for the kids when they are getting ready for school in the morning. The sun is starting to do a number on our snow pack in the valley bottom which is great. I actually can move around freely now in half my back yard. I am so ready to head into the bush and start cutting but it will be awhile yet before the back roads are passable in the low lying areas. Ill just get my fix from reading many of your wood harvesting threads until I can do it myself.

 

Ceiling insulation, about 50% has no wall insulation. The other 50% of the exterior is insulated

 

$350 is not bad. That's about right on for most people of a house of decent size that was not built in the last 10 years. I know several people that have bills over $400 and cool 600 or 700 less feet than I do. I have two 3 ton heat pumps.

 

We got a $350 electric bill last summer, running the pool pump and 3 portable AC units. I hope the mini split knocks that down.

 

We used to run just one window unit and the mini split cut the cost by more than half. It’s incredibly efficient for heat too. No trouble below zero either. I still have family and friends in northern Maine and they do great up there down to 25-30 below depending on what brand you have and still cheaper than oil or propane. The newer units are really efficient.

 

They must be, must be totally refined technology from normal heat pumps, granted my insulation is very poor, but below 25f my heat pump is done. It can't put heat into the house as fast as it looses it. Unit will run literally all day to maintain 65f and the only way it dies that is the heat strips would kick in a few times an hour to bring the temp up 2 degrees and then they would cut off. That's why I went to wood heat like 7 years ago. Heating bills were getting higher than AC bills for the cold months.

 

How old is your heat pump? A relative had one night at -30 with only the heat pump, and it was going into defrost mode about every half hour or so, but the house temperature never dropped below 65. They keep it set at 70 all winter and that’s the only time it didn’t keep up. It’s a 2 year old Mitsubishi just like the one I have. All this winter we’ve kept the boiler on 70 downstairs in our raised ranch/split entry, and the heat pump upstairs at 70 also. Our highest electric bill was under $150 with most around $125. We’re heating and cooling 2100 sq ft. In the summer the one 18k unit keeps the whole house at 72 for less than half what the 18k window unit used to cost to run and that was only cooling the upstairs and not very well at that. Many of the new homes going up around here only have heat pumps and there’s a rebate on every one you have installed. I’m hoping to put another one downstairs and switch to a heat pump water heater so I can eliminate the oil fired boiler. Wood will be the primary heat source but we need backup to leave the house at least 6 months out of the year.

 

I think I'll stop burning wood May 1st, the natural gas supply charge drops to $0.3133/therm from $0.80551/therm. The cat will have to adjust to a cool basement.

 

Now there 10 years old, but back when I used them for heat they were between brand new and 3 years old (meaning when I bought the house I had them installed and I used them for 3 years or so before the stove). They are not used for heat anymore since I installed the wood stove...they suck to heat with.

 

April 19th.....still have wood to burn here.....down to 27 tonight

 

32 and snow flurries. Sun peaking through. High of 50!ash and sycamore in the stove


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29F on the back porch right now.

Maple in boiler.