Sorry ladies I am not referring to a woman's cycle. I am referring to the heating cycle. Everyone would have a different definition for their heating cycle. Though I think the definition below is pretty widely accepted: Fall Hip - Time when you are fighting off starting to heat to periods where you'll heat just over, 1 day to as many as 3-4 days. Sometimes longer. In essence, you will not run your heating from this point non-stop until the end of heating. It will be on and off during this period. Heating - Wood/pellet stove or other heating in on consistently every day. For the most part, you are heating non-stop. You might get an odd day or two in there where you might not run the heat, but that is not the norm. Spring Hip - Time when spring is toying with you. There are warms days when you can open the windows one day, and the next it's snowing again. This is back to where you are not heating all the time. You heat for stretches at a time, but not consistently. As you are going colder to warmer, it's a different cycle than fall. In southern RI the seasons generally start as follows: (Living a mile and half as the crow flies from the ocean, we are as much as 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of RI in the Winter and 10 degrees cooler in the summer.) Fall Hip - late October - This year we had a week in October that was very cold and then went back to almost 70s through Veterans day. Wearing shorts. Now we are back to the norm with highs in the 40s low 50s during the day and lows in and around freezing. Heating - This has been all over the board for us. The year before last it started in early December. Last year it didn't start until mid-January if I recall properly. It usually runs until the 1st or 2nd week of March. Spring Hip - Generally starts the 1st or second week of March. If I recall correctly, last year it started later. But the heating season also started much later than normal. We used our stove in May this past year. Usually, by mid-April, we are done with Spring hip. Wondering what your area is normally and what you experienced last year and currently. Jason from RI
If I were burning normally (which I'm not) I would be in the Fall hip cycle for sure. Today was in the high 30s with a temp tomorrow in the high 50s. I'm hoping to have the cycle continue until mid December. Our coldest month is Jan and Feb (per standard) with temps around -20 to 20. I'm concentrating on that period for my stock.
You have highs in the 30s and you are not burning? What do you do to keep the house warm for those temps? Our house is very old. Originally 1885. While we've modernized it, it's still is a bit drafty.
Its a bit of a long story, but we have infrared heaters right now. What got me into wood heat was a desperate move to keep our house years ago. We bought a box stove and froze a lot. This year we are upgrading to a Drolet and investing in a cleaning method to do it from bottom up so I don't have to climb on the roof anymore than I have to. Until those things happen, I'm trying to hold off on burning until I can get things squared away.
Trust me I know all about long stories and challenging heating scenarios. If you read back through older posts of mine, you'll read out the family room with no insulation in the ceiling and not attached to the main heating. It's being used as a bedroom and heated with an infrared heater at the moment. Then in the main part of the house is forced hot air with no cold air returns. That operates at about 60% at best by my calculations. Our plan is to replace that with mini-splits. Mainly for the hip season and for the areas the wood stove does not reach. The Drolet HT 3000 looks similar to the Lenox Country Canyon stove we heat with. It's a very easy stove to work with and does not produce much chreolsote. We've been burning ENI-blocks the past couple of years in it. This year I am starting to make the transition back to wood. 2 tons of Envi-blocks and 1+ cord of wood. I have 6 cords in processing now, Once that is done being processed I'll start looking for more. Or I'll get some from a guy that is selling a cord of logs for $75. Another source sells 6 cords for $395 in log length. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough free stuff.
Yeah, that sounds like a tough one to work out. Sounds like you got a plan. My house is an old 4 square farm house with pretty good insulation, but pretty much zoned. We have a propane boiler, but because of some monopoly politics and a Coop buyout, our tank was yanked. They told us to go fly a kite and all the other suppliers wont service us because of turf wars. Its nuts. So I was faced with either begging the propane company and using the current stove as a suppliment or giving them the finger. So anyway, we're upgrading our wood stove and installing some fan assist ducts to move air. Luckily I have quite a few dead standing trees on the property that I can process and a pallet company that gives free pine away when I get into a pinch. I'm also a big fan of tree dumps that we have around here for some good ol shopping. Good luck man, I'll check out some of your older posts.
I’m in southern Maine about a dozen miles from the Atlantic as the crow flies. Around here heating season usually runs from early October to late April early May. Shoulder season starts sometime in September and ends sometime in May. June July and August are the only months when we almost never need heat but there are notable exceptions from time to time. When we lived up north we started heating in late August and almost always went into June. The further from the coast the longer the heating season in Maine. Recent years have been milder in general with a few surprises mixed in but overall it’s trending warmer with less snow.
21 this morning. The stove is roaring away. I love it. Yes still hip. Friday back to 62. Sat 57 and Sunday barely back into the 40's at 49. The following week is mid 40's and mid 50's. Trending warmer than usual, but on par with last year. Hopefully, we get a better winter. I love the snow. Sorry for those in New England that hate it.
Your climate is pretty close to mine except that I'm inland 30 miles so summers are hotter and winters are colder without the water to regulate the temperature. I'm surprised you were at 21 this morning. Coldest I saw today was 27. Tonight it should be about 20 where I'm at. I remember last year was unseasonably warm in general, minus one week in the middle of January where it was bitter cold with a moderate snowstorm thrown in. I remember this vividly because I had closed on my current house on January 16th and began moving that day. That whole week was zero to single digits overnight and mid teens for the daytime highs. The day I returned the U-Haul it warmed up to near 50. Of course it just had to be that way. The thing that really struck me about last winter was that I only had to use the snowblower twice. Very dry winter. I'm hoping for a few good storms this year, and enough cold days to justify all the hours this summer I was outside cutting wood in the heat.
I was in an accident and busted mine up pretty good. With all the drugs they gave me for the week in the hospital I had a lot of heat coming off me. Don’t know other than that.
Maybe an obscure Rhode Island dialect of English or an acronym? Heat's Inside, Pal? All Google comes up with is Hip-Hop references, or falling and breaking your hip. I'm not too interested in either. Unless he's saying hip and means shoulder. Kind of a weird mix up though.
Last year I was burning in late September. This year I didn’t fire up till mid October. Normally, if it warms up, I just open the windows. This year it’s been warm most of November, can’t see running a fire when it’s 80 out.
This is the first time I've let my boiler go out twice in the fall shoulder or "hip" season. Normally I light it in late Sept or early Oct & keep it going. We've had two very warm stretches this fall. Odd weather for sure. Usually burn into early May.
Still in fall hip. Pretty much same pattern as last year. This year we had a couple morning fires in sept. Last year oct 1, was first fire. Didnt burn for several days this month because of warm temps. For most part though it has been morning and evening fires since oct. I have waken up a few mornings where the thermostat read 60 or below. Our house is a 180 year old stone farm house, its not super drafty but its not air tight either. We have forced hot air oil heat. Only turned the furnace on this year to be sure everything worked. Burned less than 1/8 of tank of oil last year. Hoping to use less this year. Our woodstove is our main source of heat. Im not going to lie but I take pride and enjoy seeing (and feeling) my hardwork pay off.
Glad you asked that. I'm still on the mini splits and am enjoying the chit out of them in these temps. Usually December is time for the big gun (wood boiler)
