Cold

Several days in single digits. Last night -7*F. Mancave water lines froze, they are against windside wall, draft comes up between foundation and wood framing. Options thaw and deal with split pipes, or turn off water and hope for spring.
Still running fire place with wood, and now the coal stove in basement with coal (1ton $325) single softball sized chunk burns for hours and stove is glowing now as it should, wood was not hot enough. Lowered the scoop and the house is toasty as the air ducts are still there and doing better than furnace vents.

Dug out momma's car yesterday, fun, under a drift by barn, hens are freezing in coop, the heat lamps are not cutting it, ducks the same, the goats are doing fine with no heat just a lot of haybales and a 'hut' of bales in their house. The wild turkeys are up in the tree by the back porch, all night, and they come down the minute light comes on in kitchen sitting on porch waiting for momma to throw feed.

Got to seal kitchen sliding door, the slot between doors a wind tunnel of cold air. Sealed all basement windows, got the one 'vent' window cracked in wash room. Flurries right now, stuff frozen solid, ruts in road are massive, ice all over. The towns road grader which plows road in ditch on Cty Rd A, still.

Gotta love country living.

-37 here, -34 faren .  for non-metric noobs.

Sucks to be you guys, it's about 45 here.  Unfortunately it's also raining 24/7.

Edited by evillepaintball - 28 December 2012 at 9:28am

JohnnyCanuck wrote: -37 here, -34 faren .  for non-metric noobs.

Can you feel a big difference between -34°F and -20°F? Does the temperature ever get to a point to where it all feels the same.

For me. I think anything under 15°F and I'm staying inside.

Original foundation 1884, second (first burned) main house 1919, addition to main house 1985. Two gas furnaces, one for main, one for addition, coal stove in main (still works), fireplace in 'den' in addition. New double windows 1985, main kitchen slider door 1985 (seal between doors shot, wind tunnel, now packed with spray insulation foam till I can fix, or replace. Mancave garage building 1925, was a processing area for when this was a 'pig' farm in the late 20's till 1960's, redone into single garage and seperate heated/AC'd work room.
Main barns burned 1978 only foundations, equipment barn still up, weigh building with ramp still up, coop still up, grainery (goat area now) still up, feeder building still up, two mechanical wells (those windmill things) still have operating pumps.

Overall place is great.

Top of hill, no real wind breaks, winter NW winds hit full front of house. Today 4* at 6AM, 2 guinea hens froze to death past two days overnight in coop with heat lamps going. Turkeys and goats are doing fine. Driveway is still snow packed, dirt road to paved US77 a frozen rutted mess, with nightly wind drifts, town road grader snow remover in ditch still, even a heavy big truck tow could not pull it out at the steep nose down angle grader is in, no way to keep tow from sliding on road ice, even the 'legs' can't get purchase.

I love living in Alaska, loved the cold, now that I am getting old not so much.

Santa Chewp wrote: deadeye007 wrote: JohnnyCanuck wrote: -37 here, -34 faren .  for non-metric noobs. Can you feel a big difference between -34°F and -20°F? Does the temperature ever get to a point to where it all feels the same. For me. I think anything under 15°F and I'm staying inside. Huge difference actually.  After a long time of -34, -20 will feel like things have warmed up a fair bit.  It's still cold, but you don't have to dress as much for it.  Simple example would be taking the dogs out for a pee. -34 I'm zipping my coat up and wearing a hat/ gloves.  -20 I'll just leave my coat open and wont bother to grab my hat/ gloves since I'm only out for a few minutes.  Still cold, but when you're getting down to -34 and below it's a bit of a different game.

  

I'm no Canadian, but at -20*F my accelerator pedal shattered, at -10*F last year the furnace decided to crap out and it was about 1* above freezing inside the house by the a.m. (water running). I'm outside in the cold working a lo (still making snow at a ski club), after 10*F, things start getting bad really fast. I've had snowgun fan motors conk out in sub zero and turn into 1-ton ice sculptures really fast a few times. Not fun.

Yeah it's like -20 when I wake up every morning.

At what temperature do you guys start using engine block heaters?

I park in the garage now, when I parked outside I had a cord that you could set the temperature it comes on at, as well as a timer; block heater eats power.  I also use a weather front on my grille, and plug in a battery blanket for the reeeal cold days.