Wednesday night

That's actual temps, right, not wind chill?? This is really dangerous weather, I hope all the WTFers in these regions stay inside and stay warm!!

Wind chill where my daughter lives is forecast for -40! Their driveway is a solid sheet of ice and she has to drive from Ohio to Indiana tomorrow.

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The house was creaking all night and the deck made a really loud pop when I stepped on it to take the dog out.

Hope the water mains out in the street don't break; it's a pretty common occurrence in this kind of weather.

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originally posted by rontuner:

Flannel-lined jeans, boots, good gloves and a coat that only gets pulled out when temps get crazy.

Same here. Despite the -55 wind chill, it wasn't that bad going out this morning. Of course I was out there for less than three minutes.

Forgot to take a pic before I undressed her, but Maggie was very stylish in her red coat and purple booties. First time in her thirteen years that she's worn a coat.

Interesting tip for dealing with a frozen lock on a car door...squirt some hand sanitizer on your key and insert it into the lock. Let it sit for 30 seconds, then gently try to open the lock.


Not to worry...no frozen lock here (that I'm aware of)....just heard the tip on the news and thought I'd pass it along...

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:

Maggie was very stylish in her red coat and purple booties.

:love:

I remember Jodi saying her house in Oregon had a wall furnace in the basement. At the time I thought it was to keep pipes from freezing but maybe it was there in case of a power failure.

In weather like this, how cold will a basement get? Does residual heat from the furnace/boiler/water heater keep the space above freezing or are there ducts/radiators in basements as well?

I think my daughter's house has a small duct off of the furnace but I'm not sure.

Don't know if it was a function of the era (1960s) or the skills of the contractors (lousy), but our house and basement in particular had a ton of problems that we've located and solved over the years.

Construction is poured concrete foundation and floor. Furnace and hot water heater in basement, ducts run under or between first floor joists till they turn to go upstairs.

The goodies we uncovered after moving here...

A two inch gap under the granite front door sill that you could see from the basement contributed significantly to cooling down the basement during the winter. Also the front hall floor.

Uninsulated rim joists.

Lousy insulation around an escape-window-converted-to-exit-door project.

We've plugged the holes with Great Stuff, insulated the rim joists and installed a new basement door. Also replaced the old style single pane metal windows with glass block; would probably do vinyl and insulated glass if I were doing them now.

Some previous homeowner created a pathetic rec room, probably for the kids. They cut a few holes in the ducts and installed registers to supply some heat to the space. The furnace is down there and it gives off a little heat and the basement is comfortable at 67 or 68 even if we don't open the registers. It used to be a lot colder down there.

We don't use it as living space so that works fine. Just a big laundry and storage room for us.

quote:

Don't know if it was a function of the era (1960s) or the skills of the contractors (lousy), but our house and basement in particular had a ton of problems that we've located and solved over the years.

Probably a little of both, but there is more. Power was dirt cheap in the 60's and nobody cared.

Even here we see it. I got called to look at a house on the beach that had sky-high electric bills. The owner thought the meter was defective.

What I found was an all-glass house with a giant (160K BTU?) electric furnace that ran 100% outside air. No return - all air was brought in from outside, heated in a single pass and exhausted to outdoors. The idea, I learned later, was to make sure the owner got to smell the ocean breeze even when the house was closed up and the furnace was running.

You don't see that today.

And just for fun:

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Did you hear loud booms or banging sounds overnight in Chicagoland? Those sounds might have been cryoseisms, or frost quakes.

So, here's how a frost quake happens:

First, the ground has to be saturated with water, like it is in the Chicago-area right now with all the snow.

When there's a sudden drop in temperature, the water freezes and expands.

The expansion and pressure build up causes stress on the frozen soil and rocks around it, and creates a boom noise.

https://wgntv.com/2019/01/30/l...uld-be-frost-quakes/

(This phenomenon is what causes the water main pipes to break in cold weather....)

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
I remember Jodi saying her house in Oregon had a wall furnace in the basement. At the time I thought it was to keep pipes from freezing but maybe it was there in case of a power failure.

In weather like this, how cold will a basement get? Does residual heat from the furnace/boiler/water heater keep the space above freezing or are there ducts/radiators in basements as well?

I think my daughter's house has a small duct off of the furnace but I'm not sure.

In our last house, there was a lot of foundation/home air leakage that kept the basement cold in the winter. In this rental house, the basement is the warmest area, even with all the ducts down there closed. The second floor is the coldest.

Got out for a short walk/fill the feeders for birds and critters. Yup, cold. Would be fine without the wind - that really makes it wicked out there!

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:

Maggie was very stylish in her red coat and purple booties.

:love:

Need to get some puppy socks for Cosmo. He likes the cold, but not this cold.

I always have a fully charged jump start device.
In my case, it's been largely because of forgetting headlights or cabin lights or other small lights neglect of which ends by requiring a jump start.

However, it occurs to me here how handy they also are when aging car batteries struggle in this Arctic weather.

Also, they are very useful to charge cell phones and other miscellany, besides which most have a bright light and air compressor. Likewise, if you have a back-up computer battery, it can do double duty. Mine is extra powerful from an era when I struggled with a separate modem.

When in doubt, I suggest you get such batteries stronger than strictly needed as they can be super handy when you lose power. Speaking as someone who can't afford a generator, much as I'd like to.

All of which reminds me of the propane heater discussion. Googlng around, it looks to me as if indoor heaters (NOT those for camping/outdoors), are purported to be safe. Of course, one has to be very careful to keep track of the flame color to insure it's not using up your oxygen.

Attention: WTG. As I recall, like me, you rely on small propane heaters as for power outages, or just to help in unusually frigid weather. Are you using one now, to take the edge off your home's freezing temps?

We seem to be managing just fine. Despite the outdoor temperatures going down to -22°F last night, and today not getting much above -14°F, we've been able to maintain a toasty 72°F indoors. There is some ice on the inside of some of the windows, but that's because I refuse to set the humidity to less than 15%.

Looking on the bright side, though, it's supposed to get into the 50s on Sunday and Monday. Think about it; that's a huge temperature differential - 75 degrees!

quote:

Originally posted by Amanda:

All of which reminds me of the propane heater discussion. Googlng around, it looks to me as if indoor heaters (NOT those for camping/outdoors), are purported to be safe. Of course, one has to be very careful to keep track of the flame color to insure it's not using up your oxygen.

Attention: WTG. As I recall, like me, you rely on small propane heaters as for power outages, or just to help in unusually frigid weather. Are you using one now, to take the edge off your home's freezing temps?

I could have written Matt's description down to the bit of ice on the window. Our furnace has no trouble keeping our house at 72, so we don't need any supplemental heat. And we have a portable generator and manual transfer switch that we use during power outages; one of the circuits it powers runs the furnace.

I bought one of those portable indoor heaters that uses a small propane tank to try out in our unheated three season room, not in our house.

Something like this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Mr...ater-MH18B/304909148

I used it for ten minutes and when it gave me a headache I shut it off, let it cool, and packed it up and returned it.

Those puppies are unvented, which means that any carbon monoxide resulting from the combustion of the propane remains in the room. The ones designed for indoor use have an oxygen depletion sensor designed to shut the unit off if it senses the oxygen levels are dropping too low in the room. But they are still putting out CO. I'm sure that's what gave me a headache. Not for me.

I would look elsewhere for supplemental heat.