Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[hunt4570]

A word of warning for those whose homes are not built for the cold: Turning your heating system off and going with wood heat can be a big mistake. Depending on what type of heating system you have, you may want to keep it running, or at least fire it up every couple hours or so.

Yeah, we are going with fire during the day. Keeping the entire house around 70*. The living room around 75*. At 9pm we turn the heat back on keeping the house around 66*. We should be good.

Sounds exactly like us, wood during the day and thermostat at 66 for the evening when the fire goes down!

 

[John_Mc]

("A word of warning for those whose homes are not built for the cold: Turning your heating system off and going with wood heat can be a big mistake.")
View attachment 686435
Just put your mittens back on you'll be ok. I'm at 63 years old and counting all on wood heat ONLY......

And if your in a house that was built for that and has been through it before, you'll probably be fine. People who live through this sort of thing every year know what their house can take.

My post was mostly intended for those in the south who will be seeing record setting (for their area) cold temperatures over the next few days. If you are in a house that was built in an area where 30˚F is cold and 20˚ is extremely rare, seeing temperatures in the 0˚ range and for several days, taking some precautions only makes sense.

My neighbors here in VT had never heated their house solely by wood before, Their fireplace had been converted to a wood stove just that fall, and they were using the heck out of it. The problem was that it was all the way on one end of the house. They felt comfortable enough, but those far corners of the house down low at the baseboard heaters were a problem in a couple of areas. (It turned out that the far corner of the house, which was also on the windward side for that cold spell had a spot right in the corner of the wall that was almost uninsulated. They had no idea. It was less than a 6" gap which was not filled with insulation - someone got lazy when building the house. Had the heating system been running - or even just circulating water with the heat turned off, they would have been fine. They discovered the gap while removing some water-damaged drywall. They ended up filling it with spray expanding foam, and drilling some holes in the undamaged part to fill the gap all the way up to the ceiling.)

BTW... what does being 63 have to do with how well your house can take the cold? Do I need to worry about something special 4 years from now?

 

[John_Mc]

Cold (35) and rainy, got about 3 inches of rain in the last 4 days, but NO SNOW.. so I'm happy! You?

We've got 6" of snow coming tonight/tomorrow. I love it! I could never live in a place without a real winter.

 

[fruitcakesa]

We've got 6" of snow coming tonight/tomorrow. I love it! I could never live in a place without a real winter.

Same here John; most of us who chose to settle in Vermont for the long run feel that way.
Once you figure out what it takes to be happy and comfy in all weather, life is good.
We have heated exclusively with wood for 40+ years with never a problem and with the wood boiler, we have central heat anyway.

 

[arrow]

BTW... what does being 63 have to do with how well your house can take the cold? Do I need to worry about something special 4 years from now?

I don't think it was meant that way. I believe it was more about wood gathering.
I have a neighbor who is 78 yrs old. He was so active he'd put 50 yr old men to shame. He was that way until 77. Then his body railed against him with a hernia, blocked carotid artery, degenerative miiniscus and a bone on bone hip. This accumulation that took years, finally hit him all at once. That' s how it happens. In one year he became a shell of his old self. You don't bounce back from that stuff as easily when one was 27.

I think if I lived up your way, I'd build a house not with hydronics but with hot air. So much easier to tie in a wood furnace and mitigating the frozen pipe scene.

 

[Oldpath05]

Cold (35) and rainy, got about 3 inches of rain in the last 4 days, but NO SNOW.. so I'm happy! You?

Just watch a couple forecast, for mid-coast looks like 2-4" snow then sleet rain starting tonight, yuck!

 

[Jstpssng]

Just watch a couple forecast, looks like 2-4" snow then sleet rain starting tonight, yuck!

"Yuck" is right!

 

[Oldpath05]

Hard to believe it's colder in Texas than up here, not a good day for truck drivers.

 

[Oldpath05]

"Yuck" is right!

The weather I saw, you might get more sleet then rain, double yuck.....

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^

I have to be up in the Haynesville Woods tomorrow AM. I hope that the guy I'm supposed to meet shows up.