TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jan 30, 2019 15:53:27 GMT -5
My gas fireplace is in my living room. It will heat the living room and keep it comfortable. However, it also heats up the area where the thermostat is so the heat doesn't kick in. On days like this, I want the heat kicking in.
It's up to -17.
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Deleted
Joined: Apr 23, 2024 5:04:48 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2019 15:54:23 GMT -5
It was 60 here yesterday in No. CA. I burned brush and got a sunburn. A sunburn, in January...
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cyanne
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Post by cyanne on Jan 30, 2019 17:49:36 GMT -5
Xcel Energy is asking natural gas customers in the Twin Cities to lower their thermostats to 63 degrees and not to use any hot water. They are having trouble keeping gas pressure up. Over 150 households have lost natural gas so far. Luckily I have a high efficiency wood burning fireplace and a wood stove. My hot water and oven are also electric. Turned my thermostat down and started up the wood stove (the fireplace was already going).
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chapeau
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Post by chapeau on Jan 30, 2019 18:20:19 GMT -5
I was wondering if the natural gas equivalent of a brown out was going to happen anywhere. Glad I’m in relatively balmy PA. It’s 0 out now. 64 inside, but that’s where we usually have it during the day.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jan 30, 2019 18:31:43 GMT -5
Their have been some small outages here.
I'm with a rural cooperative and I have not seen anything about using less heat. There is only so low I can put my thermostat and not have frozen pipes.
Can definitely feel the difference now that the sun has gone down.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Jan 30, 2019 18:55:51 GMT -5
Getting ready for another cold night. The temps are 10 degrees or more colder than usual in my house. The house heats unevenly - with the bedrooms being 5 or 6 degrees lower than what the thermostat is set at. The bedrooms are at hovering just below 60 degrees. The furnace seems to be OK - it's keeping the thermostat at the set temp (68 degrees). It was more comfy during the day when the sun was hitting my house. I did seal off the 70 yo no door fire place with plastic sheeting a couple of days ago and made sure all the windows were correctly closed - the living room is also hovering just below 60 degrees. My house is as "tight" as it's gonna get. The cats are enjoying their heated beds and their "hide-y hole cardboard box beds" so they are fine. The electricity, internet, water, and drains are all working. Here's hoping to make it thru another really cold night. Can't wait for the sun tomorrow and the temps to get back near or above 0 degrees F. My house and furnace were not built for long term temps below -20 degrees F.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 30, 2019 19:07:36 GMT -5
Pheasant is back and eating! He looks a little perkier with the sun warming him up. It's only 15 below now... One more bad night for him to make it through then it warms up. What pheasant news.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 30, 2019 19:08:36 GMT -5
Xcel Energy is asking natural gas customers in the Twin Cities to lower their thermostats to 63 degrees and not to use any hot water. They are having trouble keeping gas pressure up. Over 150 households have lost natural gas so far. Luckily I have a high efficiency wood burning fireplace and a wood stove. My hot water and oven are also electric. Turned my thermostat down and started up the wood stove (the fireplace was already going). oh my god! That is horrendous! Praying for them.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jan 30, 2019 19:18:59 GMT -5
I keep the house at 65 during the day, 55 at night. I hate it but I hate high utility bills more. I keep a space heater in the bedroom at night and now have it next to me in the kitchen. I know about the fire risks; I never have one running in a room I'm not occupying and when they're not operating I unplug them. The one I use also emits a loud buzz even if I pick it up and move it, so I'd know if it fell over.
Mine immediately shuts itself off if it's moved or falls over. If the cat is doing his "wildebeest stampede" impression and smacks into it, it shuts off right away.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 30, 2019 20:02:47 GMT -5
Under the electric blanket with chocolate for tv time
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 30, 2019 20:11:09 GMT -5
66. I can hear wind blowing outside but I’m in bed fighting off a cold with DH’s cat on me purring away.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 30, 2019 20:14:53 GMT -5
Big boy clambered up to!
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Jan 30, 2019 21:16:52 GMT -5
It is going down to minus 3 tonight, which is nothing like what some of you are dealing with. It is also pretty windy
House is at 67 and so far maintaining temp. I’m definitely happy I got the foam insulatatjon a couple of years ago. My kitchen is always freezing because it was remodeled by the prior owner and they half assed the insulation
If I lose power or gas, I do have a large contractor heater that is run by propane. It throws a LOT of heat
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Jan 30, 2019 21:48:22 GMT -5
We discovered that this house is fairly well insulated when our furnace croaked a few years ago, mid Jan. It took us a month to get a new furnace installed. We had temps in the high teens through 20s, not near as cold as the Midwest is getting.
During this time, we ran the fireplace from the time we got up until we went to bed. When I was sick, TD had a blower put in because I was so cold all the time. That blower really disperses the heat from the fireplace well. We also had a couple of electric space heaters we used to get the chill off the bathroom some. With the fireplace going, by noon we’d get the house up to about 66 by noon. At night, it only dropped to around 53-55. It probably was colder downstairs, but we didn’t have people staying here so it wasn’t a problem.
That was only a 40 deg temp differential though.
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MN-Investor
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Post by MN-Investor on Jan 30, 2019 21:49:13 GMT -5
Xcel Energy is asking natural gas customers in the Twin Cities to lower their thermostats to 63 degrees and not to use any hot water. They are having trouble keeping gas pressure up. Over 150 households have lost natural gas so far. Sigh. Ok. I just set my thermostat to 63°. I normally have it at 66°, but had dropped it to 64° yesterday to lessen the strain on my furnace. For one night I can reduce it one more degree. There have also been electrical power outages in the area, one just a couple miles from me last night. I can't imagine no electricity and I can't imagine the electricians out in this cold trying to fix the problems. I will be SO glad when the temperatures get back up to freezing this weekend.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2019 22:12:53 GMT -5
I'm still keeping my house 67 upstairs and down, day and night, which is quite a bit warmer than we're used to. It's kind of weird having it so crazy cold outside and being warmer than normal.
They said we hit 66 below with the windchill last night which is the lowest ever recorded in SE MN. It's still supposed to get to -30 tonight, but no wind.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jan 30, 2019 23:27:59 GMT -5
I got an alert on my phone from consumers to keep my thermostat at 65 or below. Uh no. I get natural gas for my furnace from a completely different company.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2019 23:43:53 GMT -5
Nice thing about having my own LP tank. Nobody is regulating my usage.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Jan 31, 2019 7:57:40 GMT -5
I read on another message board that some smaller MN city asked folks to turn their heat down to 55. I was surprised, as I thought that would be telling folks to risk frozen pipes.
We turned our heat up from 65 to 67. I was hoping to bake yesterday, but work was awful.
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Cookies Galore
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Post by Cookies Galore on Jan 31, 2019 8:04:46 GMT -5
My two cat furnaces kept me too warm over night. It's always a pleasure walking up in sweat when it's below zero outside. But I love that Charlie's favorite spot is snuggled up against my behind.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jan 31, 2019 8:42:54 GMT -5
I read on another message board that some smaller MN city asked folks to turn their heat down to 55. I was surprised, as I thought that would be telling folks to risk frozen pipes.
We turned our heat up from 65 to 67. I was hoping to bake yesterday, but work was awful.
My mom's house's heat is set at 60, and I told my DB to turn it up a couple degrees just to be safe. 55 is ridiculous, IMO. The problem with Consumers was due to a fire at a pumping station near Detroit. I'm nowhere close, and get our gas from DTE, so I just ignored it.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jan 31, 2019 8:51:01 GMT -5
My two cat furnaces kept me too warm over night. It's always a pleasure walking up in sweat when it's below zero outside. But I love that Charlie's favorite spot is snuggled up against my behind. My now RIP male cat used to maneuver himself so that we were laying side-by-side, chest to chest, with his head tucked under my chin.
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Cookies Galore
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Post by Cookies Galore on Jan 31, 2019 8:54:05 GMT -5
My two cat furnaces kept me too warm over night. It's always a pleasure walking up in sweat when it's below zero outside. But I love that Charlie's favorite spot is snuggled up against my behind. My now RIP male cat used to maneuver himself so that we were laying side-by-side, chest to chest, with his head tucked under my chin. Awww, that's sweet. Our 18-year-old lady sleeps between us and the young cat is the butt man.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Jan 31, 2019 9:22:49 GMT -5
I have a relatively new house, so even though temps outside are/were less than 20 below, inside is still a nice 70 (which is what we have the thermostat set at). We had a much less-intense cold spell a few weeks ago where the system seemed to have problems holding temperature steady, but a quick change of the furnace filter solved that.
The basement is having problems getting above 60 degrees...but it is mostly unfinished which means some poor insulation around windows. I'm not sure how much of the temperature there is due to that, or how much of it is simply because the cold air falls and/or the fact that I've got heat registers constantly turning on/off as I do work in different areas.
Do I worry about it? Constantly, just like I worry about pipes freezing even though it seems highly unlikely. But I didn't build the house, so I'm always worried about which day someone said "I'm sick of this, good enough" when they were building and it ends up being an issue later.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 31, 2019 9:25:57 GMT -5
My two cat furnaces kept me too warm over night. It's always a pleasure walking up in sweat when it's below zero outside. But I love that Charlie's favorite spot is snuggled up against my behind. Talk about betrayal! BB does not let LG upstairs yet, and he abandoned me last night, just came for the wake up get me breakfast visit. Can you believe that? When I get downstairs, I see DD left the electric blanket on. I think I can guess what happened there! I'm not sure our relationship can recover!
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 31, 2019 9:36:17 GMT -5
I'm sure when the utilities companies ask to turn down the temps, it's an emergency situation where some might end up without heat/not enough pressure or supply to keep things going, so it seems like you just need to comply. The person who ends up without any could be you! Hopefully these situations will have the utilities reworking their systems/backups so this isn't an issue next time. Another thing I will be looking into this summer is buttoning up the house. I have paper towels tucked all around the door frames, one window in kitchen. I can do a more permanent job there. I have some single pane windows without storms I will have some storms made up for. Maybe whole house insullation? But seems the doors/windows would be the bigger bang for the buck. My walls are lathe and plaster, that seems pretty solid and not sure what kind of upgrade might work there. Forecast extended our hitting 0 to 7 pm tonight, so less than 10.5 hours to go.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jan 31, 2019 10:16:23 GMT -5
It's warmed up outside since I got up from -25 to -22 but there is no wind.
Thermostat is still set at 67. I'm thinking by evening or tomorrow at the latest, I can turn it back down.
So far, furnace is working and no frozen pipes.
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nidena
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Post by nidena on Jan 31, 2019 10:22:29 GMT -5
I usually set my heater to 63 at night but I bumped it down to 61 so that it wouldn't be running nonstop. Bumped it back up about an hour ago--around 9:30am. It's in the teens here in central DE with "feels like" around 5 or 6 degrees.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on Jan 31, 2019 10:25:19 GMT -5
I'm sure when the utilities companies ask to turn down the temps, it's an emergency situation where some might end up without heat/not enough pressure or supply to keep things going, so it seems like you just need to comply. The person who ends up without any could be you! Hopefully these situations will have the utilities reworking their systems/backups so this isn't an issue next time. Another thing I will be looking into this summer is buttoning up the house. I have paper towels tucked all around the door frames, one window in kitchen. I can do a more permanent job there. I have some single pane windows without storms I will have some storms made up for. Maybe whole house insullation? But seems the doors/windows would be the bigger bang for the buck. My walls are lathe and plaster, that seems pretty solid and not sure what kind of upgrade might work there. Forecast extended our hitting 0 to 7 pm tonight, so less than 10.5 hours to go. I turned my thermostat down a degree, just in case in somehow helps. I doubt it though. It's a completely different provider on the other side of the state.
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Rukh O'Rorke
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on Jan 31, 2019 11:36:17 GMT -5
At -10! doing a happy dance!
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