Brrr... Bah Humbug... Bring on Global warming!
Here in northern Arkansas, it's been a long, cold winter. One 8" snow just disappeared, only to be replaced by another. I've gone through twice my normal firewood allotment.
Still, I know we've had it easy compared to many. Share your winter stories here, maybe it'll help cure some cabin fever. :coffeedrinker:
"[I]We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn[/I]!"
Bob Dylan, from [I]Brownsville Girl[/I]
[I]"Time wounds all heels"[/I]
John Lennon, referring to the Nixon/Hoover deportation fiasco.
Can't compete with snow stories and very fortunate to have been mostly missed by the extensive ice, flooding damage around metro Atlanta, but the unseasonably cold, wet weather we've had combined with the furnace dying on the first night of the first cold snap has meant me being cooped up in a ~12 x 14 ft room for a goodly portion of four months now. Some days it's been down to 32 deg in house and peaked at only 38 deg today. I did score a nice electric throw for only $25 on Black Friday though, so I can at least be relatively comfortable listening to music or watching a movie on TV in the living room.
Another bummer is that heating at ~120 V has proven more expensive for one room than heating my entire house with natural gas even at the 'Robber Baron' rates we've been hit with since the deregulation that was touted as a selling point of being cheaper long term. Yeah, right!
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
JWe haven't have a snow storm since Dec 9Th. This is quite unusual for Montreal.
Look at the following picture of snow removal procedure. It takes 5 days to remove snow on every street and sidewalk in Montreal and suburbs.
The first picture shows snow being plowed to the side of the street followed by a snowblower and a dump truck.
The second picture shows a dump site where the truck dumps the snow and is blown upward into a mountain of snow.
I was going to complain but after seeing those pics, I wont.
Yeah, and what he didn't tell you, is that picture was taken in July :laffingassoff:Originally Posted by Nipper
I was going to complain but after seeing those pics, I wont.
Audio_by_Goodwill
Michigan, USA
Being an avid snowmobiler, i'm rather disappointed as we've received just over 20 inches of snowfall thus far this season(annual average 85inches) with no more than 5 inches on the ground at any given time. Most of our snow has been "lake effect", without that little freak of nature we'd have only seen a few inches so far. It would take a couple/three major Nor'easter's to catch us up to our average at this point.
We usually have an 18-24 inch dense base by now with more good loose snow on top. The NYC metro area depends on our heavy snow pack for it's spring run-off to fill the reservoirs that supply a good portion of the city's water. So far, there isn't anything to run off come the spring thaw. Folks in this area would probably do well to be concerned and conserve.
There however has been no shortage of cold weather, we actually saw a low of -18F here before the season officially started which was easily a record low.
Al Gore is probably even more disappointed than i.
Not all vegetables make good leaders.
Um, why not fix the furnace?
Mine is oil....died every year when it got cold. I learned how to fix/tweak it myself, and the last 2 years has run like a top. Installed in 1948.
NW (Oregon) has been warm and dry this winter, for the most part. We had one cold snap.....for a week, lows in the teens, single digits depending on the locale. One small snow.
I prefer cold over hot. Cold you can get warm. Hot, unless you have AC, is miserable. Hot days drag racing are unbearable....and hot days like that are probably what causes all the melted dribbling surrounds on our fav woofers!
Ron
No $$ in the budget right now to replace the furnace (it's due) and no simple repair since its gas valve is no longer available new and has no drop in replacement that I can find, so this means DIYing a new mount and gas line from the local shut-off valve and I'm not currently up for crawling around/working in the ~36" height available short of a dire emergency such as a gas leak.
Might can just repair the old one, but never have opened one up and can't find any info on the net to show internals or how to 'rebuild' one nor any repair kits, so unless it turns out to be something really simple like cleaning an inlet vent screen or similar I doubt I'm going to gamble on reusing old gaskets sealing well enough long term and don't know what, if any, sealant(s) are acceptable in such cases.
Me too, which considering where I was born n' bred is unusual. Historically, when locals are out enjoying the Summer weather I'm inside and vice versa for Winter. During my years playing at racing, heat was by far my worst enemy, so combined with having to carry an unnaturally light body weight to be at least semi-competitive in small bore sports racing and especially karts and bikes where child size rules for the most part and the non vented, tight fitting racing suits/leathers of the day pretty much ensured I'd be dehydrated/dizzy enough before even a practice session was over to require help getting off/out at the end.
The worst was corner working the '84 Dallas USGP race though. With cloudless 106-107 deg days all week and track temps off the scale, it was a living Hell for me and many of the drivers. Even with a ~constant supply of water and Gatorade, I still wound up with an IV plugged in me that night.
Yeah, in recent years I've only been able to run the A/C after midnight to bring the temp down for the next day, so rotating woofers regularly during the summer months has been necessary. Fortunately, back when I had plenty of disposable income I insulated the house pretty good, so don't really need AC until noon day temps gets into the 90s, though of course once it starts heating up, the insulation does just as good a job of keeping it in.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
It's interesting the different perspectives on the snow and ice. I actually like it, my wife hates it.
I can sure understand that working on the farm in winter would make you very sick of it.
One February I went to Sweden. It was one of the least snowy winters on record. The folks in the cities seemed very happy about it. But out in the country they hated it. Not much snow meant it was dark, muddy and miserable. And the lakes were not hard frozen, so no racing on the lakes!
All depends on perspective, I guess.
Your intuition serves you well. Combination gas valves are intended to be replaced, not serviced, and more than a few explosions and fires have resulted when such attempts were made.
I'm guessing it's a floor furnace rather than forced air? Either way, gas valve retrofit shouldn't be too tricky. For an old furnace, it would be wise to replace the pilot and thermocouple assembly too, which makes retrofitting a new valve much simpler (and less likely you'll have to revisit it anytime soon). Using a modern gas flex line on the inlet will simplify re-piping a new configuration. If the current layout was well known, $200-300 in parts and an hour in the "hole" should whip it safely.
Yeah, I agree the perspective on winter probably depends on whether you have to work/survive in it, or are just visiting for a bit of play. Though I now don't have to suffer the pain of it often, I'll never forget how bad it can be, and will always have pity for those still in it. The poor and elderly in drafty old homes, anyone that works outdoors, the homeless...
...and of course bears and frogs...
"[I]We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn[/I]!"
Bob Dylan, from [I]Brownsville Girl[/I]
[I]"Time wounds all heels"[/I]
John Lennon, referring to the Nixon/Hoover deportation fiasco.
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