Tuesday, September 09, 2008

cold weather, nice warm furnace

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For this first time since I've lived in this house we turned the heat on the the second week of September. In years past, we've been able to hold out until the last week of September, or more usually, the first or second week of October. We typically don't feel a need to start up the furnace until the day time temps are lower than 70 degrees, and night time temps are in the 40's and 50's. Our house is not well insulated, so as it cools off overnight, it's hard for the house to recover and warm up to the daytime temps. That's what we were experiencing, and based on the forecast, it's what we're looking at for the next week.

Turning on our furnace is not so easy as flipping a switch. We have an outdoor wood furnace that heats our house, so to get the house warm, we have to cut a bunch of fire wood, clean out the furnace, and then start a fire big enough to heat 300 gallons of water. As you might imagine, this is not something we take lightly. We don't have much wood cut, because we usually have another 3 weeks before we have to make sure we have a good starting stash. Then we cut wood through the fall, and into the early winter.

Does having the furnace on mean that we won't open the windows? Nope. If it gets nice, we just turn down the thermostat, keep the fire going outside, and open the house to catch a breeze. This is just so unexpected. Weird weather.

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