Old Man Winter Rides In Early...

[MajGenl.Meade]

The blue one

[Guinevere]

The blue one

Dude, you totally fuffed that answer. It's the *green* one. Do I have to teach you everything?


And seriously, I don't know enough about how pellet furnaces work and how the pellets are sourced to answer. As to oil burner or gas boiler, I'd say gas boiler but that could depend on where the fuel is being sourced.

Finally, as for Old Man winter, its 63 (and grey) today and in 48 hours we will have plowable snow. Just in time for the Thanksgiving travel, woohwooooo!

[Gob]

going to hit 80, in your language, here.

[Guinevere]

That's because you're upside down. It's not like its 80 there in the winter.

[MajGenl.Meade]

How pellets are sourced...

Scare 'em bad and often for increased supply!




Of course, both animals could contribute to the green revolution...

[Sue U]

going to hit 80, in your language, here.

No worries, mate. It's 73F (23C) here right now.

[Guinevere]

And we get three days off this week, oh, well, hell....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Maybe we should explain to Gob why we get so few?

[Jarlaxle]

What has the smaller carbon footprint? (assuming brand new, top of the line models)
A pellet furnace
An oil burner
A gas furnace

I am asking as I am too lazy to look them up.

Pellets, I'd guess...simply because the carbon has ALREADY been absorbed. (Also, a lot of what they are made from would otherwise go to a landfill.)

[Gob]

November was the hottest month and ended the hottest spring on record for Australia, meteorologists say.

The soaring temperatures could make 2014 Australia's hottest year on record.

Maximum temperatures were warmer than average across nearly the entire continent, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Nine of the warmest springs on record occurred since 2002, said BoM Manager of Climate Monitoring Karl Braganza.

"Australia has been warming up by about 0.9C [a year] since 1910," Dr Braganza told the BBC.

Australian temperature records go back to 1910.

"There were two really significant heat waves on the east [of Australia] and there were a couple of [heatwave] duration records," he said.

A 13-day stretch of above-40C weather ended on 25 November in Longreach in north-west Queensland. It was some of the hottest weather in living memory for the Queensland town.

"In the past couple of years, we have seen heatwaves starting earlier in the season," said Dr Braganza.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Played football in hte cold thursday.
Hung Christmas lights in the cold friday and saturday.
Sunday was warm but I was inside painting the kitchen.

[Lord Jim]

We got another nice dousing over the weekend...a break today and more on the way tomorrow and off and on for the rest of the week...

We're off to a decent start for the rainy season, but we've got a huge deep hole to climb out of. We're going to need regular moisture laden storm systems coming through for the next four months to climb out of it....

[BoSoxGal]

Jarl, I have a propane-fired boiler and hot water/steam system with radiators in every room - yes, plenty of space in the basement as I have a large room just for the boiler, hot water heater and water softener.

It wouldn't be any cheaper for me to do a pellet stove with wall venting, because my house is brick with foot-thick walls, and tearing through that to vent the pellet stove would be pricey.

Plus, I'd prefer to pay a bit more (even if it is more) to utilize the fireplace/chimney anyway, because there is no really good spot to put the stove other than in that spot. Lining the chimney I'm told will run me around $1k; the bigger price will be the pellet stove. I could go cheap and get one that functions fine to heat the area, but a consideration with regard to this house is not screwing with the gracious Craftsman-style architecture - I'm thinking ultimately about resale value, as I still want to retire to Cape Cod someday. A nicer, more expensive pellet (or gas, or wood) stove that really matches the Arts & Crafts style of the house is worth the additional $1k, in terms of aesthetic and resale value.

[Jarlaxle]

Do you have any windows in the basement? Or could the stove use the chimney? (Does the furnace?)

I think you miss my point: the pellet stove (more accurately: pellet furnace) would go in the cellar, right next to the furnace. It would tie right into the existing hot-water system and heat the house through the same radiators. Bonus: you lose no living space.

[BoSoxGal]

OIC

No, the furnace needs replacing, but I'm not going to replace it with a pellet furnace. That might be cheaper in the short run, but it would limit the resale value of the house substantially. I did a lot of house hunting here before I purchased, and one house I looked at that was really nice but on the market a LONG time had a wood stove furnace, which isn't that attractive to older folks (and this community is heavily retirement-oriented) because of all the work involved - even if you buy the cords of wood pre-split, it's still a lot of hauling wood, filling the stove, cleaning the mess, etc.

Putting a pellet stove in the main living space - which will be inserted into the now-defunct fireplace - will supplement furnace heat such that the furnace won't be needed much at all - especially because the whole-house thermostat is on the wall about 5 feet from where the pellet stove will go. The stove I'm looking at will heat most of the house:


It's around an $8k project in total, which hopefully I'll be able to fund before next winter.

But the new wall-mounted propane-fired furnace - which will be one of those units that encompasses hot water, too - will be there as backup and very attractive to folks who might want to retire in the house without worrying about lots of maintenance work.

Here's the one I've picked out:
http://www.houseneeds.com/heating/hydro ... ex-ox-160c

I'm amazed that something so small can replace the monster boiler down there now AND the monster water heater - so glad that my contractor friend told me about these units, which are very high efficiency, too.

[rubato]

We have a natural gas fireplace insert which provide most of the heat for the house. It works fairly well here in an admittedly mild climate.

But our 2015 goals include improving the heating in the rest of the house.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Another reason I'm really happy I no longer have to commute:

Heavy rain floods roads during Bay Area morning commute

A wave of heavy rain pushed into the Bay Area early Tuesday, causing dozens of crashes during the soaked morning commute.

More than an inch of rain came down by the early morning in San Francisco and the East Bay as Round Two of a wet-weather system that started over the weekend poured down around the region.

The National Weather Service issued a “hazardous weather outlook,” and the California Highway Patrol reported a large number of crashes, traffic hazards and flooding around the Bay Area. Drivers were urged to take it easy during the morning commute.

“Its just very slick roadways,” said Bob Benjamin, a weather service forecaster. “It’s treacherous. There is a lot of ponding on the roadways, and hydroplaning is a distinct probability.”

Many incoming flights at San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland international airports were delayed for several hours due to the downpour.

The heavy rain, which started late Monday, was expected to taper off into showers in the early afternoon before another heavy wave was to sweep through the area Tuesday evening.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti ... 443.php#/0

We desperately need the rain; people are just going to have to learn to adjust their driving habits.

[Jarlaxle]

BSG: the pellet furnace isn't to replace your gas boiler...it is IN ADDITION to the gas boiler!

[BoSoxGal]

Hmmm . . . like I said, if I'm going to invest in one, I'd rather it be in the living space where the heat it puts off is closer to where I am (much of the boiler heat stays in the basement, radiating off the pipes just below the basement ceiling) and you get the 'fireplace' ambiance.

But I appreciate the suggestion, just the same.

[Jarlaxle]

The newer ones are well-insulated & radiate almost nothing into the cellar. The advantage being that it will heat the WHOLE house, unlike a fireplace insert.