Have you had to turn on the heater in your home yet?

[Detective D]

Oh man, you honestly need to experience a snowmobile 100mph+ on a frozen lake.
We actually have these drag races here.
View attachment 1535914

Wisconsin is for the Nords!!

 

[Scott Engelhardt]

Wife dug the space heater out this morning. The cat must be cold this am. I have things to do but it is rare that Zeus is a lap cat, so I will just sit here till he decides its time to get down.

 

[hdwrench]

we sure have , probably two weeks ago . been dropping into low 40’s overnight here . it doesn’t take much to keep it a decent temperature inside . but i’m to old to be cold ! some nights i’ll start a small fire in wood burner , but that’s when it gets colder outside and the daytime temps don’t warm as much…

 

[eldubb440]

A/C blowing as I type........ it's a dry 70 degrees in here

 

[cr8crshr]

Yep!!! Fal is here at 5100ft elevation and we have had 2 heavy frosts and the rest mild at night. Fall colors are turning out at an extreme pace so yep, my heater has been used...cr8crshr/Bill

 

[moparwacko]

Sure have, when you have a Mrs. with a heart condition and poor circulation it's a must. When the house gets below 65f (18.3 for you foreign folks) she goes into panic. Her fingers and toes start to tun white, then gets the shivers. So it's been on for a couple of weeks. I may burn wood again, as last year we rid my acreage of Ash trees and have about 15 cords cut split and stacked.
I haven't used the woodstove in years but now have all this "free" firewood. Our stove is in the basement so it basically keeps the floors warm. Other than that it's oil fired hot water baseboard which is very efficient but costly. Thanks JB!

 

[SteveSS]

I hear you guys and others talk about heating oil and or diesel. I've never been around those systems. Is it an Eastern US thing? An older homes thing? All I've ever known is gas and electricity. How does it work in a nutshell? I guess I know about propane that farmers and ranchers use since it would be really expensive to run gas lines way out in the country. Are the system at all related to propane?

 

[mmissile]

Last night, first night of the season. Getting crisp at night.

 

[Sam69sat]

Some people have them out here in the northwest. Heating oil is similar to kerosene or maybe it is kerosene. I don't know how they grade that stuff. Some have oil furnaces and some have oil stoves. Most of them are in older homes from what i've seen. It's delivered by truck.

 

[Detective D]

I hear you guys and others talk about heating oil and or diesel. I've never been around those systems. Is it an Eastern US thing? An older homes thing? All I've ever known is gas and electricity. How does it work in a nutshell? I guess I know about propane that farmers and ranchers use since it would be really expensive to run gas lines way out in the country. Are the system at all related to propane?

It is an older type, mostly from rural homes. So lots of old farm houses that had a wood stove upgraded to an oil burner.
Fuel oil is essentially a grade of deisel. There is a different bunch of additives because there is no "engine wear" or other issues.
Works similar, fuel is sent through an injector nozzle to the ignition and the heat is transferred through what amounts to a flat iron plate(heat exchanger) the air passes over.

They got a bum wrap for being "dirty" but this was due to old(think 1940's) furnaces having the exchanger rust, get pin holes, and then the burnt exhaust could enter the home's air stream.
They are not really dirty, at all, and frankly there is a WHOLE LOT MORE BTU's in fuel oil than in propane and especially electricity. A lot of older, drafty type homes in WI kept them for that reason(think farm houses from 1890) even though the coop's pushed really hard to switch to propane.
After while they just jacked the delivery rate and priced people into by force.
When I moved into my current home the original 1975 oil furnace was in the shop, the exchanger had some pin holes. Home is on propane now. Suffice to say, in the ol' pole building shop that furnace had enough horsepower to heat it up in about 5 minutes. In WI, the mass switch to propane started in the mid 1980's but was mostly completed in the late 90's. It had more to do with people needing a new furnace than anything else and the price difference in fuel cost, which was mostly driven by the coop's delivery surcharges.

 

[74gtx]

I usually try to wait till November but turned it on today.
highs are mid 50s for a few days with lows of lower 40s.

 

[dadsbee]

 

[toolmanmike]

View attachment 1537023

Nice! Does your insert have a circulating fan?

 

[dadsbee]

Nice! Does your insert have a circulating fan?

Yes..

 

[68sprtsat383]

Had to this morning 38 degrees outside was 63 in the house when we woke up.

 

[wahya]

We turned off the a/c and opened the windows. Supposed to get down to 68 tonight. Unfortunately, in a couple of days it’s going up into the 90s for a high.