The calendar says January but it is rather hard to believe that around here. We had a few days this past week that had record high temps for January. The sun was out and the weather absolutely gorgeous! It has cooled off yesterday and today but it is still half nice.
Husband and I just came in the house from gathering firewood. We have a full farm wagon once again. We have been doing a little experiment for the winter. In the past month we have only ran the furnace a few days total. We need a part that costs about $500 to make it run properly and we don't have $500 for said part. The furnace runs but what happens is the blower fan never kicks off. Not a huge problem but it does suck electricity unnecessarily. So what we have been doing is burning more wood in the fire place and the little wood stove in the basement. The two of them keep the house right at 68-70F if I leave unused rooms closed off and the wind isn't blowing too hard. If we don't keep up on the fires, we will turn the furnace on to take the chill off the house and the closed off rooms. Sometimes, it gets warm enough that we have to open rooms to let excess heat filter in! When the temps get done to the single digits or lower, we may not be able to keep it warm enough with just wood but that is what we want to find out. This experiment should save us a lot of money on propane too.
I have been pretty quiet lately and finally caught up on my blog reading last night. I have lots I need to do and projects to work on and writing to do...yet the quiet after the holiday bustle has been kinda nice too.
Look out for the big beautiful full moon tonight if the skies allow! I was out last night in it and felt energized. Perhaps that is why I started getting a few things caught up!!
I also notice that blogger is being a bit buggy. I have updated my other blog but my little box over to the right is still showing the previous post. Hmmm....weird. But, just to let you know, I am writing a short monthly series of articles for a local paper on food preservation. Later today I have to get started on the next installment, it is due by the 15th! It is a non-paying thing but it may bring some attention to my business website so I look at it as an advertising venture. Just in case you are curious or want to learn about food processing it is at Owl Creek Gazette and is in print and online pdf.
Our furnace is not broken but even tho we are not looking at a 500 dollar repair part, I feel the pain in your pocket. I have been wicked stingy with the thermostat, and even my husband who is usually the chief offender at bumping it up, is putting on his sweats and hoody instead. We burn wood too, we have for a long time, but this winter, buying oil is a major ouch so we are relying on it for as little as possible. (Unfortunately our hot water heater is still on the oil tank) But we burn wood to keep the house warm - he who gets home first must build the fire! And the last person to bed banks the coals and adds a log. You'd be surprised how warm it will keep a house!
ReplyDeleteAm glad I found your blog.
Aine
http://thehemlockgrove.blogspot.com
Thanks for the comment Aine. I will check out your blog! The wood burning has gone pretty well. I turned the furnace back on last night with the burst of frigid weather but we are keeping the fires burning too.
ReplyDeleteOh how I miss burning wood. We heat with an old warm morning stove, it generally does a good job at keeping us warm but propane is NOT cheap. The garage is going up and a wood stove will be used in it (although the concrete is heated). We hope to live in it in a few years to do some heavy duty remodeling on the house.
ReplyDeleteI am tagging you. Please stop by my blog to get the rules and questions, then you will get to tag 11 people you would like to know a little more about.
Thanks
http://moonbeamdancerspath.blogspot.com/