Had to use your furnace yet ?

My furnace came on weeks ago - the joys of living in the northern U.S. I leave my thermostat on 65, but with the old windows in my house, it's like not having any windows. Drafts abound!
 

Capt Lightning said:
Recently some new houses built in Braemar (N. Scotland) had air source heat pumps fitted, but they had to be upgraded because they only worked down to -15 C. (5 Deg F). I was told that the efficiency drops off, the colder it gets.

I have an oil fired boiler (furnace has a different meaning in the UK) which provides central heating and hot water. This is very common in rural Scotland. Cost averages about £50 ($80) a month. Temp is about 10 C (50 F) at present and to maintain an internal temp of 18 C , the boiler runs for about 30 mins in the morning and evening.

I don't have any fancy computer controls on the boiler, just a timer and a thermostat.
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I don't think it's ever gotten as low as -15/-5f where we live. It only occasionally hits 0C.
 
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Heating has just gone on....18C inside, 10C outside..
on the East coast it can get down to -15C , even down south!
 

We had -18 C one evening when we went to collect our daughter from the airport. The car still started first turn.

Over the years we have added a lot of insulation to the house and it's paid itself many times over.
 
Just turned the furnace on last week, so glad I did. It had a problem, called the HVAC guy and now it is working great.
 
ronaldj said:
we live in Michigan....we burn wood......we have had fires for several days......
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Been there (Missouri), did that, sole source of heat: firewood, but good stuff and plentiful, all oak, some hickory, but splitting became harder for me with each passing season. Do you cut & split your own? I used 10 lb. sledge and splitting wedges the first few years, then bought a 28 ton splitter.

As my Dad taught me when we split for my Grandma, Red Oak, splits nice. White oak, not so good!

Third Fall now, here in Arizona, we stopped COOLING the house about 2 weeks ago! Now we're "coasting" for a couple of months outside temps run 68- 85 daily now, the house 72-79. Nice to have no "heating bill". December storms often bring a cool-down in the desert, which may last for a week, requiring the furnace. The place was on propane when we bought it, 250 gallon tank out back. Within a year, I had installed heat strips in the furnace (forced-air), electric stove, and water heater. Our electric bills are highest in summer, this past about $ 70 -some September was $57 (month). imp
 
Davey Jones said:
Furnace??? what's that? last one I had was up in Massachusetts 15 years ago. Damn thing almost made me broke.
Now I have teenie,weenie space heater that heats this whole house in Florida.
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C'mon, now, Davey! Our friends from Indiana have wintered in Gulf Shores, Alabama several winters now, and according to Vonda, they froze their a$$es off! Record cold, like 23 degrees, no insulation in their rented condo, pipes froze and burst! 'Course, the southern tip of Florida is, what, 200 miles further south? imp
 
It's still warm out here but we're looking for cooler weather. The furnace was noisy and blew dust all around, so we will use space heaters (electric) again this fall and winter.
 
"The furnace was noisy and blew dust all around"

The only thing I found questionable when we "walked-through" prior to signing, was the furnace/A.C. blower was very noisy, like, you could barely talk to one another ten feet away. Figgered fixing would give me something to do. We lived with it 6 months, I then yanked the blower/motor combination out, and replaced the motor. Acceptable sound level now, but I've heard quieter.

Think the type of house is such that too little design room is allowed for the furnace, thus necessitating a high-speed, high-power blower. imp
 
I haven't had to use the furnace yet but Sat. I did turn the heater on in the car. It was so cold and cloudy and raw outside. And it felt really good.
 
I just got up and it's it's 48 deg. outside again this morning and inside the house is 68 deg.......I just turned the furnace on again to break the chill.

Like it or not it looks like winter is just around the corner.
 
It's 10C/50F at nearly 9am. About half sun half clouds. Winters here in my peninsula of west Scotland are very cold but it's rainy and windy usually with very little snow. What I don't like is the very short, dark days. I don't mind what's coming though, as we'll stick the furnace on 'holiday mode' and head to 85F for the bulk of the winter. When we return there will be snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses, etc.
 
imp said:
C'mon, now, Davey! Our friends from Indiana have wintered in Gulf Shores, Alabama several winters now, and according to Vonda, they froze their a$$es off! Record cold, like 23 degrees, no insulation in their rented condo, pipes froze and burst! 'Course, the southern tip of Florida is, what, 200 miles further south? imp
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I'm in the middle of the state near the ocean,some mornings in my area maybe a bit chilly in the early am in the winter months but usually after breakfast it back to the shorts again.(70's).
 
A couple of mornings my husband put a small portable ele heater in the living room for an hour or so but he gets up at 3:30 or 4 sometimes. Later when I get up I put the heater in the bathroom and warm it up a bit. The rest of the day it's fine here. We have a wood heater with a glass front in our living room but haven't had to use it yet. My husband has a gas wood splitter. One of our grandsons (the one who has lived in a city all his life) loves to split wood with the splitting mall and ax so he did that before he went off to school.
 
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