"songbird" wrote in message
we didn't get hit by the power outages last weekend
from the strong storms that went through, but we did
have a power outage here last night too.

while the power went off and on and then it finally
stayed off. four hours later it came back on and
things went back to normal. we always have extra
water stashed away to flush the toilets in case we
have the power go out on us. in the winter i more
worry about heat than anything as it gets cold
enough to freeze pipes and cause damage. we have a
gas fireplace so we can keep ourselves from freezing
but that doesn't heat the crawlspace underneath.

An unheated crawl space is not a good place for water pipes. I
suggest closing the crawl space, insulate, and since you already have
a gas supply install a ventless gas heater, they work fantastically
well, need no chimney, and no electric. I have two of them, a 30,000
BTU in my basement and a 10,000 BTU in the tool shed that contains my
well tank. They were a far better option than a generator. Ventless
gas heaters are 99% efficient (no heat goes up a chimney), they are
thermostatically controlled, and have a self contained carbon monoxide
detector that shuts them off when it senses incomplete combustion. At
next to it's lowest setting it maintains my 2,000 sqft basement at
70ºF, I keep the basement door open and at the other end of the house
installed a 6" X 12" register in the hallway floor so it keeps the
entire house at 70ºF too, and this is when it's hovering around 0ºF
outdoors. This winter I'm using the one in my basement in conjuction
with my propane fired boiler for hot water baseboard, it keeps the
boiler from coming on nearly as often as it did previously. This past
May I had a tankless on demand water heater installed (I no longer use
my boiler to make hot water, my boiler will be off from April to
November, my propane bill has already been $500 less than for the same
period in the previous year, it will pay for itself in 18 months. I
thought long and hard about a generator, but I can live without TV/PC
for a few days during a power outage, and during winter I don't need a
fridge/freezer here. For $35 I bought a crank radio that works great,
it will even charge a cell phone battery, and Ray-O-Vac makes
fantastic battery operated lanterns, they give as much light as a 100W
bulb and will run for 80 hours on three D cells... much better than
burning candles. I don't need to squirrel away water for flushing,
even during the coldest winters the creek out front is running, I'm
able to scoop all I need with a 5 gallon contractor's bucket. Anyway,
ventless heaters and tankless water heaters are beautiful things.

Brooklyn1 wrote:
....
An unheated crawl space is not a good place for water pipes.

it is not unheated nor is it open. only when the power goes
out for several days is there any worries (even in the middle
of the winter with sub zero temperatures).

the crawl space is where the heater is at for the
house, stays pretty warm.


I
suggest closing the crawl space, insulate, and since you already have
a gas supply install a ventless gas heater, they work fantastically
well, need no chimney, and no electric. I have two of them, a 30,000
BTU in my basement and a 10,000 BTU in the tool shed that contains my
well tank. They were a far better option than a generator. Ventless
gas heaters are 99% efficient (no heat goes up a chimney), they are
thermostatically controlled, and have a self contained carbon monoxide
detector that shuts them off when it senses incomplete combustion. At
next to it's lowest setting it maintains my 2,000 sqft basement at
70ºF, I keep the basement door open and at the other end of the house
installed a 6" X 12" register in the hallway floor so it keeps the
entire house at 70ºF too, and this is when it's hovering around 0ºF
outdoors. This winter I'm using the one in my basement in conjuction
with my propane fired boiler for hot water baseboard, it keeps the
boiler from coming on nearly as often as it did previously. This past
May I had a tankless on demand water heater installed (I no longer use
my boiler to make hot water, my boiler will be off from April to
November, my propane bill has already been $500 less than for the same
period in the previous year, it will pay for itself in 18 months. I
thought long and hard about a generator, but I can live without TV/PC
for a few days during a power outage, and during winter I don't need a
fridge/freezer here. For $35 I bought a crank radio that works great,
it will even charge a cell phone battery, and Ray-O-Vac makes
fantastic battery operated lanterns, they give as much light as a 100W
bulb and will run for 80 hours on three D cells... much better than
burning candles. I don't need to squirrel away water for flushing,
even during the coldest winters the creek out front is running, I'm
able to scoop all I need with a 5 gallon contractor's bucket. Anyway,
ventless heaters and tankless water heaters are beautiful things.

there are several upgrades i would like to make at
some point in the future, but at present we're as we
are...

we spend about $600-900/yr for heat and to run the
gas fireplace once in a while. the rest of our monthly
costs are electric at about $1200/yr. compared to many
we're quite inexpensive on heating/cooling. if it were
just me i could probably cut those expenses in half or
more.


songbird

Farm1 wrote:
....
We installed another wood burning heater over the past winter and it has
improved out quality of life enormously as a result of selecting just the
right spot to place it.

it's nice when it works out well like that.

neither of us can tolerate the smell of smoke.
i sneeze and get plugged up with wood burning
fireplaces. even drifts from the neighbors who
burn wood at times bothers me.

it sucks because i really do like fires and
fireplaces and would love to have an efficient
wood burning stove for heat and hot water also
i'd like to do experiments with biochar and
rocket stoves... all of those become much more
difficult when you can't really tolerate smoke.


Luckily for us we don't have temps that (usually) get low enough to freeze
our water pipes but I know why you'd not want that to be happening at your
place. I think we've had our pipes freeze perhaps 4 times in about 20
years. It makes for an uncomfortable morning but that's aoubt all the
inconvenience it gives.

i don't mind the cold aspect of it nearly as much
as the possible damage to pipes and equipment, but
we've not had an extended outage yet that gets me to
think about draining tanks and putting down anti-
freeze.


songbird

Farm1 wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
we didn't get hit by the power outages last weekend
from the strong storms that went through, but we did
have a power outage here last night too.

Seems to be ubiquitous.

something
in the distance arc'd and lit up the sky a few times
while the power went off and on and then it finally
stayed off. four hours later it came back on and
things went back to normal. we always have extra
water stashed away to flush the toilets in case we
have the power go out on us. in the winter i more
worry about heat than anything as it gets cold
enough to freeze pipes and cause damage. we have a
gas fireplace so we can keep ourselves from freezing
but that doesn't heat the crawlspace underneath.

We installed another wood burning heater over the past winter and it
has improved out quality of life enormously as a result of selecting
just the right spot to place it.

Luckily for us we don't have temps that (usually) get low enough to
freeze our water pipes but I know why you'd not want that to be
happening at your place. I think we've had our pipes freeze perhaps
4 times in about 20 years. It makes for an uncomfortable morning but
that's aoubt all the inconvenience it gives.


You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga perhaps?

D

On 11/23/2013 6:57 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
snip...

You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga perhaps?

D

Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the common
blackbird flies... ;-)

John McGaw wrote:
On 11/23/2013 6:57 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
snip...

You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga
perhaps?

D

Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the
common blackbird flies... ;-)

Now you will have people thinking I made up those names.

D

On Saturday, November 23, 2013 6:56:38 PM UTC-8, David Hare-Scott wrote:
John McGaw wrote:

On 11/23/2013 6:57 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:

snip...



You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga

perhaps?



D



Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the

common blackbird flies... ;-)



Now you will have people thinking I made up those names.



D

Possible explanation:

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/26900

HB

"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
John McGaw wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:

You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga
perhaps?

Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the
common blackbird flies... ;-)

Now you will have people thinking I made up those names.

There's Intercourse, Pennsylvania.
I live in Climax, New York.

On 11/23/2013 9:56 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
John McGaw wrote:
On 11/23/2013 6:57 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
snip...

You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga
perhaps?
D

Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the
common blackbird flies... ;-)

Now you will have people thinking I made up those names.

D

I knew that Numbugga was for real, having run across it before, and I
figured that Nimmatabel must be (a booming metropolis of 200+ as I see now)
since, who could make such a thing up. Of course Intercourse and Blue Ball
are real too and are just about 10km from each other by road. Your two
towns are much further.

Maybe I'll get a chance to visit them both some day. Hope so anyway.

PS: it was only recently that the source of Nullarbor finally hit me so I
might be a bit slow.

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Farm1 wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
we didn't get hit by the power outages last weekend
from the strong storms that went through, but we did
have a power outage here last night too.

Seems to be ubiquitous.

something
in the distance arc'd and lit up the sky a few times
while the power went off and on and then it finally
stayed off. four hours later it came back on and
things went back to normal. we always have extra
water stashed away to flush the toilets in case we
have the power go out on us. in the winter i more
worry about heat than anything as it gets cold
enough to freeze pipes and cause damage. we have a
gas fireplace so we can keep ourselves from freezing
but that doesn't heat the crawlspace underneath.

We installed another wood burning heater over the past winter and it
has improved out quality of life enormously as a result of selecting
just the right spot to place it.

Luckily for us we don't have temps that (usually) get low enough to
freeze our water pipes but I know why you'd not want that to be
happening at your place. I think we've had our pipes freeze perhaps
4 times in about 20 years. It makes for an uncomfortable morning but
that's aoubt all the inconvenience it gives.


You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga
perhaps?

No, not near either of those, but I do like the bread shop at Nimmitabel.

"John McGaw" wrote in message
...
On 11/23/2013 9:56 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
John McGaw wrote:
On 11/23/2013 6:57 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
snip...

You must be up the hill a bit. Anywhere near Nimmitabel? Numbugga
perhaps?
D

Nah, mate. About half way between Intercourse and Blue Ball as the
common blackbird flies... ;-)

Now you will have people thinking I made up those names.

D

I knew that Numbugga was for real, having run across it before, and I
figured that Nimmatabel must be (a booming metropolis of 200+ as I see
now) since, who could make such a thing up. Of course Intercourse and Blue
Ball are real too and are just about 10km from each other by road. Your
two towns are much further.

Maybe I'll get a chance to visit them both some day. Hope so anyway.

PS: it was only recently that the source of Nullarbor finally hit me so I
might be a bit slow.

LOL. Would I be right in thinking that you might not like doing cryptic
crosswords???

Nullarbor has always sounded to me like it should be a crossword clue
(cryptic or otherwise) but I guess it's no help that we don't pronounce it
the way it should be done. Saying what sounds like Nulla Bore makes it
sound like an Aboriginal word rather than like Latin.

Been raining in sw utah for a week, and just ended. Take it all away.