Woke up to -18 this morning. Winter Storm watch for heavy snow Sunday and Monday then below zero for Highs the rest of the week. Forecast is for -22 mid week!

Wow Bill D that is COLDDDDD!!!

My son is in Hornpayn Ontario. He drives trains for CN rail. They are running the train lengths to only 6000 feet now because it takes so long to build air pressure to get the brakes off at -45C.

The other day it took 4 hours to build air to get the brakes off a 11,000 foot train. By the time they built air they only were legal to drive 8 hours with a 10 hour trip ahead of them. They had to load on a second crew to take over after their 8 hours were up.

If you go to the grocery store up there every parking spot has plugs for your block heaters. You plug your car in so it starts but also that you have heat right away when you come back out.

Cheers Don.

Wow Don! -45 C (-49 F) That is just crazy. They would probably consider our measly -18 F a heat wave!

Don, those block heaters are a heckuva marketing/survival device.

Thinking about the differences in our worlds.

Minus 10 or 15 is the coldest I've ever been in. Those were either hunting trips to Colorado or as a kid at Muleshoe in NW Texas. When I got out of the USAF I went back there and told my Grandparents that I was heading South to Fort Worth. I had been through my last simultaneous sand storm and blizzard. They thought about it, sold the place, and also headed South. Except hunting trips to Colorado and New Mexico, I haven't used tire chains since. Few people here would even recognize chains.

We sometimes get a "minor" ice storm here and it paralyzes the D/FW area and most of North Texas. Everything shuts down including schools, business and churches. Vagrants are rounded up and taken to shelters, church's and soup kitchens.

Mike Otto and I were thinking about going to some conference up North in the Winter. We declined because we didn't want to have to buy heavy coats.

Bill/Don, how do you guys heat your homes? Those temps have got to be brutal on any heating system. Would a wood burning fireplace be able to keep up?

We had 10 degrees one morning last week for a low. That's the coldest it's been so far this winter. Quickly warmed up to about low 30s that day.

I used to like snow skiing and things like that. But these days I prefer our weather, even though we can get a few colder days here on the La and Tx border. Seems like older I get the less I like putting on layers of clothes.


This winter I just hope to keep my TFS living in the pond. And that means it needs to stay warmer than 42 on the bottom of the pond. I have wondered if running the well water would keep the water a little warmer. Well should produce around 1/2" of water across the pond.

To me when it gets to be around low 20s, it all feels the same even at negative temperatures. I use my wood stove to supplement my geothermal heat pump when it gets super cold. I won't need to once I redo the insulation in this drafty barn house of mine.

If I recall correctly, well water typically has a temp of around 62-67*f, so it would definitely help warm your pond.

However, it would have to be oxygenated prior to injection since well water has no oxygen. Then theres a question of turnover with warmer water gathering on top. Eventually the volume of added warmer water may create a turnover condition.

I hope everyone stays safe and warm with this next significant weather event passing thru. They're saying we may see snow here in the deep south.

Hi Al,

When I designed this house, I spared no expense on the insulation, the windows, etc. and the heating/cooling system so my utility bills are not bad at all, even in this brutal cold. My neighbors have much bigger bills than I do and smaller houses. The house is so tight, we had to install an air exchange unit. Our system is also setup in four zones with independent temp control in each. This allows us to save money by only providing minimal heat/cooling in areas of the home that are not in use, like the guest room. We have a high efficiency GFA furnace as well as a pump and dump Geo. Due to the cost of electric vs gas in our area, we primarily use the GFA furnace for heating and only use the Geo for cooling.

Interesting about the cold and air pressure, never thought about it! I wonder what these minus degrees do to our aeration systems, I keep my system on in the shallows about 24 inches of water just to keep the ice back.

Here in SE Texas we expect one last frost overnight this week. Hopefully that'll be it for the year. Should be about 70F today.

As a Southern Strain Human (SSH) I don't survive in environments where water exists in its solid form.

Bill, all that was very well thought out.

We are geothermal with electric resistance backup. Usually have the resistance back up breaker off. These next two -30ish nights I will probably turn the breaker on in case. It will kick on automatically at 68 if it has juice.

***
If I recall correctly, well water typically has a temp of around 62-67*f, so it would definitely help warm your pond.
***



Funny that I never new that well water was different temps in different parts of the country. I just thought well water was the same as it was far enough underground that it all met equal conditions. But in the north well water is around 55 degrees, I hear in Florida it is closer to 70! I know this time of year when you brush your teeth with well water you can tell that it is getting colder than in the summer. In the winter the water heater has to work harder to bring it up to temperature. The colder well water in the north vs the south helps out the geothermal users who are trying to dump heat from the house to the outside, but doesn't help much when you are trying to extract heat from the water to make heat inside the house.

My brother does commercial HVAC, big chillers, and lots of heat pumps stuff. He told me that in order to help keep good ice skating conditions in our fickle MI winters I just need to put a closed loop out from house to the pond, then a small circulating pump with a small refrigeration compressor and I should easily be able to take the heat out. Sounds like a cool project to try except for the bill to excavate under the finished driveway and lawn!

We struggle in Dec as we have so much water heat and ground heat in the pond bottom and sides that we struggle to make safe ice. Usually we get wet snow and even during our cold snap in January with no snow to insulate I could see lots of spontaneous 'pores' form in the ice where ground heat was making its way up in the shallows.

WE had enough zero weather now that we can safely get quads or heavy garden tractor on the ice to assist in clearing the snow that has hammered us the last two days. Kids loving skating again, 2 snowdays in a row, probably a 3rd tomorrow due to bitter cold. Have to keep them from bare skin exposure in this weather and wind though.

Actually it's called a pond loop geothermal. It would take a lot of btu's to remove enough heat from a pond to freeze it. A small fridge would not do it. Even a good sized heat pump wouldn't.

Well temps vary depending on season and location.

The circulating pump and small compressor would just slowly offload heat from the pond water and dump the 'free' heat in the house. It would not freeze the pond by itself, but when ambient temps are below freezing it would help remove that trapped heat from the water and from the ground to assist in getting 'safe ice'. Once the heat is out of the ground and the mass of water has chilled and we are making ice due to ambient conditions alone we would turn it off.

I think my heavy fall of oak leaves and the turf leading up to the pond is what insulates so well. Also since we had such a warm Dec I actually refilled the pond a few times with well water so I probably added a big 'heat sink' with 50 degree water added in. The small circulator and small refrigerator unit could help us.

But you are right, operating costs, the process of adding a closed loop 200' away would be pretty crazy...

Would be wiser to get a pond that doesn't leak so when the water cools in the fall I don't have to add any

Here in Ontario Canada the new update to the building codes has every new home to have R65 in the attic and R35 in the walls minimum. We have R70 in the attic and R35 in the walls. We heat with in floor heat with a 70 gallon water heater. We also have forced air with an HRV simplified. This means the HRV is hooked into our cold air return and we have a humidistat that will turn on the furnace fan and HRV for 20 minutes every hour of the day. This give us fresh air and moves all the heat around from all the in floor. The basement is all in floor and all the floors with floor tile on the main floor are heated from under the sub floor. We used some bat insulation in the floor joist to help push the heat up.

My son on the other hand had with the wind chill -56C this week. Yes -56C and all the trains had a full stop for 24 hours because it was so cold. Hi girl friend who was at home while he was stuck on a train set a timer on her phone to wake her up every 3 hours to add more wood to the stove. Their little house is 750 square feet one floor and will burn 3 full cords of wood this winter. When it is that cold it is a job just keeping warm.

Cheers Don.

Ground temp is 55*F. I know this because all gas and diesel tanks that are in ground are calibrated to a 55*F temp so you get the correct amount of fuel you pay for at the pump.

Unreal
signed; feeling whimpy in Chicago

So the gas/diesel tanks say from Tennessee and on south have a different calibration for ground temps of 68, 70, 72deg F, etc as you go south?

We couldn't get R70 in our attic if we filled it up completely to the peaks with cellulose. R35 in the walls? How? 8-inches of foam?

There is a point of diminishing returns on insulation. I think after R30, its pretty much not worth going higher. There's a chart somewhere online..

My fathter, two brothers and I made a trip from KC, Mo to near College Station, Tx last friday for a hunting and fishing trip. We left at 6am from KC...it was reading ZERO on the truck themometer. We settled in at the cabin by 8pm in Texas and it was 54 degrees. We forgot about winter for the weekend, but have returned to find winter still on!

You Texans have it real nice! Beautiful days in January, never knew they exisited.

Tomorrow's high is 8 degrees here, jeez!

All exterior wall in Ontario have to be 2X6 deep with R25 batts and 2"s of foam on the outside of the walls. Then they are wrapped with typar. Every hole that passes through the exterior wall needs to be on the house plan. If there is a hole put through the wall after the home is bricked that is not on the plan they will make you take the brick off to show them it is sealed properly.

If you do not want the 2"s of foam on the out side of the wall they are framing the outside walls with 2X8. Yest jamb extensions are getting big up here.




When I worked for shell oil we were trained to 55F. Here still to this day when I change the water in my hot tub and first start it up. It reads 55F right out of the ground.

I do find it very interesting that the metered temp is different. I never took that at university when I was taking my petro chemical engineering.

Wow, that makes building expensive. Do old houses have to be retrofitted and brought up to code before they can be sold?

It's not 55 everywhere. My well water 150ft down is 59 in winter.

If you went down 1,000 feet it would probably be 70.

I think the 55 degree number is just a rule of thumb. Another data point...My well is over 200 feet deep and the water is 51.7 degrees

I agree, Bill D. Most MO springs and wells in the south are 58*, 57* in the central part of the state, colder north....55 is probably the median temp. In Alabama, there are 3 aquifers stacked...first (shallowest) is 59*, second aquifer I don't know...third is geothermal and at about 1500-1800 feet deep...well casing needs to extend through the upper 2 aquifers into the deepest....water is 80* with 5% salinity...ideal for fish farming...

-11 right now with 20+ mph sustained wind. Up to 57 on Monday.

-24 F this morning. Wind chill is -50 F. Supposed to have a high of -17 today.

Hope that you are staying warm indoors!

-10 at the farm. Going to be 60 on Sunday. If I get to ice fish, I’ll have to put on some sunscreen. Ha!

I have experienced similar cold weather here (once) in the Ark-La-Tex area back in or around 1982. The Red river froze over and I was able to walk to my duck blind some 300 yards out into the lake. Memory say's we had -18 with wind chill. You speak of home insulation, and back then we here were not set up for that type of weather. Homes were flooded due to frozen/busted water pipes including mine. Waiting list to re carpet the house was 30 days because of all the homes that had damage. It is the only time I might say we were close to seeing what you guys are seeing now. It's going to be high 60's to low 70's over the nest 5 days. Fish will be moving up to the shallows enjoying some of the rays

It's currently 7 F here with a wind chill of -10 F. But Saturday and Sunday it's going to be in the mid-60s.

it is a nice warm -8 this morning with 30 mph winds, not sure the windchill, but we also will see temps going up for the week end, around 40 so they say. Stay warm! take care if you have to be out in this!!

It has even been pleasantly cool down here 65 miles north of Venezuela. 78 last night when we went to bed. Have not had to run the air conditioning for the last week. If it gets down to 75 at night, and it may if the cold front gets this far, the locals will be breaking out the long pants and sweaters. They will be complaining about the cold.

Checking in from Siberi-IOWA.

No so bad, after all.

Lowest temp of the night was -29. It was -27 -28 most of the night. Lowest wind chill -54

It was about 16 degrees here this morning. The coldest we have had this winter was about 10 or 11 degrees F. Supposed to warm up in coming days.

YOU WIN Dwight! (or lose depending on how you look at it) Sorry to hear about those numbers, makes my -2 this morning feel kinda nice.

Supposed to get 24 F today but currently at 12 F.

Think I'm gonna move to florida

Then ya got hurricane season

I'll take Hurricane season over freezing lol

-29 F this morning. Hard to believe we are supposed to be in the mid 40's with rain by Sunday! If we get much rain and all this snow melts, I'm sure the pond will flood out of its banks.

Only negative 5 here this morning. Not too bad. Can't wait for the rain next week. I'll take your water Bill!

We had 15 again this morning here in the river valley. It has been warming quickly though. Thin ice on ponds gone by evening. The "vortex" did not get here. It's supposed to be near 50 by mid afternoon.

11 dead because of the vortex. People underestimate what extreme cold can do.

Yes after the new building codes were in full effect the average single family home went up $20,000 Canadian.

Our government has a save on energy grants that they will give you money to update your home if you are renovating it. If you need a new furnace that is mid efficiency they will pay $850 of the cost of the new one.

https://www.saveonenergy.ca/

The stats I saw showed 17 deaths from cold for every 1 from heat.

Extreme shifts in cold temps are very hard on most pond fish.