Welcome to the First Day of Winter

futurafree said:
What is your normal method to heat your houses in these locations? And what is the backup?
Gonna be 18 F one night this week in south Texas and we're losing our minds.
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For modern builds, it's just forced air gas furnaces and good insulation. Building codes require a lot more insulation here than in warmer climates. No heat pumps around here. Many homes have gas fireplaces, but those aren't great for heating more than part of the room they're in.

For older houses, many have wood-burning stoves or radiant baseboard heat.

Fortunately, power outages are really rare at least in my area (knock on wood for the next two nights). People have backup generators as well. I don't have one, but we have some "indoor safe" emergency heaters that we can use if needed. We also have CO detectors we'll set up if we have to do that. Most of those run on kerosene or propane.

And then we have some space heaters we may place strategically just for tonight and tomorrow night. We have been down to -25 in the time I've lived here, and things hold up fine at our house at those temperatures. Another 20 degrees colder is new territory, even for people who have been here a while. I think we're approaching record low temperature territory tonight.

And it's all what you're used to/prepared for! 18 is rough when you're not used to it! Just like 95 with 80% humidity would kill me in the summer. Haha.
 
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Where's the general area? I'm assuming propane and kerosene work fine at -45? I have to put my isobutane canister in my pocket for 5 minutes if I'm backpacking and it dips into the 20's!
It sounds like due to levels of individual preparedness and the grid, more people might've died of cold in Texas over the past 5 years than up there.
 
futurafree said:
Where's the general area? I'm assuming propane and kerosene work fine at -45? I have to put my isobutane canister in my pocket for 5 minutes if I'm backpacking and it dips into the 20's!
It sounds like due to levels of individual preparedness and the grid, more people might've died of cold in Texas over the past 5 years than up there.
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This is SW Montana. Belgrade, MT is where I live. Most of the state will be well below 0 tonight though.

Oh you operate those heaters indoors (hence the CO detectors), so temperature isn't all that important unless you're starting from really low temperatures. I'm honestly not sure how they'd do if you were burning them outside.

Regarding the deaths from cold, I'd believe it!
 
Jackson said:
Supposed to be -42 tonight at my house. Wish me luck!
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Holey moley, I was 16 last time I’ve seen temps like that and that was about a hundred years ago. Lol And I was thinking our +45°temps a week or so ago were too cold. Southern Arizona here but at that cold time it was the Turtle Mountain Plateau ten miles south of the border in North Dakota, next state over from you. The plateau goes into Canada a ways and it 10° colder than anywhere else around, north or south.

We’ll hike the wilderness tomorrow here with temps near 70° or a couple degrees less.
 
futurafree said:
What is your normal method to heat your houses in these locations? And what is the backup?
Gonna be 18 F one night this week in south Texas and we're losing our minds.
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Lol ...... wife was in Ft worth with FEMA during Covid for that cold snap..... said everyone was crazy
 
Here in Island Park, its been fluctuating between - 15 and - 30 all day today..... pockets of cold air moving thru. at 5:30 p its currently -21 ........ on my Ambient Weather station.
I have a radiant floor fueled by a Geo exchange heat pump as my main heat and a wood burning fireplace to finish the warmth as needed. Usually burning most of the time anyways.
Tonite should be way down there.........
 
Sub zero temps should hit here overnight. We've been below 10F for the past couple days. I think our coldest lows are only going to be around -15F, so definitely cold, but not as bad as it could be.

For the record propane boils at about -44F, so once you get close to that propane based heating systems won't work very well. Isobutane boils at about 11F. The reason these can quit being good fuels well above those temps is that they are stored in tanks/bottles as a liquid, but used as a gas. The gas evaporates to provide fuel to your stove or heater, and the liquid will "auto refrigerate" due to evaporative cooling and cool itself down. It can make the liquid cold enough that it barely produces any gas.

Natural gas is supplied to homes as a gas, so it doesn't have that issue.
 
Minus 34 C here when I got up earlier, on day 6 of the cold snap. Away from the "heat island" of the big city, there were lots of -40 to 42 C (same in F) nearby in Alberta. At least there's sun and no wind today. I walked the dog yesterday at a balmy -28 which was fine going south, but brutal facing a north breeze on the return leg of my loop. Dog seemed fine though! On a positive note- warmup starting tomorrow, and apparently these temps early in the winter are just what is needed to kill pine beetles.
 
SteveR said:
Minus 34 C here when I got up earlier, on day 6 of the cold snap. Away from the "heat island" of the big city, there were lots of -40 to 42 C (same in F) nearby in Alberta. At least there's sun and no wind today. I walked the dog yesterday at a balmy -28 which was fine going south, but brutal facing a north breeze on the return leg of my loop. Dog seemed fine though! On a positive note- warmup starting tomorrow, and apparently these temps early in the winter are just what is needed to kill pine beetles.
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What breed of dog? Mine are pretty unenthused when it gets to -20F (-29C), even with boots and warm jackets.
 
Fairbanks has been in a cold period for a week now. Hit -40 at the house on Tuesday but I think our digital thermometer shows a few degrees colder than what's really there. Been between -20 and -40-ish during this spell. Our predicted warmup has been put on hold for another few days, except for tomorrow when we're predicted to rise to -9 F. Then it's not for at least another week that we reach negative single digits again. Definitely one of the longer cold spells we've had in the last 5-6 years (or more).

Our dog was begging for a walk last night when I came home around 11. She doesn't mind the cold at all even at age 13. But she is a 100-pound shepherd-appaloosa mix :) .

And that extra 10 seconds of daylight today sure feels nice.
 
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Outdoor_Fool said:
Fairbanks has been in a cold period for a week now. Hit -40 at the house on Tuesday but I think our digital thermometer shows a few degrees colder than what's really there. Been between -20 and -40-ish during this spell. Our predictedec warmup has been put on hold for another few days, except for tomorrow when we're predicted to rise to -9 F. Then it's not for at least another week that we reach negative single digits again. Definitely one of the longer cold spells we've had in the last 5-6 years (or more).

Our dog was begging for a walk last night when I came home around 11. She doesn't mind the cold at all even at age 13. But she is a 100-pound shepherd-appaloosa mix :) .

And that extra 10 seconds of daylight today sure feels nice.
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So here’s what our Alaskan family decided to do in the chilly weather …

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