Brewbeer

The organic matter is the key. The chemical ferts are like crack, they juice the grass but the effects wear off quickly and they don't contribute to the long-term microbial biodiversity in the soil, which is important for plant health. Lawn looks awesome ! Mine's still dormant.

WACO ?

snowy ride down the pike to get to work, car covered

brightening here, 49/47

Left Worcester a bit after 8 and it was a chilly mid 40s, back in the valley it's a nice 66/55F.

30/10F with a persistent breeze, good indoors day

we need the rain, esp. those who use wells for water supply

it was perfect and just what I needed after a 14 hr work day no peepers yet

62/49 quite nice here before the rain, gonna go outside with my beer and listen for the peepers

B+ prolonged cold and near continuous snow OTG and two decent 1'+ storms make this winter well above average in my book more frequent storms would have pushed it higher

some sleet on the tops of cars in the driveway, otherwise nada OTG here 28F clear and calm

+1, if I had more time and money, I would have put in radiant

You are right, the baseboards aren't works of art, but they were manufactured in Westfield at Mestek, and sold under the Sterling brand. They were $15 per foot and I installed 130 feet of them, so they weren't cheap, about $2,000. I think I spent that much again on copper pipe and fittings. This was 10 years ago when copper was cheaper then now. What they are is comfortable. And when the heating season is 210+ days long, that matters. Before I ditched the forced air system in my current house, this was my reality. It was "fine" while the blower was running, but as soon as the heat cycle was over, right back to being cold and uncomfortable. That system was noisy too, you needed to turn the TV volume up while it was running. I can't place all the blame on the forced air system, my house is a split and was originally built with electric heat, the forced air system was added in in the mid 1980s, and they didn't size it correctly or get the required returns in the right places. It was a disaster, and I'm glad it finally failed because what I have now is 1000% better. The two best features of my baseboards are they are completely silent and provide constant heat without cycling. The system circulates continuously providing warm water to the baseboards at a temperature inversely proportional to the exterior temperature using a modulating boiler and a buffer tank. The heat put out by the radiator matches the heat lost by the house, keeping the house at a constant 68-69F without cycling. While it is convenient, it can be a compromise in comfort. In the winter, most of the heat load is in the bottom of the building, in the summer, most of the cooling load is at the top. If you have proper ductwork that can accommodate the differences in heating and cooling loads between seasons that helps, but as our collective experiences indicate, forced air systems are prone to improper duct design and installation.

temps jumping up here, little bit of fog too

Sergeant Sublimation has been replaced by Major Melting

did you keep them ? 42/39, stayed above freezing all night

nothing professional about that platform, it's all entertainment

Wow it’s nice out, might have to take a break and wash the car

At least the weather isn’t delayed an hour.

that you are, mine are two stories above a concrete patio, I'd need a pole 30 feet long, I'm not going up there on a ladder. It's doesn't really matter much in December or January, there is a big pine tree to my south and it's shadow crosses the array midday, but by early-mid February the sun is above the tree and sunny day production really takes off. Typical winter consumption for my family is about 19-20 kwh/day, summer it's 16-18/day if AC isn't needed. For heat, a typical 30F day the house uses ~10k BTUs/hr on average, on a 0F design day it's about 30k BTU. I'm curious what a water heat pump in that output range looks like from a cost and equipment footprint perspective, gas boilers don't last for ever.

how did you fair during the snow and cold of February? my panels were completely covered nearly the entire month.

Moving this to banter, I installed a 8.5 kw system about the same time you did and also have 1 for 1 net metering. I don't have a minimum charge and have a large credit with the POCO, system generates more power than my family uses on average. The credit was up to $1,200 last summer but the inverter died and was replaced (under warranty) and lost 2+ months of good generation (August-October). This winter has also been bad, November December and January are usually net negative months, and this February was the lowest generation month I've recorded since install, persistent snow and cold kept the panels covered. I still have 7 panels with some snow on them even now. I would consider a heat pump but I don't like forced air heating. When the badly designed and installed forced air heat system in my house died 10 years ago, it was replaced with a high efficiency warm water baseboard system. That system operates at less than 130F and could be run off a warm water heat pump some day. But for the now the gas boiler installed 10 year ago has been economical and has operated flawlessly and also provides hot water.

my last house (20 years ago) had an oil-fired boiler when purchased, I ditched that for gas before the first heating season

34/33 and mostly rain, some mixing do you have two cars in the garage rn ?

I installed a natural gas fireplace insert about 10 years ago. At the time, I was looking to install a wood burning insert (or pellet insert). Looking at the cost of the various fuel sources at that time on a BTU output into the building basis, what I learned was that pellets AND purchased cordwood are just as expensive as natural gas as a fuel source for a fireplace insert. The only fuel source less costly is free (or nearly free) cordwood that comes from you property or that you can scrounge.