BrianW

Thats crazy. I was kicked off my parents plan at 18 as soon as I graduated high school back in the 90s....

Wait untill he sees what a new 16 year old driver cost to insure in CT... its

Now you can have heated walkways just like Stowe at home.

Those of you in Massachusetts heating with oil or propane should look into Mass Saves insane $1600 per ton incentive mini split/heatpump fuel optimization program. They are basically paying for almost half the cost or more of installing a heat pump to offset fossil fuels. Massachusetts is currently ranked 1st in nation for their various alternative energy incentives. Generous Fuel Optimization rebates are being offered to encourage the reduction of high CO2 heating fuels. Candidates must heat primarily with oil or propane, and install a qualifying central heat pump or mini-split heat pump with an approved integrated control. https://www.masssave.com/saving/residential-rebates/electric-heating-and-cooling

Looking forward to another sunny day. Going to be one of the worst months for solar production. Yesterday was the first decent sunny day this month. Solar panels run way more efficient on cold clear days. Heat significantly lowers efficiency.

Daffodils are coming up all along the shoreline here. I have tons of stuff sprouting in my flowerbeds. Grass is greening up. Its pretty crazy.

British Airways Boeing 747 Possibly Set a Record Fastest Subsonic New York to London Flight Time This Weekend https://weather.com/news/news/2020-02-09-jet-stream-north-atlantic-flights-record-time

Yeah. This place is such a weenie spot and there were flakes in the air all day yesterday. Looked it up and they average over 300 inches a year. I actually extended my stay untill tomorrow as we are going to get 1-3 tonight and tomorrow looks awesome for skiing. 6 lifts, 71 trails, and the highest base elevation in the Northeast (2100 ft). We average over 300″ of natural snow every year and our groomers are some of the best of the game. Expect snow accumulations between a dusting to one inch outside the mountains, with one to three inches across the high terrain. Mild temperatures are expected Monday and Tuesday with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s.

When we bought a new Subaru last year they tried to sneak nitrogen filled tires and vin etching on for like $800 on the final price. Both are an absolute scam if you look it up.

Skiing up at Bolton for a few days. Awesome skiing, weather, and the first time this winter I have seen a decent snowpack. Lol

Home Depot here has a huge fleet now of trucks and box vans they rent out dirt cheap. If I need a pickup or van I just rent one from there. Less than 40 bucks for 2 hours.

I have a newer style wood insert with the air tubes on top and its crazy how clean it burns. Its like a blowtorch on top that even burns most of he smoke. Your wood lasts so much longer as well.

Are tons of people still running those outdoor wood boilers up there. I saw one down here yesterday and the thing was choking out the entire valley it was in. The amount of low lingering smoke that thing made was unreal.

If I remember correctly you do snow removal. Do snow removal companies take a massive hit as there has been very little snow? Down here in CT there are front end loaders parked all over in parking lots that have not moved all winter. On a good note it looks like natural gas and heating oil have been plummeting in price.

Just got a snow squall warning on my phone for Fairfield County Connecticut. Driving right into it on 95.

Some interesting info on how their forecasts and data compares to the NWS.

Looks like IBM bought weather underground? The new ap is way better than the old version. The new temp map with the color is really cool.

How old is the house? Sounds like you have a well insulated newer house to have that fuel consumption. My sister is building a brand new house in Boston. The house is crazy insulated and airtight. The heating and cooling loss numbers were insane. Its going to cost practically nothing to heat and cool when I looked over the plans. Might have been much older mini splits. The stuff coming out in the last year or two are probably twice as efficient. The technology is rapidly advancing and getting more efficientl. I ran some numbers for Taunton MA. It looks like you have municipal power and pay significantly less than the rest of MA so your savings are pretty massive. At Taunton MA electric rates of .14 a kwh and the mass.gov posted average propane price of 2.92, here is what a million btus of heat would cost you. Heat pump- $9.33 Propane- $35.52 For others in MA here are the state wide average prices taken from the mass.gov website for comparision. Heat pump at .22kwh. $14.67 Heating oil $27.45 Propane- $35.52 Natural gas- $26.83 Natural gas is not cheap as cheap as it once was in New England and prices have doubled since the beginning of the year. There is not enough pipeline supply and a huge demand from gas power plants that prices have been high.

Maine is aggressively deploying heat pumps and has incentives for them. Here is an interesting article on it. Didn't realize they had soo many installed. I also attached a performance graph of how newer units can achieve some impressive cold weather performance. My unit can put out its full rated heat all the way to almost -20 before capacity drops. Maine is the most heating-oil-dependent state in the country. More than 60 percent of the state’s 550,000 households rely on heating oil as their primary energy source for heat. But because a little more than half of the electricity generated in Maine already comes from zero-carbon hydropower and wind power — and legislation signed yesterday sets a 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2050 — a rapid shift to electric heat could deliver significant emissions reductions. It should also save households and businesses money. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/maine-wants-to-install-100000-heat-pumps-by-2025

An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) will typically produce around 4kW thermal energy for every 1kW of electrical energy consumed, giving an effective “efficiency” of 400%. It is thermodynamically impossible to have an efficiency of more than 100%, as this implies that more energy is being produced than is being put in. For this reason the performance is expressed as a Coefficient of Performance (COP) rather than an efficiency. The above example would be expressed as having a COP of 4. The reason that it appears that more energy is being produced than is consumed, is because the only “valuable” energy input is electricity used to drive the compressor and circulating pumps. The remainder of the energy simply transferred from a heat source that would otherwise not be used (such as the ambient air, ground or a river) so is not considered as an energy input.

How is that 380% efficiency measured? Google coefficient of performance. Here is a real fuel cost comparison calculator I use. I I inputed some real New England numbers so its pretty accurate.

Lost power for most of the night. Ground is so saturated here trees were coming down like crazy last night from the winds. 5.21 inches in the last 7 days!

2.36 here. Heavy basement flooding here. Pond across the street overflowed.