Funny how for the first fifty years of my life I was only vaguely aware of what that word means. And I associated it with Druidism and similar irrelevancies. But now I’ve got my little free sample of a solar power system, and the solstice matters. It gets dark early, which means my batteries begin to discharge early – and then it gets bright late, which means my batteries begin to recharge late. Yeah, December through January I live and die by the voltage meter. But thanks to some retrofitting and the reduction in price of LED lightbulbs, at least I don’t spend my evenings squinting like Scrooge, resenting every wasted precious photon. Oh, I’m a lightswitch nazi and always shall be, but lighting isn’t the drag on the system it used to be. I can even watch a movie at night, if the day wasn’t too gloomy and it’s not all nine hours of The Hobbit.
Also thankful I am that I seem to have shaken my phobia about the woodstove for good and all. The first two winters after that chimney fire in February 2012, the mere sound of a fire big enough to rumble in the box made my little heart go pitty-pat, and I cleaned the stovepipe at least weekly which I knew damn well was senseless but the only thing that allowed me to light fires at all. It was much better last winter, and this winter I seem to have gotten over it. Plus those dozens of old hardwood pallets I cut up in September are working out well. So as the nighttime temps slide into the teens, I’m anticipating the most comfortable winter since moving here.
Lord, that last winter in the Interim Lair, there were a few nights where it hit 20o indoors by morning, with the heater blasting all night and nothing else to be done. All my water bottles froze solid, the snow never melted off my boots. For a week at a time I never took my parka off. For a month at a time my toes never stopped hurting, and I blessed the mishap that meant I only had five toes to hurt. Didn’t know I was letting myself in for that, when I moved into an RV trailer in the desert. “It’s the desert! How cold could it get?” I thought I knew the answer to that, since I had winter camped many times in the Mojave, and I listened to the people who’d invited me out here in the first place. But wow.
Now it looks like I’ve finally – Finally! In the tenth winter! – gotten to the ‘warm fire in a cozy cabin’ stage of our little adventure. Sheesh.
I’ve got to hike over to Landlady’s place now, give LB his walky and break the ice in the chickens’ waterer. Hope you’re staying nice and warm, too.
I’m so glad you are getting things set up better now. I can’t think of too many things more miserable than being cold all the time – especially toes! Being too hot all the time runs a close second, of course.
This winter I’m allowing myself a little more firewood and electricity to keep the place just a tad warmer than I have before. I’ve lost 60 pounds so far this last year, and I get chilled much more easily than I ever remember. It’s 57 degrees in here right now, and that’s just on the edge of uncomfortable for my fingers and nose. The rest of me is ok under several layers of fleece things and woolly sheepskin slippers. But I’ll be glad to crawl into my slightly heated bed by tonight, for sure.
One thing I think is happening this winter is that we had a very cool summer. The big logs never actually heated up, and I think that helped a lot in previous years. In any case, I think I’ll go put the heater on in the bedroom downstairs and so won’t have to wear a cap and gloves to read down there this evening. 🙂
Joel, it’s good that your system is not as much a power hog as it was and the window solar gain is icing on the cake. Have you ever thought of scrounging the parts and building a small windmill power generator?
MamaLiberty, 57 deg indoors? OK, I promise not to bitch about the cold anymore. We keep our place at 70 from 8am until 10pm then we let it go to 62. BTW I see by my little map that you and I are roughly at the same latitude, Just think there are only 111 days until the start of spring.
Stay warm guys…
I have the lower stove going 24/7, except for ashes clean-out, which is usually Sunday afternoon, after not stoking the fire before Meeting. So far, it is holding the entire house at about 63F, a bit warmer on the lower level where the fire is. The solar gain helps a lot on clear days. I’m burning lodgepole pine of lodgepole size, mostly, and it is working very well.
Is Zoot still in the business of wind generators? You might talk with him about a wind generator, if you think it is worth it. So glad you have solar gain.
Different strokes, certainly. One of the (many) reasons we came to Alaska is that we never wanted to see triple digits again, or even ninety. And believe it or not, in the time we’ve been here, we’ve wished for more winter more often than not. Cold and snow, we can handle. (As just one example, anyone who wants a physical challenge is invited to get between one of my girls and the hockey rink on Sundays.)
What gets people up here–aside from the usual bitching about the weather that is essentially meaningless–isn’t so much cold and snow as it is the dark hours. And the lack of snow we’ve had in the past few years has really been noticeable, not so much because it’s somehow been warmer, but because no snow on the ground means it really looks and feels dark. Snow on the ground is bright, and the long hours of twilight we get here are marvelous when it’s there. In the last few years though–at the risk of feeding the “everything-is-evidence-of-global-warming” trolls–it’s been so bloody rainy that the snow just washes away, and it really feels dark. That will get to you during the course of a season, if you’re not careful. Usually, the rule is, if you get yourself outside, you can really enjoy winter–no problem for us!–but the no-snow-cover thing puts a big dent in that, and we’ve noticed even the stalwarts getting cranky about it.
Actually, our local–ahem–‘representative’ to the state house is a bit of an interesting character in this regard. The only real crusade I’ve ever seen him on, is to make sure people around here get enough Vitamin D, which helps to mitigate the “seasonal affective disorder” during the dark season. Apparently he’s smart enough to keep his head mostly down over the big political items of the day (even if I still can’t trust him, I do appreciate that), and somewhat contrary to type, he actually seems to have a pretty full understanding of both the nutritional-medical and psychological aspects of this idea he pushes.
As for home temperatures, we get chilly far more often in the summer and shoulder seasons, than in winter. We run a coal stove* from sometime in October through sometime in early April, and that thing is a fantastic dehumidifier and heat source. When that’s not on, and as a backup in winter, we have a kerosene Toyostove whose set point remains at 58. Only rarely does this seem to bother any of us, even the girls; the biggest trouble we seem to have is managing our clothing properly to visit other people’s houses, where we seem to sweat to death!
It would be a bit of a trick, I think, to manage a solar system here during the winter, between the long dark hours and the usual cloud-cover patterns–although we certainly see plenty of people with various flavors of solar system around. (Presumably, these systems are supplemental, rather than primary.) Outside of that–and given snow cover–the dark is at worst neutral, and even somewhat charming: the low light really is otherworldly, and every year we get astonished all over again at observing just how fast the light changes during the peak periods (which is more at equinox, than solstice).
I know lotsa people think we’re crazy, but as Joel points out about living you have to work at, it does keep a good number of the Free Shit Army soldiers away. And we even rather like it. 🙂
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* Household coal stoves are reasonably common around here, for at least one simple reason: there are exposed seams all over Kachemak Bay, and along Cook Inlet. After a big storm, the stuff is just lying on the beach, waiting to be picked up.
I’d love to keep it warmer, MJR, but just can’t afford it. No central heat here, just oil type electric radiators in each room and the wood stove. I discovered that simply wearing more and better insulating clothing pretty much does the job for me, so I’m not complaining. It can get dicey when the temp falls much into negative territory, of course. My home is built from 12 inch logs, so that’s a great help right there… but heaven help me if I let it get too cold in here… takes days with the heaters and stove going hard to warm it back up.
I also find going into stores and other people’s houses a challenge, Kevin. They are all very much overheated as far as I’m concerned and when I’m going out I dress accordingly in layers so I can peel off when necessary. And yes, my whole family thinks I’m crazy to live here, and especially when I tell them how wonderful it is to have that first snow. They all still live in So. Calif., so there’s no convincing them. 🙂
Hey ML, I too live in a log home that we built around fifteen years ago. The logs are eight inch (the twelve inch were too expensive) in diameter. The thermal mass is a great thing in the winter for holding heat and I find that it also helps in the summer with holding the cool of the night during the day so no AC for us.
One thing you can try for a little extra heat in the winter is getting one of your kids to make you a couple of solar heaters for any south facing windows. I have two that I use in my work shop and without using anything else on a sunny day the shop will stay in the low seventies/high sixties.
Here are the plans.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Window-Mounted-Solar-Hot-Air-Furnace-Aluminum-Sof/?ALLSTEPS
That looks really nice, MJR, and I’ll pass it along. My windows mostly open side to side. The one in the office, where this solar thing would be very handy, unfortunately is built so only the bottom glass can be moved. The top part is unmovable. Usually, however, the sun on that window really does help bring in heat. I cover it with a heavy drape at night, as with all the other windows. If the outside temp is predicted to get seriously below zero, I put a layer of cardboard between the window and the drape. Makes a lot of difference, even though it is quite a chore.
We’ve lived with passive solar and woodstove heat exclusively for our 24 years in Colorado and I love woodstove heat and every aspect of getting, cutting and splitting firewood. But, when we moved to town I was looking forward to having a furnace and thermostat, with firewood as an occaisional bit of ambiance. Turns out I don’t like furnace heat! Blowing air makes me feel kind of chilled regardless of the temp setting. Oh well. Thankfully we do have a good effective(odd) woodstove in the house here in town that’s been getting a workout, but I miss the passive solar, and so do the plants miss the sun of the south facing windows.
Otherwise, I get kind of a kick out of noticing that here on-grid for 6 months I’m still practicing my off-grid habits. I guess I’ll always be a lightswitch Nazi because paying the utility bills is far more annoying that having to ration the battery usage.