POZ Community Forums
Off Topic Forums => Off Topic Forum => Topic started by: wolfter on August 03, 2011, 10:16:52 pm
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We had a discussion not long ago about using air conditioning and turning it on and off. Even though we've had the hottest summer on record here in the midwest, we rec'd an electric bill that was almost $25 cheaper than last year. My mother has been traveling a lot this summer and I've the air at a comfortable 68 degrees non-stop.
When she's here, we argue over the thermostat and turning it on and off constantly. From June 20th to July 19th, the total bill is only $89.62 and for the same period last year it was $115.58
Not enough to state it as fact, but I still believe it's best to keep it at a constant temperature.
Now I just hope she does spend most of the winter in Florida as I can't tolerate it being a constant 85 degrees in addition to the fire place going. I sweat just watching her wrapped up in a blanket in front of the fire with the furnace blasting.
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(http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/IwuvPhilly/temp.jpg)
I took that about 2 hours ago.
I dont think this is the hottest summer on record for Texas, but it's probably close. Dallas has gone 33 days in a row with temps 100+. San Antonio I believe has gone 12 days in a row.
Right now:
Dallas - 108 (going to 111)
Austin - 103 (going to 107)
Waco - 106 (going to 108)
San Antonio - 103 (going to 106)
All these cities will be 100+ over the next 5 days or so.
Texas was just put under a Level 2 Electrical Emergency which means we have to conserve, power is already being cut to some businesses. It's possible we could hit Level 3 emergency later today in which homes would be added to the rolling blackouts.
There are scrolls on our stations advising "Excessive Heat Warnings - risk of heat related illness or death is high" :-\
It's hot 8)
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Last summer was much, much worse for us than this summer (actually the worst since records have been kept). Yes, we had that nasty recent heatwave up here, but it was only three bad days in a row. Our 2 week long range forecast on accuweather.com doesn't have us a single day going above 89F. There's even a night time low of 60F in there, very unusual for the first half of August. We even had a substantial amount of rain the other day.
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You're lucky. I love the heat and so far the highest temp we've had in OC California is 82 degrees. It's in the low seventies right now. Too cold for me. Last summer was worse. It was in the sixties most of the time. For me, the hotter the better.
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We suddenly got a great relief from the heat and I am so grateful. I've had the air off for 2 days with the windows open and have accomplished so many outside chores that I thought I'd have to put off til Fall. We're supposed to continue with this pattern and I so, so happy.
I really don't mind the heat as much as I do the sweating. Showering and changing several times a day gets old.
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You're right the sweating part does suck although I have really good air conditioning. I don't have any yard work to be done because we have an apt.
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but I still believe it's best to keep it at a constant temperature.
In my experience, that's right. While I don't have experience (recent, anyway) with having to cool a house in summer, I sure have a lot of experience with heating. For example, I went without central heating for about sixteen years, so when I moved into the house I'm in now, with central heating, I was cautious the first winter. I kept turning it off at night and off and on during the day. Then the next winter I was fed up with the house being cold at night and left the thermostat at a constant 65F. My heating bill was lower the second year, despite higher fuel costs and comparable weather. Go figure.
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My mother has been traveling a lot this summer and I've the air at a comfortable 68 degrees non-stop.
68 degrees ?!!! :o :o wow that's pretty cool. Here in Florida, we keep ours set at 78, all during the AC season. I would be chillin at 68 :) Our last electric bill, for the month of July, was $101.00
August may be up a little.
Ray
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Then the next winter I was fed up with the house being cold at night and left the thermostat at a constant 65F. My heating bill was lower the second year, despite higher fuel costs and comparable weather. Go figure.
65F = 18,3C brrrr.....that's cold....are you a Polar bear ? You must be walking around the house 24/7 with pointers ;-)))
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I play with my thermometer all day long !
We keep the cooler on 66 at night !
During the day it ranges from 68 to 74 depending on my BOD :o
Last bill July , was $ 142
During the winter Bob keeps the wood stove burning , It gets chilly at night
That is fine for cuddling :-*
I love summer heat as long as a have my little pool of water :)
Weasel
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65F = 18,3C brrrr.....that's cold....are you a Polar bear ? You must be walking around the house 24/7 with pointers ;-)))
It's not cold when you're used to it. Keep in mind that I went without central heating for around sixteen years (from moving to the Rock in '91 until I moved into the house I live in now in '07.) I'd have one room that was tolerable but the rest of the flat was unheated. The worst of that was sitting down on a freezing cold toilet seat. ::o
Even though I've been living in a part of the world that thinks in Celsius for twenty years, I still think in Fahrenheit. Anything over 68 degrees feels tropical to me now and I couldn't imagine keeping the temperature in my house at 72. I'd sweat away into a puddle. We only get a handful of days on the Rock where the temperature goes into the 70s. You get used to it.
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We have yet to hit 100 here at our place in SC this summer. The humidity of course is brutal but hey... its good for the skin.
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Do you have one of these or a comparable model ? :
http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH7500D-Conventional-Programmable-Thermostat/dp/B000EW80Q0/ref=sr_1_6?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1313319639&sr=1-6
Helps you save energy. You can program it to slowly increase the room temperature between certain times of the day in a much more efficient way than manually increase the temperature at once.
We used to have one in our previous home. In this house house we are on a combination of solar and ground-source heat pumps. And instead of radiators we have floor heating on all three floors. Indoor temperature in winter is a comfy 22C, but because of the floorheating you never get drafts or feel suffocated.
In summer the solar system is switched off the floor heating, and only the cooler ground water circulating through the system and cooling teh house.
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Do you have one of these or a comparable model ? :
Sorta. My central heating system is programmable, but it's never worked correctly since I've been in this house. (please keep in mind I live in a council house) At first I thought it was me not doing it correctly, but when the council's plumber came to look at it, he also said it (the timer portion) was faulty. It's not going to be fixed until late this year when my house is being completely renovated. (I have to move out for a couple months while it's being done)
I don't have to worry about cooling the house in the summer, although I was tempted to put the heating on one day last week when the temperature in the kitchen was only 62. I braved it out with a hoodie and the next day the house-temp was back up to 68. We must be having a heat wave today - it's 69 in the house.
I'm hoping they move the thermostat - it's right next to the front door instead of being on an inside wall in the living room. How stupid is that? Every time I open my front door, it kicks on the heating, whether it's really needed or not.(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/035.gif) They're re-wiring the house, so I'm hoping they can fix this too. I don't get it - the same outside contractor did all the central heating on my estate (these houses used to have coal fires in the living rooms that fired a primitive central heating system - it's oil now) and in most of the houses they put the thermostat where you would expect it to be, but in my house and a few others, the thermostats were put next to the door, in a hallway that's closed off from the rest of the house by a door.
Oooooo..... that's another (http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/021.gif)....
When they changed these houses over to oil from coal, they closed off the fireplaces, but didn't drop or cap the chimneys. My chimney breast in the living room has great big damp patches as a result. Several places have had to have their chimneys dropped on a case-by-case basis, but this is something else that for me, has to wait until the renovation this winter. The resulting damp from the unused chimney is even worse in my bedroom, which is directly above the living room and also has the chimney breast. At least it's still not as damp as the last place I lived, despite that being over a library and this place being over a swamp. Yes, a swamp. There's ponds beneath all these houses on this estate, with nothing between us and the water but about three feet of fetid air and plywood.
This estate was built in the '60s and I doubt they'd get planning permission these days without a underground drainage system in place. There's between around eighteen inches to three feet of topsoil on top of a hard clay pan - and that's why all the houses sit on water. In the winter when we get lots of rain, houses such as the ones in the row where I live have their front lawns under a few inches of water. I should post photos of my estate one day. People in the States would be surprised at the layout.
(http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/023.gif) (http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/023.gif) (http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/023.gif)
But yeah, to get back on topic.... we're just having a typical summer here. Maybe not quite as much rain as usual, but pretty typical all the same, with the temperatures normally around 65 - 68 or so, with occasional forays into the low 70s. (http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad174/dash1293_2010/Emoticons/shake.gif)
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I would never recommend a programable thermostat. We had one go bad several years ago and we came home to a house that the furnace was obviously running non-stop. Shortly after that, I had an aunt and uncle that the same thing happened to. Maybe the technology is better, but Bill was always first to try that kinda stuff. We had a theatre system that I didn't know how to operate. That's a little off topic, oh well. Electronics in general aren't my friends.
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I would never recommend a programable thermostat.
According to Lenny the Plumber, I just got a lemon. All the other houses on this estate with the same system haven't had any problems with the programmable bit. Just me (typical!). These systems were installed about eight or nine years ago. The people who lived here before me never even tried to use the programmable bit; they were elderly and didn't even know how to programme a VCR, much less a seven-day heating program. They just used the thermostat like I do. Although thinking about it, they might have tried but gave up when it didn't work thinking (like I did) that they just weren't doing it right, but never asked the council to look into it.
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It's not cold when you're used to it. Keep in mind that I went without central heating for around sixteen years (from moving to the Rock in '91 until I moved into the house I live in now in '07.) I'd have one room that was tolerable but the rest of the flat was unheated. The worst of that was sitting down on a freezing cold toilet seat. ::o
Even though I've been living in a part of the world that thinks in Celsius for twenty years, I still think in Fahrenheit. Anything over 68 degrees feels tropical to me now and I couldn't imagine keeping the temperature in my house at 72. I'd sweat away into a puddle. We only get a handful of days on the Rock where the temperature goes into the 70s. You get used to it.
meh, it's not just you it's everyone in the UK -- they never heat their houses adequately. But folks should keep in mind fuel costs are much higher than in the US.
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Actually it's quite typical i.e. the heat, from what I remember as a kid in the midwest area (speaking of).
I remember it so hot and humid, that the local news guy would go out on the hot sidewalk and try to cook an egg.
That was back in the 1960's.
This Summer has been more to what I remember as a kid.
Back to very hot, long term. Very humid. Rainy June and bone dry July.
Finally!!!!! ;D
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meh, it's not just you it's everyone in the UK -- they never heat their houses adequately. But folks should keep in mind fuel costs are much higher than in the US.
We are getting better at it - particularly in regards to insulation. As for fuel costs, they're astronomical compared to the US. It's even more expensive on the Rock as compared to the UK mainland because everything has to be shipped in, natural gas, fuel oil and coal (although most people have done away with coal fires in the past ten years or so).
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July 2011 was Philadelphia's hottest month on record
August 2011 was Philadelphia's wettest month on record, beating 13.07" from 1999 (and we still have 11 days left to go)
February 2010 was Philadelphia's snowiest month on record
"official" weather data for here dates back to 1872, meaning data reliable enough for the National Weather Service to compare current data to, even if Ben Franklin was recording weather data here in the mid-1700's.
Methinks there's just a tad of climate change afoot...
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Winter is why we have cashmere.
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It's 101 at mi casa, for like the 49th day in a row :-[. Guess I'll make a Mint Julep, put my Daisy Dukes on and go sit on the porch and whistle at the boys.
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It's raining here again, 75℉ and lots of thunder.
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I am back in London since Wens and I miss the Orkney 65-75 clean air , 6 weeks with only 6 days off cold wind and rain , one day was so warm that I went in the sea which was a huge mistake. The last time I had such pain was from a sqash ball connecting with my left ball, both occasions the ability to breath went.
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It's raining here again, 75℉ and lots of thunder.
I so miss thunder and lightening storms. They're rare on the Rock. The last time I was in the middle of a good T&L storm I was about ten miles off-shore in the North Sea. We were trawling around a wreck and the Decca system kept going haywire, due to the electrical disturbance. Wrecks have a way of sucking you in - but I got a gold star that night and kept us clear. (I was in the wheelhouse, everyone else was down below, sound asleep in their bunks.)
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We had a really good one the other day where about 90% of the lightening was horizontal and just lingered over the city for hours.
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I love those type of storms. Sitting in the family room with a cup of coffee while it is thundering and lightning outside is rather peaceful. We have them practically on a daily basis down here, so it's part of the landscape.
Now, stupid hurricanes annoy the hell out of me (if only cause I have to put up a gazillion window shutters; I wasn't made for this sort of hand blistering, sweat inducing labor).
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Now, stupid hurricanes annoy the hell out of me (if only cause I have to put up a gazillion window shutters; I wasn't made for this sort of hand blistering, sweat inducing labor).
I'm ready to bet money that, at most, all you will see is Irene going up the FL coast but not landing. It will hit the SC/NC border. Every update it tracks further east.
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I'm ready to bet money that, at most, all you will see is Irene going up the FL coast but not landing. It will hit the SC/NC border. Every update it tracks further east.
Troo dis. Once it makes to Cuba we'll have a better idea of where it may be landing.
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... from ma secret source
(http://i1007.photobucket.com/albums/af197/bedstuy65/336332_224736694240263_129478830432717_614260_6149434_o.jpg)
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Oh yeah. The Carolinas betta watch out.
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Oh man, what we wouldn't do for a nice hurricane to grace our shores here in Gods Country. You Hillbillies on the east coast don't even need that rain...Hurricane hoggers.
:(
-Parched Will
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Oh man, what we wouldn't do for a nice hurricane to grace our shores here in Gods Country. You Hillbillies on the east coast don't even need that rain...Hurricane hoggers.
:(
-Parched Will
I was actually saying the very same thing yesterday. Perhaps not a hurricane, but a nice system to bring you a decent amount of water. Things don't work that way however. Oh well.
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I was actually saying the very same thing yesterday. Perhaps not a hurricane, but a nice system to bring you a decent amount of water. Things don't work that way however. Oh well.
So sweet thinking bout us Texans ;D
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I thought your governor alreadt prayed for rain. What that didn't work?
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I thought your governor alreadt prayed for rain. What that didn't work?
No, after hearing from that heathen Perry the Lord is smiting us now. I expect Locusts any day now.
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So sweet thinking bout us Texans ;D
Just you, Wilhelmina. Though I won't deny I really like Austen (and San Antonio to some extent). Now, Dallas and Houston, yikes!
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Hahaha and tumbleweeds
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(http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj280/petrhsr/0626umbleweed.gif)
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NHC: Irene is now a Category 2 with 100mph winds
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NHC: Irene is now a Category 2 with 100mph winds
One of the spaghetti thingies has it hitting NY, but I think the water is too cold up there to sustain any kind of intensity
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One of the spaghetti thingies has it hitting NY, but I think the water is too cold up there to sustain any kind of intensity
It's rare, but it can happen:
Category 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_New_England_hurricane
and lesser strength ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_hurricanes
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It's rare, but it can happen:
With things being so weird weatherwise lately it would not surprise me.
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With things being so weird weatherwise lately it would not surprise me.
But I thought you republicans didn't believe in "the myth of global warming"? :-*
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But I thought you republicans didn't believe in "the myth of global warming"? :-*
Yeah speaking of Global Warming...
(http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr328/slypuck3/al_gore_end.jpg)
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Hmmpff...Those godawful boots are so not very.
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Hey Willy, I got to spend 8 hours in Dallas today (not by choice). I decided to go sneak a smoke and as soon as those doors opened, I about passed out from that heat. It was crazy! I like Texas guys, not their weather.
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After watching Most Eligible Dallas (http://www.bravotv.com/most-eligible-dallas/season-1) for the past two weeks I'd not be so sure of that...
ps: omg it's headed right for me
(http://i1007.photobucket.com/albums/af197/bedstuy65/313138_10150780925825122_127583470121_20894036_2777364_n.jpg)
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Geez it is bee-lining for NY
Meanwhile in Texas... (barnburner this sat)
(http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/IwuvPhilly/heat.jpg)
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We'll be on our way back to Texas in a few minutes and we're not looking forward to the heat after a week of nice mild weather. Fortunately we're arriving late tonight so we'll have a chance to acclimate before hitting the century mark tomorrow.
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We'll be on our way back to Texas in a few minutes and we're not looking forward to the heat after a week of nice mild weather. Fortunately we're arriving late tonight so we'll have a chance to acclimate before hitting the century mark tomorrow.
when they pop that plane door in Austin its gonna hit you like a blast furnace. Even at night.
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Currently 106 at mi casa. I'm so tired of this heatwave.
(http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/IwuvPhilly/dog-1.jpg)