Catharsis

We are heading for a cold snap this week, with a low of -15C forecast for Tuesday. What temperature does it make sense to turn up the thermostat so the oil-fired heat takes over from labouring heat pumps? Well, I'm glad you asked! I looked at our oil consumption for 5 years before we installed heat pumps. In the non-heating summer season, we used oil to heat just domestic hot water, to the tune of about 2.8 liters per day. We used a measurable amount of oil annually, so taking 2.8 * 365 from that total gives the annual oil consumption for heating only. The annual heating degree day total here is 3600, meaning that the daily outside temperature is, on average, 3600/365 (i.e. 10) degrees lower than our desired home interior temperature. My outside temperature sensor agrees, maybe a bit warmer. Oil is 10.7 KWh per liter, so (mutter, mutter) heating our house with oil consumes 4.48 KWh per heating degree day, or 186 watts per degree difference between inside and outside. I'm measur...

I've spent 'way too much time on it, but finally have data populating the Energy dashboard in Home Assistant. It's showing a decent story: This is mid-January, when sunset  is a mere 9.5 hours after sunrise, the sun is low in the sky, and we're using a bunch of electricity to run our heating system. Even so, when the clouds get out of the way, we're generating 30% of the electricity we're using. The heat pumps are consuming 75% of that generation.  When days get longer and it warms up, we should be generating a big surplus. Can I sell it to the neighbours? Spin up a giant flywheel in the backyard? Of course, this was a rare sunny day. The panels have been producing for a month now. Half   the production we've accumulated was on five days.

 We recently has PV solar panels installed on the roof.The day we turned them on was cloudy, and they produced almost nothing. 18 cents worth of electricity. The next day was very sunny and resulted in about 75% of their designed power production midday and about $6 worth of energy, which is very good for a short day in December.  Then we had two good sized snowstorms just before Christmas, and the resulting accumulation on the panels shut down production to almost nothing. Here's the week centred on Christmas Day.  So what happened on December 27th to restore production? Mid-morning, the sun and warmth was finally uncovering the panels from their snowy blanket. In the late morning after taking this picture, while I was checking the oil prior to our road trip, an angel came to me in a dream and suggested moving the car back from the house.  Just before 2:00PM, while doomscrolling on the couch,  I heard a loud rumble and felt the house shake a bit. Going outside,...

 We did a 3-month test which showed 204 Bequerel/cubic metre of radon in our basement. The threshold for leisurely mitigation is 200. Argh!  And apparently, when selling a house, you must disclose any information you have about radon. So we got a radon mitigation system installed.  Carefree Properties professional installation It depressurizes under the foundation slab, and blows the radon-laden air it collects out the side of the house. A possible  side effect is sub-slab humidity will also get blown out, and stop rising through cracks into our basement. 'Way too early to tell, but this data from the crawlspace humidity sensor is encouraging: The crawlspace humidity dropped slightly when the radon system started, but rose higher than the baseline earlier in the day after I turned off the crawlspace dehumidifier.  But it isn't still rising.  The dehumidifer costs about $250 per year to run, and our experience is the equipment breaks every 2-3 years. The fan...

  Pretty sure this one is an airplane. It's too long to be a meteor trail. Often, they change course over our house. So maybe it is something falling from outer space. Space junk? We have had about two, good, clear 24 hour periods in the last month. One spanned the eclipse afternoon. Very lucky!

I travelled to Fredericton to be within the totality path of the April 8th solar eclipse. My first total solar eclipse. I'm still a bit overwrought, but, feel like it is the best thing I've ever seen.  I recorded my remembrance about an hour afterward as we were driving home:  Google drive MP3 file Currently still have some dysphoria. Will it be permanent?