3 Month review of the heat pump

 

It's New Years Eve and I've now had three months of electric bills with the heat pump. Remember I'm heating around 950 square feet with a Fujitsu Halcyon- an 18,000 BTU mini-split for cold climates.

So I'm going to offer my last three months of electric bills.  My normal electric bill is around $50. (I don't use much juice I guess. No large TV or stereo, no cable modem or TV controller, I never use the stove - i'm a microwave, rice-cooker person.)  So I'm figuring any amount in excess of $50, we can chalk up to the heat pump.

The first month hardly counts as it was early fall: the bill for September,-October, (mostly milder weather this year) was $67. I ran the thing constantly as the advice was to set it and forget it so that's what I did.... So $17 for a little heat.

For October-November, a colder time at the end, my bill was $102.  So $52 for heat. Not bad.

November-December had some really cold spells. My bill was $202. So $152 for heat. I would have had an oil delivery by now. So $152 compared to $400-$945 for a load of #2 heating oil, depending on the price of oil.  

UPDATE: Feb 6, 2023 - I now have the Dec-Jan bill also a bit higher but still better than a tank of oil - $272 minus the baseline $50 so $222 for heat. 

(I have water filled heat pipes in three rooms not heated by the mini-split. If temps are freezing, say in the teens for several days straight - I am sporadically running a electric space heater on low in two rooms to keep those rooms about 50  degrees. The cost of running them is included in the electric bill.  For three days when temps were in the single digits, I ran the furnace over night - for just for three days to warm up that unused space so the pipes don't freeze. 

So far so good. I still have most of the oil delivered here in March at an exorbitant price. (I have hot water off the furnace. Dont use much of that either I guess!)  The electric company will up rates in January. We'll see how that pans out. :)

April 2016 Poem A Day #13 The Last Rain

The Last Rain

trickled off over hardened parched earth
didn't stop to water a plant
fled down hill but
in the terrible heat
shrank into vapor
failed to reach the streambed
didn't say goodbye
or write a note
to the mysterious properties
of a lovely storm.
Maybe next season.

Dia Beacon then Hudson River gawking

This is a view of one of the giant sculptures on view at Dia in the lower level. A friend invted me on this excursion, and rather than wait around all day for primary results I thought, why not a day trip.  You can walk inside these metal pieces and if you sing a little the echo is stunning.  Later we stumbled into the parking lot of the Beacon train station which is right on the Hudson River. On this balmy Feb. day I needed no coat, hat or gloves - but ice was still in the river from last weeks -9 temps. Weird. We later had an early dinner at Max's on Main in Beacon. Great day.

Awaiting the invention of the laser plow

NOTE: I wrote this humor column in 1990 and it appeared in 12/5/90 issue of a now defunct weekly newspaper in North Conway, New Hampshire. It was on my website, the METAPHORatorium for many years as well in several locations. It seems seasonal so here it is again.  I've changed the uncle's name several times also. Originally it was Henry. The graph about my father is true.

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My Uncle Henry reported having an incredible dream this week. It was a revelation so simple, so ingenious, he said, that once somebody invented it, the world would change. And nobody would ever go to Florida for the winter again.

My Aunt May had a different opinion. "What you had was indigestion , you old fool," she said. Aunt May, after 37 years of marriage, says that Uncle Henry is a mostly good man of few words, except when he's been drinking brandy and then he is a man of a few too many words.

My uncle affected a hurt pose for second, rolling his brown eyes pitifully. After a moment he cleared his throat .

"As I was sayin' - I was awakened in the snow by a heavenly blue light,'' he said quietly. "The snow kept comin' down all around and the light got brighter and brighter." He paused with a faraway look in his eye, then glanced at me sideways to see how I was taking all this.

"Is this a Christmas story or a flying saucer story," I asked suspiciously.

"No it ain't. Now listen. That blue light kept coming closer and closer and I knew in my deepest heart it was going to roll right over me - right through me even. And it began making a fearful noise roaring like the great god-awful fires of hell. That's sorta like DeSoto engine all outa oil and damn near throwin' a rod," he explained. "When that light was almost on topa me, suddenly a horn was blastin' and I heard a voice and the voice was saying HENRY! HENRY, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

By now he was breathless, his voice rising. Uncle Henry was possessed. He was pure unsalted ham baking at around 450 degrees. "As it rolled over me in my dream, I saw the snow was melting away before that blue light and at that very moment I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS. It was a laser snow plow..." he concluded in hushed tones still obviously amazed by his own idea.

Well, Buck Rogers move on over. "No rocksalt needed, no knockin down mail boxes, no diggin up the tar, no knickin the trees, no filing' down the blade. I figure a smaller model could replace snow shovels for about $24.99. It'd be kinda like a weed wacker only with light beams."

Uncle Henry comes from a long line of nutty inventors - Yankee ingenuity carried to its final insane extreme. My father suffered from these same fits of madness all his life but he was especially obsessed with the little everyday problems - like birds that hog the birdfeeder. You know the ones I mean. Like blue jays - they sit and eat and eat until a whole line of chickadees backs up on the clothes line behind them waiting patiently for dinner.

My father couldn't stand that sort of injustice. Once morning during breakfast, just after he filled the bird feeder, he called me over to the window. A purple finch was hogging the perch. When pop figured its time was about up - he pressed a little red button. All of a sudden an arm came up and swept out over the perch pushing the startled bird in to the air. "I call it a 'Bird-get-off' he announced with a triumphant grin.

I'm afraid there hasn't been much market for this invention. The laser snow plow might do a lot better, Henry says. On a straightaway you could melt a mile of snow at once. Of course, tulips by the road side might bloom out of season and wild animals might wander in front of the plow to their deaths just trying to get warm.

Mere glitches Henry says.

NaPoWriMo # 29 - The Wind Farm

The Wind Farm

Down the hill
they raise little breezes, and
let them go free every morning.

These growing aires hustle
climb the fresh trees and rustle
and our delicate spring blooms
their petals jiggle like bangles
and there's cherry petal rain
branches bent at all angles
in the sort of, well,  angry air

The wind is farming now
digging up the dirt
flinging it down
a tornado - mile and a half wide
which takes out ten towns
in a few minutes time.
(Pat Robertson might opine
they were sinning online.)

Without regret or confession,
make this simple concession:
The wind doesn't know your name.
The wind just blows.

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker

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I am having a rhyme problem O dear. Can't believe I have come this far 29 days, 29 poems..... only one more to go....

PROMPT: find words from news paper headlines

The roar at Stevenson Dam after all the rain, 3/14/2010

While traveling from the New Haven area on Sunday I took this short video of the Stevenson Dam on Route 34. Notice the incredible gush of water that is being let out of Lake Zoar at the side of the dam > you can see it in the lower right hand side of the frame . That is a lot of water. Peak was not expected until 1 p.m. the following day, according to a Danbury News Times article. This was video shot with a G3 iphone using the Qik Video app. The G3 cannot shoot video out of the box. This is a a low rez fix - but low rez but better than no rez.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zvRsLMKukJ0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

Heathcare reform, like some flowers, needs tending to bloom

I'm waiting for the mums outside to break open. They seem plush and plentiful this year, all without care on my part. I have done nothing to encourage them.  The holly harbors a flock of  red berries, and again - I have not lifted a finger for them. Might be all the rain we have had this season.

The summer geraniums remain red in their cement pots, but these I have pinched and prodded, snapping off the dead leaves,  spent blooms, and whatever parts rotted in the excessive rains this year. There are new buds on both plants.  The air is cool - it was in the 40's last night. I am beginning to believe its really September.

I also wrote to both Connecticut Senators and to my district representative to urge them to support health care reform.  Changes in law and policy are more like this year's geraniums than the mums.  They need a little encouragement to bloom unexpectedly....

Another face in polymer

Fog like cold smoke hugs the landscape this morning. A blood sun begins to burn through it now - the light is changing, a reluctant warmth rises in the air.

Grief is a fog that lingers for years. Visited my father's grave and also the grave of Rob Ayotte this past weekend.  (They are in the same cemetery. ) You hardly ever  know what the weight of a person is for you until you try to make do without them...   Some people leave a rend in the fabric of things.

The face is polymer clay It's of no one in particular.

It's resting on a wrinkled pedestal made of cement color pinkish like the polymer.

I read an amazing fact last night: in a recent month there were 2700 people PER DAY  who were losing homes to bank foreclosure.

At 11 PM - snow like bright dust

Tonight snow falls, small as dust, a fall that is steady and windless. On the ground, snow crystals catch the eye like tiny sequins, or sandgrain stars in the road ahead.

In this fresh, almost-not-freezing cold we leave tracks that fill quickly. My black dog in her playful mood and I in my black coat- we slide through the clean streets of pale, a washed-out world, gilded with dust that melts on her back and on my shoulders. The dog snorts in a noseful of it, and the air is moist and alive.

I treasure the night and the snow - this quiet, uncomplicated peace.

==========================

Dead rat hearts, fluffy snow

• A dead rat's heart was scientifically renewed - it's" ALIVE" and the news outlets are crazy for it. However, the euphemism Dead Rat is just too strong to ignore. And you know, when you or I need a new rat heart, the insurance company will tell us to go whistle in the dark somewhere.

• The want ads have been thinner and thinner. So have the Danbury listings on Craig's list. I don't know about the country as a whole - but the Hat City employment situation seems bleak. "Don't worry. Everyday is a day," Maisy told me but I am not sure what she means by that. Since I have turned down two jobs in the last year, and quit one, this makes me nervous. I like having options. Oh well.

• This morning the snow lined every limb, clumped up on every line, and fence rail, looking bright and fresh.

Remembering the heat in the cold - my brush with heat stroke

Last night, in obscure moments of semi-sleep - I could hear what I thought was rain. This morning it was clear the sound was actually little frozen sleet-pellets hitting the roof. The walk and driveway were full of them and it was a peculiar walking experience - almost like walking on deep sand, rather than snow. Driving was tricky but by going slow, and with some skidding and sliding, things progressed. Out by the airport it was almost all white like driving in a cold cloud with hills and sky merging into white. I made it into work and back without a hitch.

Since it's 24 degrees outside my window, naturally I am thinking of hot weather.

During the one of the hottest summers on record, I made the incredible mistake of moving to burbs of Atlanta GA. Shortly after arriving, I went for a walk one day in a long lazy southern subdivision. I got lost and wondered for hours in the terrible afternoon heat. Later I learned it was 105 degrees that afternoon. I knew it was hot, as I was soaked in sweat and my mouth was parched. After an hour and half of passing houses that looked alike, my forehead was cold, and my hands were clammy. I stopped sweating altogether and imagined I would never be heard from again. About that time, I came to a school and I spied a water spigot on the foundation. First thing I stuck my whole head under the water, so it ran down my back and shoulders. Then once I was soaked, I felt a little better and I drank, thanking the fates no one had turned off the water during the summer recess. I stuck each foot and arm under the spigot too, so I was really soaked and cooled. Then I collapsed in the shade for almost an hour, getting up several times for more water. I was lucky I didn't die that day.

When I was rested, I started to walk very slowly, to float along really on my rubbery legs. Getting overheated takes a lot out of you. Finally I came to a commercial area. The first store I saw was an air-conditioned fast food joint where I ordered a large ice tea... New to the south, I had no idea how large a large drink was down there. It came in a bucket the size of bucket of fried chicken. I could have bathed in it..... But right at that moment, I just marveled and drank as much as I could for the trip home. I really had no idea where exactly I was. On a payphone, I called a friend who came in a lovely beatup air conditioned cougar to pick me up.

the wild roar of this day

        The trees are tossing in a fit of false-March on this wild morning. Though it was quite cold earlier now it is a balmy 50 degrees.  Some November.    Around here, at least the oak trees sport  a lovely copper cast, while  many leaves are merely brown.
        I live on the upper-lip of I-84 and I still can't get over the continual wind. Walk straight across our small backyard, scale the fence, and keep going for 20 feet and there is a sudden drop-off where the highway cuts through. You can't see it from here, but there's  an ever present background hum. When the air temp is changing, the wind tends to push through the i-84 canyon rattling all the trees on both embankments.

I see on the Nature Geezer blog there is a page about the winds of autumn.