2018/19 Winter Banter and General Discussion - We winter of YORE

[Lava Rock]

3 hours ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

We also have 40ish miles of town owned roads... so,  $120,000 per mile = $4.8 million.  I estimate 2000 taxpaying households... so $2400 per household.  Divided over 10 years = $240 per household to have well maintained, resurfaced roads every 10 years.  My road is over 20 years old and has never been properly maintained.  Just potholes filled with cold patch

I also just paid out over $500 in excise taxes, this year, which are supposed to be for road maintainance and repair (plowing is separate I think)

 

I would buy that in a heartbeat.  I have already spent $1200 in the last year on suspension work on our cars 

Don't get me started on excise taxes. We pay $5,000 in property tax for a pond view, albeit nice, 0.5mi in the distance. Volunteer FD, no PD except county sherrifs. We do get garbage pickup, but that's it. We pay to plow our road. And then they get to collect their their vehicle excise tax. I genuinely hate going into the town office to pay that tax.

[HoarfrostHubb]

1 hour ago, Lava Rock said:

Don't get me started on excise taxes. We pay $5,000 in property tax for a pond view, albeit nice, 0.5mi in the distance. Volunteer FD, no PD except county sherrifs. We do get garbage pickup, but that's it. We pay to plow our road. And then they get to collect their their vehicle excise tax. I genuinely hate going into the town office to pay that tax.

Similar here.  $4500 per year in property taxes but no garbage pickup.  No water or sewer. We paid for plowing for a few years

[tamarack]

22 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Similar here.  $4500 per year in property taxes but no garbage pickup.  No water or sewer. We paid for plowing for a few years

Our taxes are about $1,700, for a small (40 by 24 with a loft) house with no garage.  It's on 80 acres, 3/4 wooded and the rest open wetland - used to be a 4-acre beaver pond but they left and the dam is breached.  That includes garbage and recycling collection, and the current contractor for plowing and maintenance has done well by us.  All but one acre is enrolled in Tree growth, Maine's current use tax treatment for forest land.  By giving up our right to develop those acres (could easily sell 4-5 houselots with frontage and power), we don't get taxed as if we could sell those lots, but on the land's potential for growing timber value.  Should we change our mind and want to sell lots, we'd have to pay a large penalty in lieu of the taxes not paid.
 

Our dirt road (~0.2mi) really could use a fresh gravel topcoat.

Three years ago, while we were visiting son/DIL in Japan, a culvert collapsed on our road, nearly making it impassable.  We wondered if, after traveling nearly 20,000 miles, we'd get stuck 100 yards from home.  Road contractor did a temp fix (it was about this time of year) then came back in May to replace the culvert and put down some good coarse gravel.  Last summer they added some of that same gravel out toward the tar, in a stretch that grew scads of potholes, seemingly spontaneously.  Looking good so far; small ruts during slime season, easily fixed by the grader 6-8 weeks from now.

[HoarfrostHubb]

I was wrong about how many miles of roads in my town. There are actually 88 miles, so more than double those dollars

I would still pay to have them in good shape, but I doubt others would

[CoastalWx]

God’s country. 

[dendrite]

20 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

God’s country. 

You’d think God would treat his home a little better.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Just returned from the meeting.  The town had proposed a 5 year road plan.  Ours was not on it.  We pled our case.  We might get taken care of but I might take up launching an override campaign.

 

[CoastalWx]

There’s the other option. Into our fannies. 

[Ginx snewx]

14 minutes ago, dendrite said:

You’d think God would treat his home a little better.

When potholes are your biggest problem I would say he has.

[powderfreak]

5 hours ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Yeah...it becomes much harder when you have that many miles and a smaller population.  I just get so angry at the condition of the roads.  This didn't happen when I was growing up, not in other parts of the state that I lived in.  Part of the issue I think is lack of commercial development/industry. Pretty much all of the tax base is from property taxes by homeowners. Mass limits tax increases to 2.5% per year max.  Costs are going up more than that and everything is being squeezed.

I know a realtor who just started showing a property on my street that is the last house before the road turns to shit.  She told me she was so thankful that the house was where it was or she figured it would be a 5-10% hit if it was on the bad part (which is basically the rest of our road)

That's nuts 

Yeah when your property value gets impacted by the condition of the town road you live on...that would be infuriating because you know your tax assessment isn't taking that into consideration like a prospective buyer would.

[HoarfrostHubb]

31 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

When potholes are your biggest problem I would say he has.

He screwed us on snow this winter

[HoarfrostHubb]

33 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

There’s the other option. Into our fannies. 

What else can be done?  I can’t find anything that could be cut significantly enough to fix a single road.

[mreaves]

38 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

When potholes are your biggest problem I would say he has.

Yeah, the isolation, poverty, aging population base and crushing opioid epidemic are minor inconvenices. 

[Ginx snewx]

35 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Yeah, the isolation, poverty, aging population base and crushing opioid epidemic are minor inconvenices. 

In Hubbard?

[HoarfrostHubb]

15 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

In Hubbard?

Well...some of those are true...lol.  

[mreaves]

36 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

In Hubbard?

I thought you were talking about NNE since you quoted Dendrite. Reading back now, I see my mistake. Lol. 

[tamarack]

14 hours ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Just returned from the meeting.  The town had proposed a 5 year road plan.  Ours was not on it.  We pled our case.  We might get taken care of but I might take up launching an override campaign.

Many years ago when we lived in a back settlement of Fort Kent, about 1,000 feet of our road became an early spring mud-run of sufficient robustness as to catch and hold heavy cars with 15" rims and even some 2WD pickups.  Our small Cavalier, still the best for traction of any 2WD vehicle I've driven, showed its mettle by crawling, barely, past the stuck iron for several days.  At that year's town meeting I noted that first responders might not be able to climb thru that gunk, and a week later the town robbed the sand/salt pile for the patch.  I figured they'd created the biggest salt lick in the Northeast, but the deer never showed any interest.  (Town meeting there was always a bit frustrating, as the best jokes were told in French, with words beyond my modest command of the language.)
 

You’d think God would treat his home a little better.

He's lent it to us as His stewards.  It's up to us to do a good job. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

Chimney guy came today, we were overdue, never got our fall cleaning so it had been almost 2 seasons of burning.  He was blown away by how little creosote build up we had!  He told me we were in the minority of clients they have in terms of proper burning practices. I told him I even burn about 20% pine.   Looks like I at least learned something after 9 years of wood fires.   It's a late 70's Vermont Castings that had very few hours on it when I bought it used.  Last year after much research I realized that it's a stove that likes to run fairly wide open and not get dampered too much under 450F.  Our house is small so it get's a little warm but I have no issue with shorts and a t-shirt in January.         

[tamarack]

48 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Chimney guy came today, we were overdue, never got our fall cleaning so it had been almost 2 seasons of burning.  He was blown away by how little creosote build up we had!  He told me we were in the minority of clients they have in terms of proper burning practices. I told him I even burn about 20% pine.   Looks like I at least learned something after 9 years of wood fires.   It's a late 70's Vermont Castings that had very few hours on it when I bought it used.  Last year after much research I realized that it's a stove that likes to run fairly wide open and not get dampered too much under 450F.  Our house is small so it get's a little warm but I have no issue with shorts and a t-shirt in January.         

Run them right and there should be no issues.  We've had wood as a major part of domestic heat since 1977, in 4 different homes with 6 different stoves, and no real problems.  The closest came on our coldest morning (-47) in Ft. Kent.  I was away overnight, on the border near St.-Pamphile, PQ, where it was a mild -40.  My wife loaded the small Jotul upstairs then did the old, leaky $20 parlor stove in the basement.  The side door hinges were broken so we left it latched, and when she had stuffed the stove fully (it held about 4 times as much as the little 602), she noted that side door on its hinge side was open perhaps 3/4" top to bottom.  With a 35' chimney and a 110°+ difference between inside and outside plus that huge opening, the draw was fierce.  She wisely didn't try closing that door - it probably would've fallen off completely.  So she half filled two 5-gal buckets, set them 6 feet from the stove and stood behind them for the 20 minutes it took for the wood (we saved crummy stuff like balsam poplar for that stove) to burn down to coals.  She said the 3' run of pipe turned orange, almost yellow.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

32 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Run them right and there should be no issues.  We've had wood as a major part of domestic heat since 1977, in 4 different homes with 6 different stoves, and no real problems.  The closest came on our coldest morning (-47) in Ft. Kent.  I was away overnight, on the border near St.-Pamphile, PQ, where it was a mild -40.  My wife loaded the small Jotul upstairs then did the old, leaky $20 parlor stove in the basement.  The side door hinges were broken so we left it latched, and when she had stuffed the stove fully (it held about 4 times as much as the little 602), she noted that side door on its hinge side was open perhaps 3/4" top to bottom.  With a 35' chimney and a 110°+ difference between inside and outside plus that huge opening, the draw was fierce.  She wisely didn't try closing that door - it probably would've fallen off completely.  So she half filled two 5-gal buckets, set them 6 feet from the stove and stood behind them for the 20 minutes it took for the wood (we saved crummy stuff like balsam poplar for that stove) to burn down to coals.  She said the 3' run of pipe turned orange, almost yellow.

Heh' yeah, orange pipe in a pitch black room is scary.  Luckily have not done that here but have certainly seen it.  I had stainless liners put in the chimney years ago, the expense was worth the piece of mind.  We have a Jotul 602 in the basement in case of power out or if I'm working down there for extended periods.  The old Vermont Castings are indestructible, made from melted down Volvo engine blocks is the rumor.  Many people are intimidated running stoves hot but depending on the make it's worse to run them too cool.  The only issue with wood heat is being cold when you go to people's houses who don't burn. 

[DavisStraight]

3 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Chimney guy came today, we were overdue, never got our fall cleaning so it had been almost 2 seasons of burning.  He was blown away by how little creosote build up we had!  He told me we were in the minority of clients they have in terms of proper burning practices. I told him I even burn about 20% pine.   Looks like I at least learned something after 9 years of wood fires.   It's a late 70's Vermont Castings that had very few hours on it when I bought it used.  Last year after much research I realized that it's a stove that likes to run fairly wide open and not get dampered too much under 450F.  Our house is small so it get's a little warm but I have no issue with shorts and a t-shirt in January.         

I find if I season my wood a couple years I get very little creosote, I have one of the new Woodstock hybrid stoves.

[dendrite]

14.8°

Clear and calm with great radiational cooling.

[BrianW]

The old stoves are nice but the new stuff destroys the older stuff on efficiency and emissions. If your stove doesn't have air tubes or a catalytic converter your using way more wood and sending 5-6 times the amount of smoke/particulate into the airm 

My newer insert literally has zero smoke coming out of it once its up to temp. The tubes on top inject air and burns up the smoke like a blowtorch extracting even heat from the smoke.

Some studies have shown a reduction almost 50% in wood consumption as well.

Today’s wood stove models feature improved safety and efficiency--they produce almost no smoke, minimal ash, and require less firewood. While older uncertified stoves release 15 to 30 grams of smoke per hour, new EPA-certified stoves produce no more than 4.5 grams per hour. 

https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/choosing-right-wood-burning-stove

[OceanStWx]

Drove up 84 yesterday, and I was shocked how the temp dropped like 10 degrees as the highway rose up towards Tolland. Truly a magical place.

But I did get to pit stop at Tree House. Got my hands on Very Green for the first time, so I'm excited about that. Also grabbed at least a can of everything else they had on offer. Quite a few I haven't had before (SSSappp, Super Typhoon, In Perpetuity, Curiosity 61). 

[tamarack]

15 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Heh' yeah, orange pipe in a pitch black room is scary.  Luckily have not done that here but have certainly seen it.  I had stainless liners put in the chimney years ago, the expense was worth the piece of mind.  We have a Jotul 602 in the basement in case of power out or if I'm working down there for extended periods.  The old Vermont Castings are indestructible, made from melted down Volvo engine blocks is the rumor.  Many people are intimidated running stoves hot but depending on the make it's worse to run them too cool.  The only issue with wood heat is being cold when you go to people's houses who don't burn. 

I recall a brief note in a newspaper, shortly after our 1973 move from NNJ to BGR, that stated how a significant (as in billions) part of the world's people used wood as a major resource for heat and cooking, and I thought, "How quaint."  Four years later our thinking had changed, as we bought the Jotul 602 and installed it in our first house the day before moving in.

After minima of zero and 1 the past two days, we were a degree or three below this morning, almost certainly the last subzero morning until Nov/Dec.

[OceanStWx]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/247910/one-third-blame-unusual-winter-temps-climate-change.aspx?wpisrc=nl_energy202&wpmm=1

Some soft respondents in the "east"? 34% saying a colder than normal winter despite the objective fact that it has not been colder than normal.

[Damage In Tolland]

58 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Drove up 84 yesterday, and I was shocked how the temp dropped like 10 degrees as the highway rose up towards Tolland. Truly a magical place.

But I did get to pit stop at Tree House. Got my hands on Very Green for the first time, so I'm excited about that. Also grabbed at least a can of everything else they had on offer. Quite a few I haven't had before (SSSappp, Super Typhoon, In Perpetuity, Curiosity 61). 

Yeah they’ve had a sick offering the last few weeks. VG is out of this world. Super Typhoon is great. C61 is part of the Curiosity series. They only do those batches one time. 

I know the phenomenon you mean on the hill coming into TOL on 84. I’m sure you’re joking about the 10 degrees, but it generally drops at least 6-8 degrees from Vernon and when I pull into TOL

[OceanStWx]

5 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Yeah they’ve had a sick offering the last few weeks. VG is out of this world. Super Typhoon is great. C61 is part of the Curiosity series. They only do those batches one time. 

I know the phenomenon you mean on the hill coming into TOL on 84. I’m sure you’re joking about the 10 degrees, but it generally drops at least 6-8 degrees from Vernon and when I pull into TOL

Yeah, 10 degrees is insane, but under the right conditions from the far western part of Vernon to the highest point on 84 in Tolland you could see as much as a 4 degree F swing. There's like 600 ft elevation change there.

[Damage In Tolland]

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Yeah, 10 degrees is insane, but under the right conditions from the far western part of Vernon to the highest point on 84 in Tolland you could see as much as a 4 degree F swing. There's like 600 ft elevation change there.

That area by the Electric Blue on 84 is ~600 feet. Head up another 400 feet and it’s another couple degrees cooler. Further up in Union on 84, you’re at or around 1000 feet much of the way there 

[OceanStWx]

1 minute ago, Damage In Tolland said:

That area by the Electric Blue on 84 is ~600 feet. Head up another 400 feet and it’s another couple degrees cooler. Further up in Union on 84, you’re at or around 1000 feet much of the way there 

I can certainly see why there's a jackknifed semi every other day there during the winter.