NNE Warm Season Thread 2020

[backedgeapproaching]

Yea, dont how Jspin went without AC the last few days /nights. I normally turn them on around 11am and then run them for most of the "hot" part of the day and maybe off for a few hours in evening and then back on for sleeping all night and then off again in the AM at wake up.  My house has zero shade this time of year also, so it warms up quicker.

Up to over 5" for July precip after the rain this morning, so prob pretty close to average keeping things nice and green. This is my fifth summer here and it's amazing how consistent the precip has been for the most part over the summers months keeping vegetation green. Being well inland and the terrain I would assume helping out.

[J.Spin]

36 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

You’re a soldier @J.Spin if you managed this latest stretch without AC!  

We’ve had ours on for 2 full days but I turned it off this morning with the dews dropping.  The other night when it was in the 80s at 1-2am before the storms pushed my limits for sleeping with windows open, ha.  I had to do AC.  We’ve got one of those in-wall units but it’s an older louder model.  

I will consider newer more efficient AC if these summers continue.  2018 and 2020 are going to be top 3 all-time I think at both BTV and Mansfield.  

Mansfield this year will be hottest June recorded and hottest July recorded... largely due to overnight mins which is mostly a function of humidity I think.

Feels glorious out now.  Dews of 50-55 right now feel like an autumn air mass, lol.

We did use A/C during that 2018 hot spell where temperatures got up near 100 F, but the key thing for us is really the overnights – if we can’t cool the house down with just fans then we’ll fire up the A/C.  There must have been something about that 2018 spell (either number of days or forecast overnight lows) that sealed the deal in that we knew we wouldn’t be able to keep the house cool.

Our house is a fairly new build and has fantastic insulation, so what we do on most warm days where it’s going to be up near 90 F or above is continue cooling all night and into the morning with the window fans until the outdoor temperature hits the indoor temperature.  Then we lock down the house to keep he cold air in. All the windows are closed, and we have double cell cellular shades on all the windows/doors.  We keep everything closed for the day until the outdoor temperature drops below the indoor temperature, then we open things up and start the cooling again.  It’s not fun having to keep the windows closed during the day, but we’d have to do that if we were running the A/C anyway.  The effects are pretty amazing though, and the temperature differential between indoors and out can be quite dramatic.  We’ve even had people visit and ask if we had the A/C on because of how cool the house was relative to outside.

We do have a dehumidifier that is set for 50-55% humidity in the basement, so one could always retreat there if the humidity gets too annoying.  We’re pretty lucky as you know out here in the mountain valleys in that we typically decouple quite well, so that makes the natural cooling much more practical.  There is a limit to the cooling you can do naturally though, and if temperatures are only getting down to around 70 F for multiple nights in a row, it gets harder to really get a good cooling session in during the night.  During this most recent stretch, it was really just two nights, so it was certainly workable, but we would have gone A/C if that was going to continue for another couple of nights.  July is really the only month in which an extended stretch like that seems to occur around here, so once we get to August you’d really need some sort of record-smashing episode for that to happen.

[PhineasC]

I use the same method as J.Spin. It really only fails when the min at night is high and very humid. Sucking 70 degree moist air into the house can turn it first into a swamp overnight, and then a furnace the next day. I made that mistake a few times before I got the hang of it. A dehumidifier is just as helpful as an AC unit in this scenario. We all know 75 with 50% humidity feels much, much nicer than 75 with 90% humidity. Our log home holds whatever air you feed it really well. If you suck in some "bad" air it takes forever to scour it all out.

[J.Spin]

30 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Yea, dont how Jspin went without AC the last few days /nights. I normally turn them on around 11am and then run them for most of the "hot" part of the day and maybe off for a few hours in evening and then back on for sleeping all night and then off again in the AM at wake up.  My house has zero shade this time of year also, so it warms up quicker.

Up to over 5" for July precip after the rain this morning, so prob pretty close to average keeping things nice and green. This is my fifth summer here and it's amazing how consistent the precip has been for the most part over the summers months keeping vegetation green. Being well inland and the terrain I would assume helping out.

Oh, I totally forgot about sun exposure, so that’s a very good point you bring up.  We’ve got good protection from large trees all around (same thing that minimizes drifting for snow measurement here), and certainly to the south, so we really don’t get hit hard with sun to warm the house.  Combine that with the other stuff I mentioned in the response to PF, and you can see how it’s relatively easy to keep things cool.  I guess a testament to that effect would be that we’ve never even considered running the A/C during the day because the house pretty much stays cool enough on its own – we would just turn it on to cool for sleeping if we couldn’t cool with fans.

It can certainly get tough if you have lots of sun exposure though.  We had a place in Montana that had these massive windows that faced directly south with nothing to block the sun.  The unobstructed views of the Bitterroot Valley, the Bitterroot River, and the Bitterroot Range were fantastic:

…but, we certainly paid for it in the heart of summer because that south side of the house would bake.  And of course clouds were often pretty sparse in that drier climate, so you didn’t get much help there.  Thankfully, most nights cooled down into the 50s or even 40s F with the dry air, so nighttime cooling wasn’t an issue.

Indeed, the need for A/C does depend somewhat on how low your temperatures get at night.  We still dropped to around 70 F these past couple of nights here at our place to enable overnight cooling.  If temperatures are staying well up into the 70s F overnight though, there’s not much you can do.  Ambient cooling isn’t going to cut it and you have to call on the A/C.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

The other night when it was in the 80s at 1-2am before the storms pushed my limits for sleeping with windows open, ha.  I had to do AC.  

Oh, I saw you talk about those overnight lows in one of the discussions, but I figured the nighttime temperatures around 80 F were just a Champlain Valley thing!  We must have either been protected/decoupled here, or the temperature spike was so brief before the rains came that I slept right through it.  The temperatures had dropped to near 70 F when I was heading to bed, and I figured we were pretty safe.  I think the temperature was a couple degrees higher when I got up, but it wasn’t too early and I figured it was just the day starting to warm.  No question about that though, if I’d seen temperatures up near 80 F during the overnight that would easily seal the deal on using the A/C.

[backedgeapproaching]

14 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Oh, I totally forgot about sun exposure, so that’s a very good point you bring up.  We’ve got good protection from large trees all around (same thing that minimizes drifting for snow measurement here), and certainly to the south, so we really don’t get hit hard with sun to warm the house.  Combine that with the other stuff I mentioned in the response to PF, and you can see how it’s relatively easy to keep things cool.  I guess a testament to that effect would be that we’ve never even considered running the A/C during the day because the house pretty much stays cool enough on its own – we would just turn it on to cool for sleeping if we couldn’t cool with fans.

It can certainly get tough if you have lots of sun exposure though.  We had a place in Montana that had these massive windows that faced directly south with nothing to block the sun.  The unobstructed views of the Bitterroot Valley, the Bitterroot River, and the Bitterroot Range were fantastic:

…but, we certainly paid for it in the heart of summer because that south side of the house would bake.  And of course clouds were often pretty sparse in that drier climate, so you didn’t get much help there.  Thankfully, most nights cooled down into the 50s or even 40s F with the dry air, so nighttime cooling wasn’t an issue.

Indeed, the need for A/C does depend somewhat on how low your temperatures get at night.  We still dropped to around 70 F these past couple of nights here at our place to enable overnight cooling.  If temperatures are staying well up into the 70s F overnight though, there’s not much you can do.  Ambient cooling isn’t going to cut it and you have to call on the A/C.

Definitely worth the the southern exposure and warm house to get those views, amazing! But you also had the passive solar in winter i would assume which would be nice. 

Afternoon shade from trees is huge in keeping house temps down, especially upstairs. My sister in law has a 250 yr old farmhouse with mimimal to no insulation, but they have massive Maples that shade the house from like 1pm on, so it keeps it somewhat bearable. 

I also rarely get lows above 70..think I had 2 so far. It was 71 last night. So I run window fans most of the time..but I will run AC if lows are upper 60s which brings high dews also if lows are that high.  Cool nights in mid 50s to 60 work well like you said cooling house and keeping it cool next day. We also have insulated cellular shades and close them up and all windows shut to keep it cool. But like I mentioned being in full sun, that only buys so much time if temps get to mid 80s.

[powderfreak]

So our floor to ceiling windows face south and east in the living space, which is great in winter for heating but we do have to keep the blinds and everything buttoned up during the daytime in summer.  

We also do the lock the house up tight and dark during the daytime to keep it cool and then open it up at night... but I just remembered why this year is different, ha.  

Mr. Bear.  With only 1200 square feet we still have three large 8-foot sliding glass doors, one in our bedroom and two in the main living area.  At night, those wide open provide extremely ample cooling to the point where with all 3 doors open we can almost match the outside temperature by morning.  It’s almost like sleeping in a tent but inside, ha.  We can lock the screens and with no crime and a dog as an alarm, we’ve always been comfortable with them open.  

This year though we have a resident bear for the past 3-4 weeks now.  He’s been at our screen door at least twice... once we only saw the paw prints on the porch after the dog scared it off, the second time we had Piecasso pizza on the kitchen counter and I ended up staring at him 4 feet away with only a screen separating us, he had his nose up near the screen sniffing.   

After a bear entered a house on River Road in Stowe to get to the kitchen, and another one walked through a screen door in Underhill at 3am to get to the kitchen... my wife will absolutely not allow the doors to be open after dark.  So we need to A/C as windows aren’t doing it.  The Underhill story is identical to us... couple keeps their slider doors open at night to cool off, bear came through it and the couple woke up to plates smashing in their kitchen.  

I keep thinking the bear might be gone but then even this morning I found a huge pile of black, berry-filled bear scat right off our back steps.  So he still makes the rounds nightly looking for food.  He’s an adolescent and truly isn’t aggressive (we’ve seen him several times in the daylight too), but this is his zone on the Rec Path apparently.  He just doesn’t know any better.  

[powderfreak]

21 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Oh, I saw you talk about those overnight lows in one of the discussions, but I figured the nighttime temperatures around 80 F were just a Champlain Valley thing!  We must have either been protected/decoupled here, or the temperature spike was so brief before the rains came that I slept right through it.  The temperatures had dropped to near 70 F when I was heading to bed, and I figured we were pretty safe.  I think the temperature was a couple degrees higher when I got up, but it wasn’t too early and I figured it was just the day starting to warm.  No question about that though, if I’d seen temperatures up near 80 F during the overnight that would easily seal the deal on using the A/C.

Yeah it was 80F at MVL at 1-2am!  It had dropped into the 70s at like 9pm but spiked back up ahead of the rain.  

Looks like MPV was 78F at 3am that night.  

Every station from NNY to NNH was 75+ at like 2-3am.

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, PhineasC said:

I use the same method as J.Spin. It really only fails when the min at night is high and very humid. Sucking 70 degree moist air into the house can turn it first into a swamp overnight, and then a furnace the next day. I made that mistake a few times before I got the hang of it. A dehumidifier is just as helpful as an AC unit in this scenario. We all know 75 with 50% humidity feels much, much nicer than 75 with 90% humidity. Our log home holds whatever air you feed it really well. If you suck in some "bad" air it takes forever to scour it all out.

Yeah, it would really be easy to get by with just a dehumidifier around here in the mountains where summer temperatures aren’t typically outrageous.  Just take that humidity down to the 50% range like you say, and the air is totally comfortable.

The first few years that we lived in this house I didn’t have a dehumidifier in the basement, and then my parents were getting rid of an old one they had, so I started using it to keep that basement humidity down in the summer.  It was only then that I really noticed how important it is to have that dehumidification in the basement during the humid months to minimize corrosion on metal parts.  Even though it wasn’t necessarily excessive yet, all those cold water pipes, valves, and other equipment that sweat when the moisture levels rise will really take on a lot more tarnish and corrosion if you don’t regulate the humidity.  Dehumidifying also basically wipes out any of that musty basement odor, so there’s so much that’s positive with respect to keeping things dry down there that I’d never go back.  Thankfully, it only seems like we need it about three months of the year or so – during the rest of the year the humidity level is low enough on its own that the dehumidifier doesn’t run.

We don’t have any sort of sump in the basement, so for the first season or two we were just emptying the dehumidifier collection bucket when it filled.  Then at some point my dad pointed out that we could just use the condensate pump on our furnace to empty it out automatically (these pumps typically have extra input holes for this sort of thing), and that has been amazing.  We don’t really have to think about it now, and it just runs automatically – until it dies of course.  Dehumidifiers only seem to last so long before something goes, and this spring I had to do a couple weeks of troubleshooting before I finally diagnosed that our unit was low on refrigerant.  Thankfully Frigidaire has a five-year warranty on that issue so they just sent us a new one.  We would have bought a new one if we had to though – this has definitely not been the summer to go without a dehumidifier down there.

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

Yeah, it would really be easy to get by with just a dehumidifier around here in the mountains where summer temperatures aren’t typically outrageous.  Just take that humidity down to the 50% range like you say, and the air is totally comfortable.

The first few years that we lived in this house I didn’t have a dehumidifier in the basement, and then my parents were getting rid of an old one they had, so I started using it to keep that basement humidity down in the summer.  It was only then that I really noticed how important it is to have that dehumidification in the basement during the humid months to minimize corrosion on metal parts.  Even though it wasn’t necessarily excessive yet, all those cold water pipes, valves, and other equipment that sweat when the moisture levels rise will really take on a lot more tarnish and corrosion if you don’t regulate the humidity.  Dehumidifying also basically wipes out any of that musty basement odor, so there’s so much that’s positive with respect to keeping things dry down there that I’d never go back.  Thankfully, it only seems like we need it about three months of the year or so – during the rest of the year the humidity level is low enough on its own that the dehumidifier doesn’t run.

We don’t have any sort of sump in the basement, so for the first season or two we were just emptying the dehumidifier collection bucket when it filled.  Then at some point my dad pointed out that we could just use the condensate pump on our furnace to empty it out automatically (these pumps typically have extra input holes for this sort of thing), and that has been amazing.  We don’t really have to think about it now, and it just runs automatically – until it dies of course.  Dehumidifiers only seem to last so long before something goes, and this spring I had to do a couple weeks of troubleshooting before I finally diagnosed that our unit was low on refrigerant.  Thankfully Frigidaire has a five-year warranty on that issue so they just sent us a new one.  We would have bought a new one if we had to though – this has definitely not been the summer to go without a dehumidifier down there.

We installed one of those new heat pump hybrid water heaters a couple of years ago and that thing does a great job dehumidifying the basement.  It is like 2-3 times as efficient as a standard electric water heater and it doesn't require us to run our boiler in the summer like the old system we had.

[PhineasC]

Seems like the next 12 days will bring more “normal” high temps to the area? Looks like mid-70s for Randolph for the period. Some upper 50s for lows in there too. I expected to see more of that honestly. Everywhere I look says the average low is in the 50s here. I guess this is peak warmth time and it has been one of the hottest July’s ever, but still. Sheesh. 

[dendrite]

2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Seems like the next 12 days will bring more “normal” high temps to the area? Looks like mid-70s for Randolph for the period. Some upper 50s for lows in there too. I expected to see more of that honestly. Everywhere I look says the average low is in the 50s here. I guess this is peak warmth time and it has been one of the hottest July’s ever, but still. Sheesh. 

Avg low is upper 50s here and I can barely get a low below 60 this month. Berlin COOP averages about 78/55 right now...the ASOS is 78/50 since they radiate so well. 

[PhineasC]

Just now, dendrite said:

Avg low is upper 50s here and I can barely get a low below 60 this month. Berlin COOP averages about 78/55 right now...the ASOS is 78/50 since they radiate so well. 

So is this just some freakishly hot July or are the averages bogus? It would seem this July is crushing the records up there.

[dendrite]

8 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

So is this just some freakishly hot July or are the averages bogus? It would seem this July is crushing the records up there.

Freakish although it seems like the polar airmasses are harder and harder to come by in the heart of summer. 

[dendrite]

Here’s the coldest daily mins for the 5 warm season months at BML since the ASOS took over in 96. These numbers look nothing like this July. 

[powderfreak]

3 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Seems like the next 12 days will bring more “normal” high temps to the area? Looks like mid-70s for Randolph for the period. Some upper 50s for lows in there too. I expected to see more of that honestly. Everywhere I look says the average low is in the 50s here. I guess this is peak warmth time and it has been one of the hottest July’s ever, but still. Sheesh. 

Our average here in the 700-800ft range at the valley bottom is 80/56 right now.  It should be low 50s just as often as low 60s... we should see 40s once in a while.  Like stuff where you wake up at 3am and want to close the windows and doors because it's cold inside. 

With an average high of 80F, we should have days where it struggles to hit 70F just as often as days that hit 90F.  That's crazy to me.  I can't even imagine struggling to reach 70F at the same frequency that we have touched 90F this year.

[dendrite]

11 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Our average here in the 700-800ft range at the valley bottom is 80/56 right now.  It should be low 50s just as often as low 60s... we should see 40s once in a while.  Like stuff where you wake up at 3am and want to close the windows and doors because it's cold inside. 

With an average high of 80F, we should have days where it struggles to hit 70F just as often as days that hit 90F.  That's crazy to me.  I can't even imagine struggling to reach 70F at the same frequency that we have touched 90F this year.

Full on torch

[powderfreak]

52 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Here’s the coldest daily mins for the 5 warm season months at BML since the ASOS took over in 96. These numbers look nothing like this July. 
 

Yeah even if it's not record lows like that, you usually expect the radiators to pop a 45-48F once in a while.

And what the hell happened in 2001.  That's like return of the ice age.

[dendrite]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah even if it's not record lows like that, you usually expect the radiators to pop a 45-48F once in a while.

And what the hell happened in 2001.  That's like return of the ice age.

Yore

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/asos.py?station=SLK&data=metar&year1=2001&month1=7&day1=26&year2=2001&month2=7&day2=29&tz=Etc%2FUTC&format=onlycomma&latlon=no&missing=M&trace=T&direct=no&report_type=2

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/asos.py?station=HIE&data=metar&year1=2001&month1=7&day1=26&year2=2001&month2=7&day2=29&tz=Etc%2FUTC&format=onlycomma&latlon=no&missing=M&trace=T&direct=no&report_type=2

[PhineasC]

13 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Full on torch

2013 was the closest. How was that summer up there outside July? 

[tamarack]

10 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Our average here in the 700-800ft range at the valley bottom is 80/56 right now.  It should be low 50s just as often as low 60s... we should see 40s once in a while.  Like stuff where you wake up at 3am and want to close the windows and doors because it's cold inside. 

With an average high of 80F, we should have days where it struggles to hit 70F just as often as days that hit 90F.  That's crazy to me.  I can't even imagine struggling to reach 70F at the same frequency that we have touched 90F this year.

Average temp here is 77/55 and that's the warmest average of the year.  Over 22 years here, July's coolest mornings have ranged from 37 (2007) to 46 (2006) with no month having fewer than 3 sub-50 minima.  This July the bottom will be 51, a quantum leap from the past.   To date we've had 10 mornings at 60+ and tomorrow might make it 11.  In 2010 it was 15.  The month has had only 33° temp range from highest to lowest, and though it will finish with 26 days AN and 5 BN, the end result will be about a modest +2.3, currently 4th warmest of 23 and possibly 3rd (only 0.09° behind 2006 thru yesterday) but well short of 1999 and 2010.

[backedgeapproaching]

My kids have been doing so much swimming this summer, feel like they will become Olympic backstroke medalists...ha. 

My brother-in-laws parents bought a second (actually third or fourth) house here in town that has the rare VT unicorn--inground pool. We got the Ok to use it whenever we want since the house is empty and they are literally never there. With how warm it's been we have using it 4-5 times per week, been nice with pool temp in upper 70s to 80. Between the lake, river and pool, lots of water activities. I'm not a fan of heat by any means, but the warms waters are nice side effect.

 

[J.Spin]

Earlier I had posted my summary table of snow stats for our site updated with the data for the 2019-2020 winter season, but I’ve had time to enter many of the other snow stats I follow, so I’ve got those listed below.

I’ve highlighted in green any record values that were added to the data set this season, with a notable one being our earliest ever start of the continuous winter snowpack here on November 8^th. 

The 7.1” storm that began on November 7^th created a number of firsts in the snowfall department.  Although we get some accumulating October storms almost every year at our site, we’ve really never had a large one (or even one greater than 2 inches) down at this elevation in the time we’ve lived here, so those earlier storm records were ripe for the picking.

The final value of note was at the other end of the season, where we had the snowiest May in our records.

• Total season snowfall:  142.1”
• Season snowfall rank:  11^th out of 14
• October snowfall: 0.0”
• November snowfall:  17.8”
• December snowfall:  30.0”
• January snowfall:  34.4”
• February snowfall:  37.2”
• March snowfall:  12.9”
• April snowfall:  4.1”
• May snowfall:  5.7” (HIGHEST)
• First frozen precipitation:  Nov 3^rd
• First accumulating snowfall:  Nov 3^rd
• First ≥1" snowfall:  Nov 8^th
• First ≥2" snowfall:  Nov 8^th (EARLIEST)
• First ≥3" snowfall:  Nov 8^th (EARLIEST)
• First ≥4" snowfall:  Nov 8^th (EARLIEST)
• First ≥6" snowfall:  Nov 8^th (EARLIEST)
• First ≥8" snowfall:  Dec 7^th
• First ≥10" snowfall:  Jan 16^th
• First ≥12" snowfall:  Feb 7^th
• Largest snowstorm:  17.0”
• Starting date of largest snowstorm:  Feb 6^th
• Number of storms:  55
• Number of ≥1” storms:  31
• Number of ≥2” storms:  20
• Number of ≥3” storms:  15
• Number of ≥4” storms:  13
• Number of ≥6” storms:  7
• Number of ≥8” storms:  5
• Number of ≥10” storms:  3
• Number of ≥12” storms:  1
• Number of ≥15” storms:  1
• Number of ≥18” storms:  0
• Number of ≥20” storms:  0
• Number of ≥24” storms:  0
• Average inches of snowfall per storm:  2.6
• Days with trace snowfall or greater:  107
• Total L.E. during accumulating snowfall season:  24.34”
• Snow/Sleet L.E. during accumulating snowfall season:  10.89”
• Total Snow/Total Water (Snow/Water Ratio):  5.84
• Average water content of all precipitation:  17.1%
• Total Snow/Snow+Sleet L.E. (Snow/Water Ratio):  13.05
• Average water content of snow/sleet:  7.7%
• Latest accumulating snowfall:  May 12^th
• Latest frozen precipitation:  May 12^th
• Days in yard snowfall season:  191
• Start of continuous snowpack:  Nov 8^th (EARLIEST)
• Days with >0" snowpack:  158
• Days with ≥1" snowpack:  129
• Days with ≥6" snowpack:  64
• Days with ≥12" snowpack:  24
• Days with ≥24" snowpack:  0
• Days with ≥36" snowpack:  0
• Max snow depth:  21.0”
• Date of max snow depth:  Feb 8^th
• Snow depth days:  914.0
• Last day of continuous snow at stake:  Mar 18^th
• Last day of continuous snow in yard:  Apr 6^th
• Days with continuous snow at stake:  132
• Days with continuous snow in yard:  151

[dendrite]

17 hours ago, PhineasC said:

2013 was the closest. How was that summer up there outside July? 

June was mostly seasonably cool except it was bookended by heat that averaged the month out to slightly AN. August was near normal with consistent ups and downs.

2013 doesn't really stand out when you include all of met summer.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

June was mostly seasonably cool except it was bookended by heat that averaged the month out to slightly AN. August was near normal with consistent ups and downs.

2013 doesn't really stand out when you include all of met summer.

Seems like a reasonably cool August could “save” 2020 in the same way. 

[J.Spin]

On 7/28/2020 at 9:39 PM, mreaves said:

We installed one of those new heat pump hybrid water heaters a couple of years ago and that thing does a great job dehumidifying the basement.  It is like 2-3 times as efficient as a standard electric water heater and it doesn't require us to run our boiler in the summer like the old system we had.

Those units seem interesting, and after looking into them, I guess they also cool the area around them as well?  It sounds like that effect would be great in the basement in the summer.  How have you found the temperatures to be affected in the winter months?

[mreaves]

4 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Those units seem interesting, and after looking into them, I guess they also cool the area around them as well?  It sounds like that effect would be great in the basement in the summer.  How have you found the temperatures to be affected in the winter months?

Not really.  It has decreased humidity and hasn't had a huge impact on our electricity bills.

[J.Spin]

11 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Not really.  It has decreased humidity and hasn't had a huge impact on our electricity bills.

Thanks for the info.  Our current water heater is actually propane though, so I guess the heat pump style would mean moving to electric.  Apparently the tank-based propane units are already fairly efficient compared to traditional electric units, and fairly comparable to the heat pump water heaters?  I’m also curious about investigating tankless options when the time comes to replace our current water heater.  Apparently tankless costs a bit more to operate annually vs. the heat pump systems, but they more than make up for it by their longer service life.  The idea of not having to store hot water in a tank and simply create it on demand is certainly appealing (as is not having a big tank taking up space), but we’ll ultimately have to look into the nitty-gritty of it to see if it’s worth it.

[mreaves]

Just now, J.Spin said:

Thanks for the info.  Our current water heater is actually propane though, so I guess the heat pump style would mean moving to electric.  Apparently the tank-based propane units are already fairly efficient compared to traditional electric units, and fairly comparable to the heat pump water heaters?  I’m also curious about investigating tankless options when the time comes to replace our current water heater.  Apparently tankless costs a bit more to operate annually vs. the heat pump systems, but they more than make up for it by their longer service life.  The idea of not having to store hot water in a tank and simply create it on demand is certainly appealing (as is not having a big tank taking up space), but we’ll ultimately have to look into the nitty-gritty of it to see if it’s worth it.

I think you're correct.  Our old system was run from our oil fired boiler and had a large super insulated storage tank.  The tank sprung a leak so we had to get a new one.  I would have loved an on demand system but we don't have propane and I couldn't see installing it just for a new water heater.

[J.Spin]

18 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Seems like a reasonably cool August could “save” 2020 in the same way. 

Neat data from Dendrite as always.

Even a “normal” August should really feel fantastic around here after the July we had though.  These past few days have felt pretty glorious, and the forecast moving into August doesn’t show signs of July-like heat and humidity so far, so hopefully we can cruise right on into typical August NNE weather.

From what I’ve seen in discussions on this forum, SNE does seem to have those August “dog days” where that midsummer type combination of heat and humidity persists, but up here in the mountains, once we hit August, and especially that August 10^th break point, we just never seem to return fully to that July-like punch of HHH.

Personally, the three months of August, September, and October up here may be my favorite quarter of the year.  Winter is amazing of course, but for me as a skier it sort of extends from November through May, and I’m not sure I could pick a specific three-month section of winter that I would call the best; each of the months has its own unique merits between the various components of snowfall, snowpack, temperatures, daylight, etc.  The period starting in August is really solid though.  July heat is generally done, and you go from amazing late summer weather where water sports are more of an option than a necessity, into cool fall weather and stunning foliage, and then to snow.  That’s an awesome ride, and then it drops you right into the start of ski season (unless of course November is especially warm and/or dry).

We have an old beech nut tree that routinely marks the transition to the start of that period by dropping its first leaves around August 1^st, and it just started that process of few days ago.  This year we’ve got a couple of old apple trees joining in as well, so I’m starting to get those autumn-like lines of shredded leaves after mowing the lawn.

I know the old saying around here about how we have a word for summer, and they call it “July”, and it’s certainly felt like it this year.  It seems that we can sometimes have a relatively cool July in which we sneak through, but we almost always get some sort of heat and/or humidity that makes the month stand out as summery.  The folks in the forum often talk about their least favorite month of the year where they live, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s July for me around here.  I love getting out for water sports and into the swimming holes on the hot, humid days, but when the heat and humidity become excessive, it seems like you’re not left with much once you’re done with the water.  You either want to be in the A/C, or waiting until evening to get out and get things done, and the air is still not as comfortable as you know it can be.  Perhaps it was the tenor of this July that gives me that impression, or maybe as you get older you get less tolerant of excessive heat and humidity.  At least I think that’s what they say here in the forum.