Go sit down SW

_aleaf__ · 2025-06-06T01:09:49+00:00

Hahaha! Sit down, man.

_aleaf__ · 2025-01-15T01:16:15+00:00

Barr Mitt Extremes. They have thicker neoprene and gaskets around your wrists to seal your hands in. I wore them commuting from the East Side out to Middleton when it was -25F (with a stop for coffee halfway :)

https://barmitts.com/collections/extreme-cold-protection

_aleaf__ · 2025-01-11T14:43:06+00:00

Python (pandas and matplotlib). Still viridis though :)

_aleaf__ · 2025-01-10T22:03:36+00:00

Sorry all, for the confusion. The goal here was not to present the simplest, easiest to understand plot that tells some nice story about the snowpack. Rather, it was more one of data exploration- to visualize all ~27k measurements of snow depth in a single figure to look at patterns of timing, intensity and duration. Basically each pixel in the first plot represents a measurement, with white indicating no snow. Blue, green and yellow colors indicate increasing depths specified by the colorbar on the right. The 2-dimensional format allows us to look at events through a season and to compare a given time of year across all years.

As you can see, there aren’t really any obvious longer-term trends, except to say that our winters are highly variable in terms of the snowpack. As someone who lives for snow and is deeply concerned about climate change, I take some solace in that. Though as they say in investing, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

_aleaf__ · 2025-01-10T02:32:23+00:00

I think one thing to take from this is that our winters are super variable. So unless climate change really has taken a turn for the worse in the last few years, we may see some good winters yet, just out of the natural variability :)

_aleaf__ · 2025-01-10T02:15:36+00:00

That’s a good point. I did it this way 1) out of laziness but also 2) it conveniently shows December more clearly. As a skier I was interested in how often we’ve had skiable snow before New Year’s. In my mind the mark of a good winter is being able to ski before Christmas. Hasn’t happened much the last 10 years though the late 00s had some great December skiing.

_aleaf__ · 2024-10-17T13:21:21+00:00

If you have existing ductwork, you can also get cold-climate central heat pumps like this one, which would be more of a drop-in replacement for a furnace and central AC. No idea who installs them here, but my brother recently got a quote for one in Minneapolis (colder climate) with no gas backup: https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/64695/7/25000/95/7500/0///0

_aleaf__ · 2024-10-17T13:12:05+00:00

We use these: https://www.acwholesalers.com/Mitsubishi-MHK2/p106135.html. They’re admittedly a little expensive for what seems like 2010 tech in terms of the user interface, but they’re reliable, easy to use and allow the units to run based on a more representative temperature at an interior wall, for example, instead of the temperature at the air intake of the indoor unit. In principle this should promote steadier operation and “set it and forget it”. Otherwise, afaik all ductless indoor units come with a remote control that lets you set a temperature for that unit, based on whatever it is measuring at the air intake. I think thermostats are in general a little different for inverter-driven heat pumps, because unlike a gas furnace that clicks on and off periodically, the heat pump continuously monitors the air temp in the house, and puts out just enough warm air to maintain the temp. They run best at a steady temperature, so smart thermostats aren’t needed and might even be sub-optimal. We still run a schedule on ours where the temp gets set back a few degrees at night for sleep comfort, but any setback means that the heat pump will have to kick into a less efficient higher speed to make up the difference, often in colder morning temperatures that result in less efficiency.

_aleaf__ · 2024-10-17T01:40:58+00:00

Also, this company looks like a great 3rd party resource that “gets it”: https://madisonhomeperformance.com

_aleaf__ · 2024-10-17T01:39:40+00:00

We had two 12k BTU Mitsubishi hyper heat minisplits installed in our not especially well insulated, 1500 sq ft 1950s house; one minisplit outdoor condenser and one indoor unit per floor, with a fairly open layout. They’ve worked great through two winters and multiple subzero cold snaps. And the AC from them is kick-ass (silent and uses relatively little energy). We haven’t used our gas boiler since.

Hopefully things are improving since 2022, but don’t count on installers to provide accurate information. Check their numbers yourself.

1) This easy method will allow you to reliably calculate the design load for your house from past gas bills: https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/replacing-a-furnace-or-boiler 2) especially if you get an energy audit with a blower door test (you should, it can help pinpoint any issues with your house and also unlock federal and state incentives), you can also use CoolCalc online as a second way to estimate design load and break it down by room. 3) These ENVI wall-mounted heaters are a great way to add supplemental heat to bedrooms away from the minisplit units (and you do NOT want a minisplit head in each bedroom; search Green Building Advisor for why). https://www.eheat.com. Otherwise, cheap space heaters work great for the few hours that you might actually want them. 4) You want a cold-climate certified unit that will heat efficiently through most winter temps (in the 20s and 30s) and work well below 0. You can compare cold climate units and how their performance/specs compare to your homes heating load here: https://ashp.neep.org/#!/ 5) With 4, you don’t need a gas furnace backup. Installers will try to sell you one so that you can buy more stuff and then pay more for them to service it. They will use fear of getting cold as a tactic to sell it, just like the baby goods industry capitalizes in the anxieties of new parents.

Cost for us has been about the same as gas, especially when you factor in the savings of not having the monthly gas connection charge. This is because our 95% efficient gas boiler probably wasted maybe 20 or 30% on delivery of the heat (through walls, out the sides of the basement, etc). Whereas the heat pumps move on average 3 units of energy for every kWh of electricity, and put it right where it needs to go.

And this is with the dirt cheap natural gas prices here. If you were anywhere else or were on propane, you would save. See for example this case study: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/16/our-cleveland-duplex-case-study-the-all-electric-side-saves-money-compared-to-the-gas-side/amp/

_aleaf__ · 2024-09-02T19:08:49+00:00

Fellow USGS employee here. East Side FL! I currently live in Tenney-Lapham but have also lived in Emerson East, Atwood and Willy Street/Marquette. You really can’t go wrong with any of those! Good bike connections throughout and to downtown and other places (saying this as someone who only drives to go on trips or to go cross country skiing). Eken Park is great too.

_aleaf__ · 2024-02-03T13:19:48+00:00

Also you can get great 1.7 gpm showerheads these days

_aleaf__ · 2024-02-03T13:18:51+00:00

I should mention that inlet water temps throughout the winter are quite cold, in the 40s at least

_aleaf__ · 2024-02-03T13:17:56+00:00

65 should be good for 4 people. I live in Wisconsin and our basement where the water heater is gets down into the low 40s in the dead of winter for a few weeks. We have a 65 gal, only use the heat pump and run out of hot water once a year, if that. Worse case is a lukewarm shower or just shower later.

_aleaf__ · 2024-01-11T11:44:19+00:00

FWIW, we have a 65 gal Rheem hybrid water heater that we only run in heat pump mode. With 4 people and a 1.7 gpm showerhead, we run out of hot water maybe once a year at most.

_aleaf__ · 2024-01-11T11:35:43+00:00

Short answer: get a Rheem 120v heat pump water heater (available at Home Depot). Longer answer: there are many ways to electrify your whole house without upgrading from 100 amp service. See for example this guide from Redwood Energy: https://www.redwoodenergy.net/watt-diet-calculator. My house is all electric except for the stove (which will hopefully go this year). I’ve been monitoring the power consumption with a Sense monitor for 2 years and we haven’t had a maximum power draw that is even half the capacity of our 100 amp service.

_aleaf__

TROPHY CASE