and Of Course (again)

I am totally remiss.   Today was the last heating day of the winter.

Actually today was the day I turned off the active Solar...  the 8'x12' section of hot air panels facing south (right into our now giant cottonwood) which pump heat into a rock-bed under the floor of our house.  I don't have a precise number on how much heat they provide to the house but I'd roughly guess half of our BTUs come in that way.   It tends to run for a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon when the big tree is not shading it completely. 

It still dips below freezing most every night and may for another month or more, but the  days, when sunny are in the 60's and the solar gain is high.   

I did some significant pruning on the tree's lower branches which might allow good sun in during the coldest months, when the sun is very low...     Fall and Spring are not as important in any case.  The new Sunroom will definitely pick up the added exposure right away.  The sunroom was dried in, 90% sealed and 50% insulated for the cold months.   It was dropping below freeze inside during the colder nights, sometimes even if I ran the woodstove.  Of course half the windows didn't have their double panes (snap-in-storms that were broken, now repaired), and half the ceiling insulation was not in, many of the cracks not sealed well, and the floor is dirt, not the heat-absorbing, higher specific-heat brick floor  and bancos planned.  For the moment it was merely a big insulator for the south side... in place of the R20 wall is probably the equivalent of an R100 buffer.   The heat-flywheel effect will be fairly important, especially if we have the courage to let it get hot in there in the Autumn, rather than follow our summer instincts to keep it as cool as possible!

We haven't burned wood for maybe a month, or maybe only once or twice.  I fire up the cookstove with a few days worth of trash (mostly junk-mail) on a cold morning and the warmth from that is often welcome in at least two ways!  We burned maybe 1.5 cords of wood this winter, compared to 2-2.5 normally.  Part is a mild winter, but some is the sunroom I'm sure.   And extra, large, convenient, airtight stove in the sunroom will make it easier to pump heat into the house "on-demand" and when the sun is not out, but also an opportunity to burn more wood.  The branches I pruned might yield as much as 1/4 cord...  again, a double bargain from the sun.   At $150/cord purchased, I don't mind a $300-$500 winter heating bill.   I plan to build some flues through the bancos/floor/etc.  to capture/re-radiate some of that heat, to add to the flywheel effect.  I might even couple in the solar heat system somehow... to pump that heat into the floor rock-bed.   It is, like life, all a big experiment.

Panorama from AutoStitch

Of Course

I've already failed to keep up with (even) a Post a Day.   I had imagined I would manage a photo every day... maybe a note on when the Solar goes on/of (just went off at 6:07 PM MDT)...

Previous photo was from yesterday on an excursion to the Ski Hill.

Aspens Over Santa Fe

Steve Baer's SunSpots - 1974

First Heating Day

I have had the Solar (72 sq ft of flat-plate air collectors on the roof, actively pumped into a rock-bed) on for a few weeks to get an early start on warming for the winter...   the tree still has all of it's leaves, so it only runs a few hours a day.

We have burned a couple of fireboxes full of junk mail in the last few weeks, a little extra warmth for a few minutes, but nothing meaningful.

Today I fired up the junk mail, added a few small pieces of kindling, then two full-sized logs (merely 4" x 16") to the wood cook stove we live around... a Green/Creme Meteor from the early 20th century...   it raised the house temp from 63 to 67 in about an hour... just enough to back the chill down.

The Solar ran from 1:30 to 3:00 and again from about 4:30 and is still going (thermal inertia incollectors) as the sun is going down (6 PM DST).  It ran this morning too, but I don't know the times.

I need to prune the tree more... Leaves are yellow in all the mountains but not the Bosque yet.   Another month before they begin to fall.  I'll try to track the Solar...

I need to close in the Sunroom before another month passes.   Everything but the Roof and Windows are done... a little framing for the clerestories still... so once that is done, I will plastic in the windows and begin putting in the real ones... that should work for this winter.  Should.

Home at Otowi Bridge

We moved to  this place 10 years ago... July 2000, 3 months before we married eachother, Suzanne and I, at this location, according to "The Manner of Friends".  100+ Witnesses who spoke out of the Silence that lasted maybe 20 minutes. 

I'd watched this property get developed over 20 years, the house built, first as a barn, then finished but with the downstairs as a garage, then finally a full house, 2 stories, 1800 sq feet... Solar heat, Solar water... 1.49 acres.

We made our mark here as well... and we continue to mark it.