Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"?

[Betty]

On many new cars you have to pull the entire exhaust manifold or engine just to get at them. On some engines with 60,000 or more miles on them, the exhaust manifold bolts won't come off anymore without them breaking off trying, or stripping.

With modern aluminum alloy engine blocks & parts, there's a big gamble & risk of stripping out just about anything you try to loosen or tighten. And the more you do it the more the threads wear down. Aluminum is just too soft to deal with bolts & threads very well.

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty,
there were times I would listen to the engine and symptoms of a problem with a car and tell the mechanic what the problem was most likely to be. I was always told (in the last 15 years or so) don't worry sir our computer will find it. Nine times out of ten the problem was still there when I picked the car up. It always frustrated the hell out of me. I one had my Chrysler van in four times for a problem with the lights and each time they failed to fix it. I told them it was a problem with a relay and I could hear the chatter and smell ozone when it happened ( I knew this from working on commercial A/C units) so the last time I picked up the vehicle I asked for the oldest mechanic in the shop and explained it to him. We searched under tha dash for a small relay that was hidden way up and he could hear it too. When it was changed the problem was gone, GO FIGURE. My 2005 Sante Fe was developing  a short somewhere and the computer failed to find it three times in the shop. The car would suddenly die and coast to a stop only to start up again and then go for a few days before doing it again. Their computer and their young mechanics were doubting me about this because nothing showed up and it never did it when I took it in. After owning it for almost ten years problem free, I figured it should become their problem and traded it in.

[andyg0404]

Hi Betty,

Are you making out OK in what will no doubt in years to come be referred to as the blizzard of 014 and the storm of the Century? My co-worker pointed the stories out on Google this afternoon and he commented that it didn't appear to be making much of an impression anywhere.  Outside of Buffalo that is. The stories were remarkable, the entire Thruway shut down, people standing in waist length snow, a real horror show. Hope you're home and warm and aren't doing any shoveling.

Andy G.

[Betty]

We were on the edge of the storm so got hardly anything. There is one inch (2.5cm) of snow in the city, except around the southernmost edge of the city where they got up to a foot (30cm). It was clear blue sunny skies all day today, & now a clear starry night. It hasn't snowed since last night in most of the city. But it was a chilling 18F (-8C) most of the morning through early afternoon thanks to polar vortexes (which were rare until last year) arriving early this year. Daytime temperatures around here this time of the year should be between 40-50F (4-10C). There goes my heating bill. Good thing I found this efficient place so I save a little on it. I read that it got down below 0F (-18C) last week in Denver.

Towns south of the city & a few far east of the city have had 30-48" (.76-1.2m) of snow, with more currently coming down at a rate of 3-5" (8-13cm) per hour. In some of those areas they're expecting 3-5 feet (.9-1.5m) more snow by Wednesday or Thursday. In those towns to the south, Lancaster & Orchard Park, they're reporting snow up to their shoulders in parts. I have friends & family out that way.

I'm still collecting some pix of it.

We may get up to 1/2 a foot of snow (15cm) right in the city tomorrow, which would be nothing to deal with for us. Maybe a little more Wednesday too, & a lot more on Thursday. But you know those longer range forecasts are almost never close. They're lucky if they get it right just for tomorrow around here.

Sunday it will get up to 55F (13C), & maybe close to 60F (16C) by Monday. So all of it will turn to muddy, slushy, goo, & swampy. With all that snow melting, I'm sure there' ll some severe flooding in areas too.

Here's some pix from my window from this morning (7:46am). Only one inch of snow, but there's a few spots where the wind blew it into 3-4 inch (9cm) humps. Contrary to the news, this is the first snow fall in the city where it stayed on the ground rather than melt as soon as it lands.

[andyg0404]

Well I'm certainly glad that it didn't impact you. This is my least favorite season, it was very cold this morning and tomorrow morning when I head out to the bus, it's going to be in the mid twenties. I probably handled it better when I was in my mid twenties, a rather distant memory now.

[Betty]

I still haven't turned my main heat on this season yet. With the heat generated making dinner, 2 computers & monitors giving off heat, & the heat that comes off the back of the fridge, it felt comfortable last night, so I went to bed without turning on the heat. Under the cozy blankets with 2 warm cats on top of me, I didn't notice it got quite cold by morning until I got out of bed.

After I turned on 2 computers, made breakfast & coffee, & the fridge kicked on by opening it a few times, it started warming up so I didn't turn on the heat this morning either. Now it's down to 62F inside. But I haven't made any dinner yet because I had a late lunch. By the time I make something to eat, even in the microwave, & more coffee (coffee & grapefruit is my preferred treatment for COPD), it might warm up the place to 68F.

But I do turn on a little 300 watt heater or 400-800 watt one when to warm up the bathroom before & during a shower or bath. It feels extra cold if I'm wet, so always have extra heat if I'm going to get wet & naked.

I don't use my main heat much except for a few of the coldest days of winter. It's just too expensive to heat the whole place for one person, even if it is a smaller more efficient place. When it gets cold, I use the electric radiant heaters aimed at me to stay warm enough. Enough heat circulates from them to keep the rest of the place bearable with warm clothes on, & well above the risk of my pipes freezing. There's always one in the bathroom too if I gotta go in there.

Radiant heat (the orange glowing ones with a reflector), give off instant heat at whatever they're pointed at, so I don't have to wait long for them to warm the area up. Unlike fan-forced or ceramic heaters that circulate the heat all over the room including up to the ceiling, & under or behind furniture, radiant heat directs more heat where you need it. I have a couple 1500 watt good quality ceramic heaters. I never use them because a radiant heater on the 800 watt setting blows them away, & is much warmer.

Yep. I guess it's footed sleeper season now.

[Betty]

Brrr. 14F in mid-November! 20-30 degrees colder than normal. 3-4" additional snow in the city... quite manageable for us, but the surrounding areas got much more. All towns south of us, & a few east of of have a ban on travel. 

[andyg0404]

Hi Betty,

In a Bloomberg article I read it said that parts of Buffalo will have received six feet of snow by tonight with another storm coming tomorrow which will drop another two feet. The absolute arbitrariness of weather is shown by this quote from the article, “Snow totals are hard to come by and it varies over short distances. They got 60 inches in Lancaster and you go six miles to the northwest and they got 3.5 inches.”

And it was 15 degrees on the thermometer in my back yard this morning when I awoke. The weatherman said it was 22 degrees in my town but I will believe my thermometer over his.

Snuggle up and stay warm.

Andy G.

[ballucanb]

My buddy he was telling me his thermometer read 6, he lives a little higher up the mountain than I do, I would guess I would have been around 10 had I checked.

[Betty]

Ouch. Talk about an early polar vortex. 0F in Denver last week. We didn't have many extreme hot days like we used to in the summer, & some pretty cool days because these frequent vortexes continued over the summer. But because we live so close to, & downwind from the Great Lakes, it was quite uncomfortably humid. It was like being in a steam room even on cool days, making my COPD worse. But a cooler humid day was much better than a hot humid day.

All that damp moisture coming off the lakes, is exactly what causes these "lake effect" snows when the cold winds pass over them. Take a cold bottle out of the fridge on a humid day, & water quickly condenses onto it. Take a super cold frozen container out of the freezer, & frost condenses onto it.

Once again I was too cheap to turn on my heat last night. With the computers giving off heat, heat generated by making a meal & coffee, & the heat coming off the back of the fridge, it was 65F in the house at bedtime. Went to bed in a cute pink & patterned footed sleeper. Under the blankets I felt warm all night. But it was 53F inside when I got up. Brrr, but the sleeper kept my feet warm. After making some breakfast & coffee, it already warmed up the place to 60F. The fridge kicked in, so it's blowing heat off the back, so it should get warmer within an hour. If it doesn't, I may just fire up a small radiant (reflective) electric heater pointed towards me rather than fire up the main heat.

Kitties don't seem to care about the chill at all, except when we're sleeping. They'll curl up on top of, or against me, but they'll do that even in the summer except on hot days. When it's hot they prefer hanging near the AC, or in the cool hard bathtub & bathroom sink. They like it cool.

It looks like we got another 3-4 inches in the city overnight. Not much to talk about, but at the southern edge of the city (South Buffalo), they got an additional 8-12 inches overnight. Towns south & south east of the city got 12-18 more inches of snow overnight. Portions of Lancaster, Orchard Park, Hamburg, Lackawana, & southern Checktowaga have 6-8 feet of snow on the ground (about 2 meters). But my sister, in mid-Cheektowaga only has about 1/2 a foot of snow.

The deaths from the storm so far seem to be from people getting heart attacks shoveling or running their snow blower. When it get's deep & it's a lot of snow, even with a snow blower, it can be quite a workout, especially in single digit wind chills. People try to do too much at once, or more than they should for the shape or age they are.

Be careful out there, & take your time. You don't have to deal with all of it all at once if it puts your health or life at risk. Call for help, or even pay for help. Some of your neighbors will even accept an IOU to  help. Or let them use your snow blower or gasoline if they blow your place too. You can trade food for help if you're better stocked than they are.