To keep my house (water pipes) from freezing.
I turned the microboiler (that’s inline for the radiant floor heating, downstream from the stove) almost all the way down, and left the circulation pump on the lowest of three settings.
The water going into the floor, when the stove is humming along, hovers around 80*. No, the floor isn’t 80*, as the heated water goes to the outside of the floor coils first (I think, as per instructions from Radiantec in VT that sold me the materials and coached me through the layout, installation 20 years ago.)
Regardless, the warm water warms the floor, it works, I love it. When the fire goes out, or I need more heat, I can turn on/fiddle with the microboiler temperature setting as well as circulation pump speeds. The fire has been out for almost a week.
The graph shows how much electricity the floor is using. I left the 18th. It started creeping up a few days ago, which means the floor temp was dropping below 50*. When I get back to the P~Pad tomorrow, it won’t be frigid, and my electric bill will be high(er than usual).
Fortunately the power didn’t go out!!! Nothing has frozen and it will warm to comfortable much quicker than from a dead stop. It feels a bit like a luxury, but a few years ago I was gone for over week over Christmas (house sitting the BigHouse) and the floor nearly froze!
Related, my feet have been cold all week in SoPo. No radiant floor AND, more importantly, I failed to pack my crocs. When my priority shifted to “yard sale” mode, other things made it into the car. Ugh
Salvation Army wasn’t taking donations (due to staffing shortages) so the Goodwill around the corner got my stuff. The car is mostly empty, I can throw in the few things I didn’t sell/donate, and begin to load for the trip DownEast tomorrow, literally just ahead of the next storm.
I’ll be there before dark, and dealing 12-14” of fresh snow with 5-12” following me up the road, and perhaps some/a lot of rain. Roof clearing? Will my neighbor be plowed out? Did I think I’d need my snowshoes to get home? Nope to the latter…
DeedleDoodleDaily 