Bitter cold precautions....

MikeL_2

 While wind chill doesn't affect inanimate objects, the wind will blow extreme cold air into places where it doesn't normally go.
  I remind my customers of the following to help avoid a catastrophe:
  Know where your water main shut - off is and exercise it occasionally. 
   Insulating piping that is routed through uncondtioned spaces may not keep them from freezing.
   Frost proof hose bibs won't work as designed if a hose is left attached in cold weather.
   Turn thermostats up 5 - 10° higher than normal during extreme cold weather.
   Don't use your garage overhead doors. Using them during bitter cold can turn a partially conditioned space into uncondtioned space.
   Trickling faucets during bitter cold can cause other unintended & disastrous consequences.
   If you're ( especially real estate agents ) house sitting for someone, it may be a good idea to shut the water main valve during bitter cold weather.
    Heat tape can be helpful, but should never be connected to hidden piping.
     Open cabinet doors below sinks, especially those that are adjacent to exterior walls.
      Don't use open flames to thaw frozen pipes; hand held hair dryers & clothes dryers are better options. 
   
   

ethicalpaul

Wind chill affects all objects that are warmer than the current temperature, but especially it affects damp ones!

MikeL_2

Ethicalpaul,
     You are correct. I guess I should have started with " wind chill won't cool objects below the actual temperature ".

Jamie Hall

We do turn the thermostat up on the buildings we manage in the extreme cold which are unoccupied -- gives us a little more time to catch the problems...

A couple of more.

If you have pets. Cats? Keep them inside. Dogs? Supervise them when they have to go out, and check their paws promptly when they come back in. Do not let them stay outside.

Other critters? Hopefully you are a good enough farmer to know what to do to care for them. Keep access to unfrozen water.

Vehicles. Have enough fuel, and if at all possible plug in the block heaters so you have a fighting chance at getting them started. You did winterize them, didn't you? You have an EV? Remember that its range will be quite a bit less than you expect -- and it may take much longer than you expect for it to charge, if it will at all.

JUGHNE

I believe wind or any air movement will hasten the temp drop of anything dry to ambient temps.

Then there is the factor of air infiltration on looser structures which HDD does not take into consideration.

I assume design temp is based on HDD or actual temps but wind is not taken into consideration??

My design temp might be officially -5 but I assume -10 for my area for the wind.
We are seldom without wind.

Wrong, probably.

But there are only limited sizes of FAF or CI HW boilers, upsizing is common.
Just about never come across an undersized system, for heating or AC.

bburd

ASHRAE heating design conditions are based on a 15 mph wind IIRC.

ChrisJ

bburd said:

ASHRAE heating design conditions are based on a 15 mph wind IIRC.

Then at -8F outside, the inside of my house meets ASHRAE expectations due to infiltration and the chimney effect.

STEVEusaPA

JUGHNE said:

I believe wind or any air movement will hasten the temp drop of anything dry to ambient temps.

Then there is the factor of air infiltration on looser structures which HDD does not take into consideration.

I assume design temp is based on HDD or actual temps but wind is not taken into consideration??

My design temp might be officially -5 but I assume -10 for my area for the wind.
We are seldom without wind.

Wrong, probably.

But there are only limited sizes of FAF or CI HW boilers, upsizing is common.
Just about never come across an undersized system, for heating or AC.

I account for it in my DD calculations for my automatic delivery customers.

JUGHNE

Steve, do you use DD with a multiplier for wind speed.

Is wind speed ever considered for HDD?
(Which I assumed was used for auto delivery.)

STEVEusaPA

JUGHNE said:

Steve, do you use DD with a multiplier for wind speed.

Is wind speed ever considered for HDD?
(Which I assumed was used for auto delivery.)

I don't know of anyone or any computer program who compensates HDD besides me. But I know I get a lot of calls during an extended cold snap from other companies' customers because they ran out of oil, and their oil company is insisting they are not.
I could explain the concept in a video easier than I could type it. No fancy algorithms I just do it by feel.
The main problem when you don't adjust the DD's is the vast difference between shoulder season DDays and more importantly the K Factor, and a bitter cold stretch of times' DDays and K Factor. Most computer programs will take the last numbers and average them going into a cold snap, when they should jump ahead and change them to the worse case history. And they do the opposite (wrong) going into spring. This is why you (I) see a driver going around in the fall, thinking each house is going to take 150-175 gallons and they are taking 110-120 gallons. Of course this requires detailed record keeping.

But I basically look at yesterday's weather information, consider how windy it was, for how long, and just lower my low temperature reading on my spreadsheet. I can't explain it very well, but it works for me, and no one (knocking on wood) every runs out of oil. Obviously we can toss all of this as the best way is just total tank monitoring, but the price point isn't quite there yet.

Example 1, I'd knock off 7° off the low temperature.


Example 2, I'd knock off 11° of the low temp.


Clear as mud, right? LOL

Illinoisfarmer

To the post, I'll add: 1) Change the darn furnace filters more often. A cold snap means it's running more, and maybe your 'I just changed it last month' isn't enough. 2) Disconnect the garden hose. For Pete's sake, you aren't going to wash the car during a cold snap. Yeah, it might warm up next week, but leaving the hose attached to that frost proof spigot is going to bite you someday. and 3) Very few things (myself included) work the same at 0 degrees as they do at 70 degrees. Slow the heck down, think things through a little more carefully and remember that temperature affects both man and machine.

No heating oil here - but our FS guys have been awesome at keeping us in propane at several locations for decades. I can only remember once where we had an empty tank, and that was a new tenant that didn't set up an account. Last August, when the driver was here doing the summer fill, he was looking closely at the backup generator that we'd just installed. I saw him loitering around the tank and went up to say hi. Apparently, and it makes sense, propane generators throw the HDD calculations off - by a lot! He installed a remote reader on the tank. He said the Coop has been telling the drivers to add that technology when they have a patron with a generator - there's no good way to calculate usage.

Be safe out there!

WMno57