Things are looking up

Things are looking better every day. We're back into the 40's at least and the sun is melting much of the snow. Here's what sunrise looked like this morning.


Just last weekend, when the snow finally came to an end. a view out the second floor window netted this scene to the north. Our wood pile - kept close to the house for emergency heating - was nearly buried in deep drifts and the pines hung heavily with snow.

But now we're looking at another way to heat this old house: a heat pump. When we moved here in 1987, fuel oil was $0.69/gallon. When we had our last delivery (in February), it was over $3.20/gallon. Obviously, oil prices are out of control and we want nothing more to do with it. We decided on a heat pump, both to warm the house in the winter and to cool it in the summer. We'll use electrical resistive heating for back-up (when it's 15 degrees or below). Here's the new furnace as it's being prepared. It's tiny! The furnace we installed 21 years is somewhere in between the one we took out and this new one. The efficiency is supposed to be much better, too.

Comparing the old compressor (l) and the new heat pump (r) shows the new unit is much larger. Here it's being staged for installation. The 'old' compressor will be moved for use on the second floor furnace since its compressor was installed in 1987. Better to chance the new one lasting longer.