Jump Start

It was 7 below zero this morning when Mom decided to take the kids down to wait for the bus. Yesterday afternoon, she just about froze waiting for a bus that was late (it was 16 degrees minus a wind chill). This morning, she decided to start the truck, let it warm up, then drive down to wait for the bus. To make a long story short, it was so cold the truck battery would not start the truck. So she started the Vue and took that down to the wait for the bus while I got to charge the truck battery. At least the Vue was all warmed up when I finally left for work.

I'm constantly amazed by battery technology (because it doesn't make sense to me). It takes something like 800 cold cranking amps to start your truck in cold weather. Yet, if I put a 6 amp battery charger on the battery for 15 minutes, the truck will start just fine. Why is that? It must only have put in something like 1.5 amp hours into the battery. It just doesn't add up. Add that to my list of "Mysteries of the Universe".

So I got to eat breakfast at home today. I stoked the fire again before I left for work. That brings to mind another mystery.

I know I can't heat the house with just wood because the oil furnace continues to run even when using the woodstove. However, the house does seem warmer and the furnace seems to run less often when the woodstove is burning. How much of a difference does the woodstove make?

With Black Ash (somewhat dry), I get about a 10 hour burn time with a full stove. It really doesn't even make the basement feel warm during this cold weather. Assuming I'm getting an output of 20K btu/hr which is mid-range what my stove is rated. So I get a total of 200K btu out of my load of black ash(19000K btu/cord) over that 10 hours. (effectively 95 stove loads worth per cord) So I probably save a little over 1.5 gal of heating oil (@139K btu per gallon) or $2.75 for my efforts or maybe $6.60 per day ($200/mo) when I burn dry black ash. Assuming my train of thought isn't flawed too badly, it probably really is worth supplementing with wood on these cold winter days not factoring in environmental impact, risk of fire, etc.

Is my thought process flawed? Have I solved at least one of my "Mysteries of the Universe"? Should I seek mental help?

Wintertime in Maine, a time for pondering and reflection.....