stubbed toes and mud pies

digitS'

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We are having air stagnation warnings and the smell outdoors is testimony of the 74 rating – right in the middle of the "moderate" levels. It may my imagination but I think that I am now beginning to smell it indoors.

The stagnation has gone on for 3 days and will be history, tomorrow. The WS tells us that wind gusts may be in the high 30's mph. We will see if their near certainty regarding me waking up to snow and whether it might change to rain in the afternoon with the temperature a few degrees above freezing.

It has been surprising that the conditions of sunshine and chill have remained the same so long. Three weeks! Their longer term predictions are for both below normal temperatures and normal precipitation. I think that this almost has to translate to snow for the next 10 days, or so. That doesn't mean snow everyday but a series of storms coming in, probably of a fairly light measure. Anyway, fresher air –– and how about Your Indoor Air today?

digitS'
 

Dahlia

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We are having air stagnation warnings and the smell outdoors is testimony of the 74 rating – right in the middle of the "moderate" levels. It may my imagination but I think that I am now beginning to smell it indoors.

The stagnation has gone on for 3 days and will be history, tomorrow. The WS tells us that wind gusts may be in the high 30's mph. We will see if their near certainty regarding me waking up to snow and whether it might change to rain in the afternoon with the temperature a few degrees above freezing.

It has been surprising that the conditions of sunshine and chill have remained the same so long. Three weeks! Their longer term predictions are for both below normal temperatures and normal precipitation. I think that this almost has to translate to snow for the next 10 days, or so. That doesn't mean snow everyday but a series of storms coming in, probably of a fairly light measure. Anyway, fresher air –– and how about Your Indoor Air today?

digitS'
Our air quality here rates as "good" at a score of 41. We are supposed to get wind and snow this weekend! That will be our first snow for the year!
 

flowerbug

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is there some kind of fire or large industry in the area? i remember the eastern TN mountain valleys getting stuffed up in the winters if there was a temperature inversion trapping the coal burner smoke in the valley. around here we do have some fog layers at times and smoke from people burning wood, but not nearly as bad as it could be.

so what is stuffing you up there?

indoor air quality here is ok today, the nice lady at the furnace people (we've known her since we were kids, etc.) said to just keep it at a steady temperature and so that is what we've been doing all day.

i went out for a walk and it was pretty nice out for a late January day (30-40F and 10mph wind out of the south) and SUNSHINE! wheee! :) felt good to get a walk in even if i kept it short. very fresh air.

3 small deer were running across the field towards me and then finally noticed me about 50ft away then they decided to run to the north and crossed into the neighbor's yard and then to the woods they were likely aiming at to begin with. youngsters.
 

digitS'

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mountain valleys
The valley isn't a small one but there are a lot of homes and lots of traffic.

Twenty days of calm and continuous below freezing temperatures before the storm to move in tonight and the air becomes loaded. There may have been several afternoons where, here & there, it was actually above freezing but I don't believe that was here at home nor in any communities at a higher elevation. At least, oil and wood heat/smoke aren't as common as they once were.
 

flowerbug

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New Zealand mountain gets same legal rights as a person​



"
The mountain is not the first of New Zealand's natural feature's to be granted legal personhood.

In 2014, the Urewera native forest became the first to gain such status, followed by the Whanganui River in 2017."

while i am a big fan of conservation and respect for the environment and natural features i also think that calling something else than a person a person is confusing the issues. as this is a cultural idea i'm also ok with that, but in the end no, the two things are not the same...
 

flowerbug

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we have one estimate in for replacing the furnace. i hope to have another estimate in by tomorrow afternoon or early next week.

the existing furnace is barely putting out any heat so i've largely switched to a small electric space heater and when it is too cold for it to keep up i turn on the oven for a few minutes and that will heat this entire house up several degrees in less than a half hour.

the only reason i'm running the furnace now is to heat the crawlspace up enough to keep the pipes from freezing. it's not really doing much for heating the house up here. i can feel the air is slightly warm but there's a lot of wasted heat just going out the vent pipe at this point.

the small space heater (it's less than a foot square) can keep the house at temperature as long as it isn't too windy out or too cold and we have electricity. we have some cold nights coming up so we'll be needing another one (which we have out in the garage that i can find and bring in) or just turn the oven on again.

as soon as we get propane delivered then we can go back to using the fake fireplace if we want. personally i'd rather use the electric space heaters as they are probably more efficient for the price. i made the mistake of not checking the propane level as often as i should have since i knew the furnace wasn't working that great so it was burning more than i thought it was. i do have the call in for getting a refill but we may not have that happen before the weekend and we have some cold nights coming so i would really like to be topped off even if i can't really use the furnace as much as i'd like i still have to use it enough to keep the crawlspace warm enough.
 
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