Saturday, December 22, 2012

Time to Head South?

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (low 27, high 63)

The predicted cold front arrived in Florida yesterday.  We are a little bit north of Tampa, so it’s a bit colder than in Tampa.

In anticipation of the cold weather, we went to the storage shed yesterday and got the electric blankets.  We have one for the bed and the one for the couch (for the kitties).  Yeah, I know they have fur coats, but you should see how pitiful they look when it gets cold.  Hey…they’re Florida kitties!

We were certainly glad we had the electric blankets last night because sometime around 4am, I heard the living room heat pump making an unusual noise.  I got up to investigate and soon it was making a terrible racket and then it shut down.  Uh-oh.  No fan, no noise, nothing. 

We have never been in this motor home when it got that cold and we didn’t know exactly what temperature the heat pump quit.  We had seen it work when it was 37 degrees.

We turned off the front heat pump and switched on the bedroom one.  It ran fine, but no heat came out.  The fan worked fine and it didn’t make any noise.  We didn’t leave it on long because we can’t stand either the a/c or the heat cycling on and off right over our heads.  It wasn’t warm anyway, so it didn’t matter.

We decided to start up the furnace for a little while and make sure it worked.  It was the first time we’ve used it, and it worked fine.  The airflow was so powerful that it was extremely noisy.  Merikay made a comment yesterday that she and Craig preferred their furnace to the heat pumps because of the noise, but ours was the opposite.  It warmed up the house in just minutes though.

We shut it down, cranked up the electric blankets another notch, covered up the kitties and snuggled back in bed.  

We have a thermometer with an outside sensor.  Here is what it read somewhere after 5am.  

2012-12-22_07-06-39_960

Mr. Baxter is the furriest cat I’ve even seen, and he never gets chilly….until last night.

Here he is laying on top of our bed on the electric blanket.  He still looked cold, so I covered him up….and there he stayed.

2012-12-22_05-46-01_8

We decided to stay under the covers until the outside temp got up to 35 degrees. 

Once we got up, we opened the shades to let some of that wonderful Florida sunshine warm us up.   We should have one more cold night and then it’s going to warm back up.  Thank goodness.  I had forgotten, but I HATE cold weather. 

We  decided to turn on the front heat pump and see what happened.  It ran fine, put out plenty of heat and was quiet.  I guess the loud racket it made last night was it struggling to keep working in the very cold weather?    It worries me though because the bedroom one didn’t make that noise when we turned it on for a few minutes when the temperature was very low.

Yesterday we started our Christmas shopping.  Yeah, yeah I know….we’re late!   Guess what we’re doing today?

14 comments:

  1. It's definitely time to head for warmer weather and definitely time to start Christmas shopping too!! At least you don't have to head too much farther south unlike us up here in the far north!

    Great pic of Baxter!

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  2. We don't much care for the colder weather either, but sure better than being back home in Canada. We have a little electric heater that takes the chill off pretty good.

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  3. Our furnace makes a racket when cycles on and off so we just use an electric heater that works great and takes the chill off. Time to head to Arizona, nice here.

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  4. I wasn't crazy about the temps last night here in Georgia either. Brr!

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  5. 24 degrees here in KY last night. Both heaters going full blast, and I still wore a hat to bed LOL! Headed south tomorrow, YAY!

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  6. you need to come further south...was a nice cool night here also..but we didn't need the heat until we got up this morning..kicked in the furnaces (they are very quiet thankfully) and was toasty warm in no time..then shut them down again...Baxter is a cute spoiled baby..and he has the right idea :)

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  7. Have you tried an electric heater? That's what we use for the cool nights when we are by the ocean in the summertime. We have one that has a thermostat (Vornado) and have been looking for another one to have one for both areas.

    Our kitties sleep on top of me so we share heat that way! That low temp is about the same that it's been being here in Kansas!

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  8. Our heat pump works down to 30 degrees which we found out last winter. It won't work tonight though as we're forecast to drop to 26.....so the Vornado is out and ready. Stay warm....Kozmo likes a blanket just like Baxter.

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  9. Heat pumps won't work when the weather gets really cold. It's just a law of physics thing.

    Glad your furnace worked well, they don't care how low the temps get.

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  10. As neophytes still even after a year of full-timing, we never knew the heat pump was only good for mildly cold weather. Our goal has been to stay above freezing but every now and then the nighttime temps dip into the low 30s like they did last night here in the Tampa area. Our trick is to let the dogs sleep with us and we all stay pretty cozy and warm. The crisp air makes it feel more like Christmas to me, but we are looking forward to the warming trend coming our way.

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  11. Wow - hope your weather warms up! When we were in Va Beach a couple of years ago at this time, it got down to the high 20's and we have to turn off the outside water and I plugged in a mechanics light in the wet bay.

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  12. Your heat pump will not only "not work" but will freeze up on the outside below 30. We don't use ours below 40 because the gas furnace really is more efficient at low temps.

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  13. Sheesh! Your temperatures are, surprisingly, colder than our temperatures here in the Pacific Northwest coat in British Columbia, Canada.

    Our weather tends to be quite damp in the winter though. We're heading to the southwest US leaving this December 29th.

    Keep warm!

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