Brrrrrrrrowing In

It is the middle of winter and, as I write this, my Mrs and I are cocooning in the temperate indoors while everything outside is frozen solid. To those not from northern climes, this may sound exotic. For those of us who live here, however, it is one of those things that toughens us up.

There are things you have to master when you live through a cold snap. Like keeping your water pipes from freezing. Flowing water will not freeze, so it is advisable to keep a little trickle of water running from faucets. Every young northerner has to learn this one the hard way at some point. I understand that some southerners are learning this one this particular January. My friends and I did not know this in college, and spent a few days without running water while our landlord had to find a plumber to repair the after-effects of our stupidity.

Sometimes it doesn’t help even when you do know it. My sister and brother-in-law once lived in a small farm house that was heated with a wood stove. Nearby relatives promised to keep the literal home fires burning while they traveled to visit one year at Christmas. Nobody counted on massive snow drifts to accompany the sub-zero weather. That is sub-zero Fahrenheit, for those whose zero really means 32 degrees. Sis called me later and asked if I had ever experienced a frozen toilet. Thankfully, I have avoided that one thus far in life.

Sometimes that stupidity continues into adulthood. Like a couple of years ago when I forgot that there was a garden hose still hooked to the outdoor faucet in back of the house. When that hose has a nozzle on the end that keeps the whole works full of water, that water has a way of freezing and breaking the guts of the faucet so that a steady stream of water pours fourth from it. That one was expensive. I may have been foolish, but not so foolish as to try to fix it myself in subzero temperatures.

Getting cars started in the extreme cold is no longer the problem it once was. (I wrote about that one some time back). But waiting for the freezing cold surfaces in the car to come to a temperature that does not feel like it is sucking every degree of warmth from the seat of my pants (and that will clear the windshield of an icy coating of formerly warm, moist breath) is still to be endured.

But I find that I am becoming soft in my old age. For the first time in my life, I find that we own two cars with heated seats. And I like them. And our new car even has a heated steering wheel. I used to think that a heated steering wheel was a stupid thing for weenies who were not tough enough to withstand some cold weather. I no longer think that, because now that is the car I want to take when I have a choice.

At the moment I do not have to be anywhere so I will remain oh so toasty in the house with the thick sweats that have been pulled from the bottom drawer. I think I will cook some Cocoa Wheats for breakfast.

44 thoughts on “Brrrrrrrrowing In”

  1. We moved from Colorado to Kansas in December. Thirties aren’t too bad when it’s relatively dry, but — as I learned as a young Marine a couple of decades ago when stationed in Virginia — humidity makes tolerable dry cold intolerable.

    Accompanying that is the start-from-scratch database knowledge of how certain weather affects roads in our new area, how the local municipalities clear (or don’t bother) the roads, etc. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks.

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  2. We’ve been shivering here in Pennsylvania, too! This January, no one is asking, “Why don’t we have winters like we used to?”

    Getting cars started is no longer a gamble…I can remember when one sure sign of a “good car” was that it would regularly start without complaint in bitterly cold weather.

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    • Even my diesel work truck has started without complaint. It starts easier when it is plugged into an outlet which keeps the engine a little warm, but has started even without one.

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  3. Many people don’t know this, but the atmosphere is always one month behind the sun. December 21st is the “darkest day” with the least sunlight, so you would expect the coldest average temperatures to occur around that time. But they don’t. They occur one month later in the 4th week of January (right about now).

    Likewise, on the “brightest day” (June 20th) the sun is highest in the sky. But the hottest summer temperatures normally occur in late July (one month after the solstice).

    The simple reason for this is that the atmosphere is SO BIG that it takes time for the heating effects of greater sunlight to warm our temperatures uniformly. Just like it takes a long time for a pot to boil. And when we get less heat from the sun, it takes time for the atmosphere to cool.

    Living near the ocean, we New Jersey-ites experience somewhat warmer winter temperatures than people on the same latitude in western PA, Ohio, and Indiana. The ocean has the effect of modulating local air temperatures. In summer, temperatures “down the shore” are often lower than inland.

    Jean Shepherd’s tales of walking to school in giant snow drifts and arctic wind chills, and suffering through broiling hot summers in northern Indiana help me to appreciate living in NJ a little more (where things aren’t quite as bad!)

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    • I did not know about that one-month lag, but it certainly makes sense. This would probably explain why things are so temperate in late October and April. And yes, those of you who live near the coasts have the extreme highs and lows moderated. I am fortunate to be a little south of the big snow belt that blows east from The Great Lakes. South Bend, Indiana (at the northern border, and midway between the eastern and western edges of the state) gets the brunt of the snow here, on a normal basis, anyway.

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  4. Apparently, I’ve been very lucky as I never lived in a house where it was necessary to leave the water running to avoid freezing – even some of the questionable houses I rented while in college.

    I relay this story in the hopes that anyone reading it will realize that while its cold right now, it could be worse!
    We lived in the suburbs of Chicago for almost 20 years, and the winters of 83-85 were especially COLD. Anyway, we moved into a townhouse in Schaumburg in 1984 and purchased a used 78 or 79 Chevy Caprice with the ubiquitous small block 350 V8 engine.

    On January 20, 1985 Chicago O’Hare airport recorded the lowest temperature ever: MINUS 27 degrees! (that’s real temperature, NOT wind chill. look it up). That Caprice sat outside and was one of the very few cars on our street that started that day. Once upon a time I had worked outdoor jobs so had a super set of coveralls and winter gear, but after jump starting 3 neighbors’ vehicles, I couldn’t take it any longer.

    I simply left the car running on the street, with a note on the dash that said something like, “take this car, jump yours if needed, and please return it. It’s too cold for me to come outside”. I think possibly half a dozen neighbors took the car to get theirs started. It became legend in our small neighborhood. Times were simpler and safer back in those days, today that car probably would never have returned.

    One other observation which my wife and I still marvel at: at extreme cold temperatures, sound seems to travel farther and LOUDER – jets taking off from O’Hare and flying overhead that day sounded like they were driving down our street!

    PS: I just looked it up, and they say the wind chill that day in 1985 was minus 93 degrees!

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    • It was December of 1983 when sis’s entire plumbing system froze when the fires went out. She was in a county in northwest Indiana about an hour or so from Chicago.

      And yes, I doff my hat to folks from Chicago who get colder temps and stiffer winds that I ever have!

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    • Chad, I lived under one of the flight paths for the main airport in Milwaukee, a super cold area, of course, and I have to say, in the winter, the jets not only sounded louder, but “sharper”, it’s like the sound had way more high pitched “crackle”. Very annoying!

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    • Chad, when rereading this other night, I realized that I lived in Oak Park, Illinois, between 1986 and 1990. Two of those years, we had summers where the temperature was into the low 100’s for over a week! People actually died in their un-air conditioned apartments, both years! And there my friend, is the horror of Chicago weather! It can have winters that go in the negatives and summers that go over 100! Back when they used to have published books called “Places Rated Almanac”, an area of the country was marked down not only because of terrible lows or highs, but for very wide temperature spreads between summer and winter, one reason Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota always rate low.

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  5. Second comment – although both of my vehicles have heated seats and steering wheels, I have never turned them on. I don’t even know how, I just tough it out.

    Rented a Chrysler 300 or something for a trip several years ago in mid winter picked it up in the middle of the night. Even though its only 10 minutes from the airport to my house, I had to pull off the road and bail out as the seats were cooking my hind quarters. After much trial and error, I resorted to Google for instructions on how to turn them off using the computer screen in the middle of the dash – certainly was not intuitive. I guess maybe I’m just too old for those newfangled computer thingys!

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    • My new car is a Charger, so the same system. The thing defaults to high setting in cold weather, and I have to manually turn it to low every time. I think you could heat a can of soup on the high setting.

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  7. If you ever start buying new cars regularly, you will probably get seat warmers. I didn’t know I had them in the car I bought in September except that I accidentally turn them on when I am trying to figure out how to use the radio, rear window wiper, etc.. Or maybe I have a wiring problem and my car is going to be engulfed in flames any day now.

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  8. I never thought I’d need my car’s remote start here in the South to warm up (instead of cool down) the interior. The recent snow and cold temps have been impressive but I must remind myself they’re nowhere near the “lake effect” conditions I endured at Notre Dame in the winter. The moisture in the air makes all the difference towards “bone-chilling”.

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    • Yes, and you endured the tundra of South Bend back in the days when it would make a real man out of you!

      You remind me that my new car has remote start too. Though I keep forgetting to use it.

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  11. Have to laugh, I have a buddy whose brother retired and moved from Wisconsin to the “Red Neck Riviera” in Mississippi to escape the winter. He’s now sitting in six inches of snow, we have nothing but cold weather (0 to -10)! It’s warmer than we think, in the early 1970’s, when I was in college, it could be minus-whatever, weeks at a time. Not so much of that any more, altho this January has been brutal. My brother, who worked at newspapers, tracked this one time, and we truly DO seem to be getting more temperate. When I lived in Indianapolis and Zionsville, I was always amazed at the inappropriate residential construction that did not seem to be correct for the weather zone they were in? Who would build a house with a crawl space underneath? And then people push electric heaters under there to try and keep their pipes from freezing. Sorry, all basements and central heat here in Wisconsin, no one leaves their faucets dripping to keep from freezing; the houses are built correctly. Someone told me one time, there’s a reason Angie’s List was started in Indianapolis!

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    • Indianapolis has a clay soil that plays havoc on basements because it won’t drain worth anything. I once dug a hole in my front yard to fix a drain pipe leak. I figured the standing water would eventually seep into the ground. It never did. Old houses with basements are plagued with leaks.

      The other problem here is that we can’t decide if this area is the southern edge of the north or the northern edge of the south. I think the answer of volume builders is “whichever is cheapest”.

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      • BTW, in Wisconsin, Halloween is the day you go down to the basement, shut off the water feeder pipes to the outside spigots (the lever is usually right inside from the spigot), and then go outside and open them up, and leave then open! I was unaware of this as a “yout”, but even a tiny bit of water left in the spigot can snap something if it freezes! I thought you just had to make sure they were shut off outside, but I was disabused of this before I cost anybody any money!

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  12. It’s been cold here in New England, although ostensibly we’re supposed to be “used to this” since cold temperatures and snow are our only excuses (historically at least) for extreme weather conditions. The rest of the year, it’s generally pretty moderate and undramatic. Again, until recently that is.

    Nevertheless, it’s still damn cold and no one should be “used” to having it negative 8 degrees (F) outside when it’s time to walk the dogs at dawn. The faucet in the laundry room has been running at a slow drip for most of the past month. LIkewise, we’ve given up opening the front door or using the sliding door to the deck and instead only come and go through the garage (less heat released that way). This lends a certain Ice Station Zebra, or perhaps Maxwell Smart going into Control Headquarters, aspect to our regular comings and goings. This year, as in a “typical” winter (which we’re kind of having this year albeit with still less snow than usual), that’s going to be how it is until probably the middle March….if not until Mud Season in April.

    Mostly, the cars live in the garage, and that’s how they make it through the winter and keep on keeping on. Well, 2 out of 3 of them live in the garage. The other day, I decided to go put the car that spends the winter outdoors under-cover (our geriatric Volvo) on its battery tender. But once I removed the cover, and got into the car, I got the wild idea to check and see if it actually needed the tender. The car hasn’t been started/driven since Thanksgiving, and it was 15 degrees outdoors, but lo and behold the thing – in keeping with its practice, sturdy agricultural Swede that it is – started up on the first attempt. I’ve decided to honor that fortitude by driving it for a couple of days…which will sufficiently charge up the battery such that a tender won’t be necessary for the rest of the winter. This also means that I don’t have to run an extension cord half way down the driveway. I’ll re-cover and stow the car before the roads get wet again as there’s no reason to expose it to any more road salt than necessary.

    I will say that a heated steering wheel is about the only option that I wish I had on my car that I don’t have on my car.

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    • Wow, I have a cold-weather car feature that you lack in frozen New England – I’m gobsmacked!

      My aged almost-free Mazda sits outside with no cords, no cover, no nothing. Yet it has started every time. The 18 year old seat heaters work just fine, and the engine warms up quickly. But this extreme weather shows that the heater air isn’t as hot as it should be. Is it an automatic temp system old enough to vote that is not everything it should be? Or is the heater core losing efficiency? Down to the low 20s the car is great. In really cold weather I grab the fob for the Charger.

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  13. I will say, battery technology is far advanced from even 30 years ago! In order to never get stuck in the cold, I always changed my car battery In the fall right before what would be the 4th winter on the battery. Since then, I rarely if ever have been stuck with a dead winter battery. Now, it seems like you get a hint it’s not going to make it far before it actually dies, and it’s usually far longer than that 3+ winter timing of old! My last Toyota, I don’t think I changed the battery for 8 years.

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      • This is one more reason why the Highlander Hybrid lives in the garage all winter. Toyota gave it a tiny battery since all that battery is supposed to do is to fire up the computer. Nevertheless, that little thing gets regularly killed in cold weather.

        The Fit is on its second battery in 10 years – although the first may have been killed by a bad alternator and a parasitic drain caused by its former owner installing one of those driving behavior monitors plugged into the OBD port. After a replacement alternator, a new battery, and removal of the OBD device, it’s lasted several years wintering in upstate NY. Fingers crossed.

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  15. I understand how difficult it is when it gets cold and/or snowy in places that are not equipped for that kind of weather!

    In Alberta we are used to cold and snow. We have between 150 and 200 days a year where the temperature falls below freezing. We will usually get a cold snap in the winter that lasts a few weeks – temperatures can get down to -35C (-31F). Canada is the second coldest country in the world which is likely one of the reasons we are one of the world’s top energy users.

    We just arrived in Arizona a few days ago. We are enjoying the weather because it feels like a warm spring day in Alberta. The temps here hover right around freezing at night. Daytime temps are about 9C (48F). Perfect!

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  16. JP – I “get” it … all of this, including the dripping at every faucet, multiple small loads of laundry to keep the pipes warm and cupboard doors open where pipes are behind … all things I did this week and several times in late December/early January as well. Today I finally lowered the heat to 74 as I cranked it up to 75 for those three coldest days. It is nice to stay inside on days like this. It was too bitter cold for a walk, so my only walk has been to the garage to run the car for a half-hour. I get a battery every few years and just got one last Fall, plus I have a battery trickle charger on 24/7/365, so that helps too. She started right up. I drive back and forth inside the garage to get the gears moving if I don’t go out – we got snow on top of the cold. Hurry Spring!

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    • We keep the thermostat at 63 all winter. Our house is not drafty, so it works (in combination with sweatshirts and extra blankets on the bed. It makes me feel better about the 70 degree setting during a/c season.

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      • Oh my goodness – I would freeze at 63 degrees! I had all-house insulation installed in 2017 (the type that is a combination of cellulose and foam), but I don’t see that it has helped in my opinion. I normally have it set at 73 all Winter, but increased it to 74 for the cold spell before the Polar Vortex. In the Summertime, you’ll laugh at this … my A/C is set at 76 and if it’s above 90 degrees, I put it to 75. I don’t like having it ice cold in the house. The old A/C had a different SEAR rating and at the 75 degree setting you could hang meat in the house. I’d often dash out to bask in the sun for a few minutes as I’d be inside with a sweatsuit on as my mom liked it cold.

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      • Linda, I had to laugh about the air conditioning. My older sister spent her entire working life in the Deep South, and used to say: “Well, you know, people down here only set their air conditioning for about ten degrees colder than outside, it’s mostly to get the humidity out of the air.” When I lived in D.C., I was seriously dating a woman born and raised in Alabama, whose father was an engineer, and she said my sister was “daft”. Their house had a central air conditioner on each side of the house, to keep up with the cooling, and she said they kept the temp down low enough so you had to wear a sweater and there was frost on the inside of the windows! Ditto for most all of her friends!

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