Posted By: JoinerTo make you all feel better (except Paul who's over there), this just came from my brother in Montreal...

It was a pretty wild day yesterday started off around -10C yesterday morning and stayed there most of the day with snow and then freezing rain. Temperature climbed to +5 by 1am ... at midnight there was fog and light winds of 11km/h - then boom - at 1am gusts hit 100km/h (not as bad as you all had in Scotland - but very unusual for us) and the temperature started to plummet so that it was -11C by 8am this morning, where it's been ever since. Still, warmer than last weekend when the daytime high stayed below -18C with an overnight low of -23C - though is milder than we usually see.

It's always interesting to see just how fast the temperature can change here - especially when it has risen to above freezing and then plunges with flash-freeze warnings. One time I was staying in Banff and saw the temperature drop from -1C to -19C in the space of an hour!

Biggest change I saw over a longer period of time was a couple of years ago - at the end of Jan we hit -33C overnight - 6 weeks later and it was +33C. Ah, the joys of a Continental climate where we're at the mercy of the location of the jet stream!

Paul in Montreal.

My now-broken exterior thermostat is reading -50C: maybe I should send it over?

Rgds

Damon

I went to Toronto, it is still in the 1890's
But felt modern as I had just come up from Harrisberg, PA

Thought I'd add that it was 18.5 C blue skies and sunny when I abandoned the mission to buy more electric radiators (on the grounds that, this being France, all the shops are shut on a Sunday) and went to the beach. Temp has dropped of course since the sun went down.

Went to the beach as well, bit grey though.

I am feeling guilty about many things, one is getting the Linux Box working, hopefully this coming week.
Sky was getting dark, have a picture of it

Yes, all very lovely temperature wise today, mine is currently using 4.3 kWh/day, which is virtually nothing.

Farming Today (that's before 6AM on Radio 4) were joking a bit about the next months weather, 50/50 that it would stay as it is or go back to normal. Good on them.

Wimp, you should have put some thermals on

User,Heating On,Date,Latitude,Altitude,Heating Type
Tony,Yes,29/01/2012,--,--,--
Dimengineer,Yes,17/10/2011,51.5N,--,--
Nick Parson,Yes,18/10/2011,53.3N,--,Gas Combi Condensing Wood Burners
DamonHD,Yes,04/11/2011,51.5N,14,Gas Combi
Timber,Yes,21/10/2011,51.6N,203,Gas Condensing
JeffB,Yes,21/10/2011,51.9N,115,Wood Pellet Boiler
Jamesingram,Yes,16/10/2011,--,--,--
Qeipl,Yes,18/10/2011,57N,5,ASHP+Solid Fuel Boiler
Skyewright,Yes,13/10/2011,57N,100,Electric (Funny Tariff)
Dickster,Yes,16/10/2011,52N,--,--
Orangemannot,Yes,18/10/2011,55N,50,--
Steamytea,Yes,30/11/2011,50.2N,101,E7
JSHarris,Yes,18/10/2011,51N,70,Gas Condensing
Gotanewlife,Yes,19/10/2011,42.5N,500,--
Wookey,Yes,23/10/2011,52.2N,14,Wood TS?
Paul In Montreal,Yes,12/10/2011,45.3N,50,GSHP
Jules,Yes,27/10/2011,51.2N,120,Gas
RobL,Yes,17/10/2011,52.2N,14,Gas Condensing Wood Burner
Martint,Yes,17/10/2011,52.9N,130,--
Ecohome,Yes,18/10/2011,51.1N,157,Oil Combi
Broy,Yes,21/10/2011,47N,80,Wood Stove
JeremyS,Yes,18/10/2011,57.7N,160,Oil Rayburn
Joiner,Yes,??/10/2011,52.3N,82,Gas Combi
Chippyclaus,Yes,15/10/2011,52N,96,Wood Gas
mw116,Yes,16/10/2011,54N,15,Gas Non Condensing
Spike,No,--/--/----, 51.3N, 72, Gas condensing + wood burner
Mrs.Whitecat,--,--/--/----,43.5N,635,Electric (French Tariff)

Oddly enough, I like a warm place, grew up in the Far East, then the West Indies and South of France. If I had my way I would be in shorts and a t-shirt all the time.
But having said that, when I moved to this place and realised there was no chance of getting gas, I decided that changing my behaviour was the biggest thing I could do. I start the day with a hot shower, move to the 'front room' when the sun moved to there (worth about 3 C when sunny that is), I keep an eye on what is being used (this cold snap is bugging me as the tiny fan heater is working much more than usual when it is -4C).
One problem I do have is thinking up some 'rules' when to turn the heating off. Being storage heaters getting it wrong means either a cold or hot house. I tend to leave them on much longer than necessary.
My Lodger, bless her cotton socks, is either too hot or too cold, but I have to point out to her that she often walks around in just jeans a t-shirt. And she sits around a lot, and I mean a lot, the concept of actually moving does not exist with her. She will also open a window fully when she is feeling warm, then leave it open until I point out to her that it has been dark for several hours. In all fairness to her she does have a third of her brain totally non functioning, another third with problems (hence the lack of temperature control) but the bit at the front is a normal 30 year old females, so probably filled with fluffy things like kittens or pink clothes, or whatever it is that girls think of, certainly not kWh and Delta T's

I always thought Diane Keaton looked good dressed like that in Annie Hall.

Sprocket,
my target temperatures are 20oC for 2.5 hrs in the morning and 6 hrs at night, 18.5oc all day and fallback to 17.5oc at night. The inner leaf of the external walls and the internal walls are dense brick; setting fallback at the classical 15oC did not work for us as the thermal mass will maintain 17-18oc most days and nights. The room sensor/controller is linked to an external sensor for weather compensation; overshooting of the target temperatures due to CH never occurs; only slightly with indirect solar gain from adjacent rooms.
The installer insisted on putting the room sensor in the main sitting room with no TRVs. The whole house would be switched off during an evening watching TV. When insulating the floors , I took the opportunity to re-route the sensor/controller to the inner hall, 6m from a small radiator near the front door, where the temperature is very stable surrounded by a lot of thermal mass.
At this location, with the target temperatures above, the TRVs around the house have been adjusted to give 20-22oC in my wife's bedroom and the bathrooms, 16-18oC in my bedroom, dining room and the kitchen, and 15-16oC in 2 unused* bedrooms ( *1 used as a study with pullovers!).
The sitting room retains the non-thermostat valves as they are 'designer'; SWMBO forbids their removal! Careful tweaking has set this room to be 18oC until the 32” LCD TV (168W) has been on for a while to give 22+oC, eventually.
Although set to 20oC in heating periods, it is rare to find the room sensor temperature above 19.5oC; the CH is OFF in anti-cycling mode a lot of the time. The maximum flow temperature is 57Oc but usually less due to the weather compensator.
Marital harmony maintained although she yawns whenever insulation etc are mentioned, and even, dare I say ,when she catches me on GBF, often!

User,Heating On,Date,Latitude,Altitude,Heating Type
Tony,Yes,29/01/2012,5.4N,--,--
Dimengineer,Yes,17/10/2011,51.5N,--,--
Nick Parson,Yes,18/10/2011,53.3N,--,Gas Combi Condensing Wood Burners
DamonHD,Yes,04/11/2011,51.5N,14,Gas Combi
Timber,Yes,21/10/2011,51.6N,203,Gas Condensing
JeffB,Yes,21/10/2011,51.9N,115,Wood Pellet Boiler
Jamesingram,Yes,16/10/2011,--,--,--
Qeipl,Yes,18/10/2011,57N,5,ASHP+Solid Fuel Boiler
Skyewright,Yes,13/10/2011,57N,100,Electric (Funny Tariff)
Dickster,Yes,16/10/2011,52N,--,--
Orangemannot,Yes,18/10/2011,55N,50,--
Steamytea,Yes,30/11/2011,50.2N,101,E7
JSHarris,Yes,18/10/2011,51N,70,Gas Condensing
Gotanewlife,Yes,19/10/2011,42.5N,500,--
Wookey,Yes,23/10/2011,52.2N,14,Wood TS?
Paul In Montreal,Yes,12/10/2011,45.3N,50,GSHP
Jules,Yes,27/10/2011,51.2N,120,Gas
RobL,Yes,17/10/2011,52.2N,14,Gas Condensing Wood Burner
Martint,Yes,17/10/2011,52.9N,130,--
Ecohome,Yes,18/10/2011,51.1N,157,Oil Combi
Broy,Yes,21/10/2011,47N,80,Wood Stove
JeremyS,Yes,18/10/2011,57.7N,160,Oil Rayburn
Joiner,Yes,??/10/2011,52.3N,82,Gas Combi
Chippyclaus,Yes,15/10/2011,52N,96,Wood Gas
mw116,Yes,16/10/2011,54N,15,Gas Non Condensing
Spike,No,--/--/----, 51.3N, 72, Gas condensing + wood burner
Mrs.Whitecat,--,--/--/----,43.5N,635,Electric (French Tariff)
Marktime,04/02/2012,28.3N,90,1kW Fanheater

Hmm, mine about the 29th though it had not actually been used for a few days before that, so maybe 25th?

Rgds

Damon

Was considering turning ours off and accepting the complaints of the younger generation, but it' on today. Wet, snowy, miserable (and that's just me!) :)