I have mentioned that we have planted ourselves here because of the climate. I love the ocean and beach, but I don't love the 85-98 degrees with humidity making you have to stay inside with the AC running.
You have all heard the saying " you can always put on more clothes, but you can only take off so much"
We picked this area plopped down in the Sierra Madres because of it's climate.
So we can put on a sweater or go to long sleeve shirts when we exit the house, which makes us comfy again.
Inside the house is another story.
We don't have any AC here, not that we need it, but we also don't have any heaters.
We have 3 fireplaces and the fireplaces need food.
A renewable resource to all the greenies.
We got the food supply for them today.
December, January and February are the coldest months here. Those are also the months that thoughts of warm beaches and swaying palm trees appear to dance in our heads.....
We are only about 3 to 4 hours away from the nice warm coast of Mexico.
Playa Azul is a sleepy little coast side village or Zihuatanejo is another place although not as sleepy. We are thinking about zipping westward for a getaway sometime soon.
Then there is Ixtapa if you really don't want any sleep at all and all that action makes you have to have daily trips to the ATM machine.
Anyway, we had our firewood delivery today. So now we can toss a few sticks into the fireplaces to keep from wearing multiple layers of clothing inside for the next few months.
It kind of reminds me of the old saying, water , water everywhere but not a drop to drink. We have acres of trees, but it is sugarpine, which clogs up the chimney like you wouldn't believe......
7 comments:
We should do a trade sometime, you guys.
Looks like young oak,hope it lasts you all winter!
We have two fireplaces, one upstairs, one down. Rarely use them. When we built our house almost nine years ago and moved here we brought a pile of firewood that I had purchased for the previous joint, a rental. Not a big pile either. It's still out there, smaller than before but not by much. It likely will last another decade.
All of which is to say we don't use the fireplaces much. They really don't do much unless you stand right in front of them.
Two portable gas heaters work far better.
Bundle up.
Growing up in the country, we had a big steel box that we used to burn wood in the living room. The box was built from half-inch plate steel. It was setup next to a stonewall. Once the stone wall warmed up, the house stayed a pretty even temperature. The whole setup weighed about five tons. Thermal mass is the key to wood heating. The stone wall would give back stored heat for days after the burner had gone cold.
On the pine wood building up crud inside the flue: hot fires are the cure but you have to have a good crack free flue. We lived on an old Christmas tree farm so pine was what we used for heat, never a problem, the flue was an old joint of oil well casing.
Nancy,
That sounds like a plan, but we'll have to figure out a time when your temperatures are not in the low 90's with 98% humidity. Last time we were in your beautiful town, we were inside most of the time.....
Jerry, depends on how cold it will get in the next month or so.
Felipe,
Your fireplaces are nothing more than a wood burner, only heating if you stand in front of them. For some reason the locals haven't figured out efficient wood stoves here. Our wood stoves are pretty efficient, especially since they were all manufactured in Canada...I think those Canucks should know how to make a toasty wood stove, from necessity. I thought of a couple of gas heaters, but sweaters were a lot cheaper.
Norm, sounds like you had practical construction techniques. Reminds me of what my grandmother described the ovens that they slept on in old Russia. When I heard that, I was amused since the ovens here are nothing like they had in the old country. Those ovens took up the better part of the room and where used for cooking as well as thermal mass heating for the whole room ( house) seems that they were pretty common in the cold, freezing areas of Europe and Asia.....
No fireplaces nor chimineas here on el Rancho. We do have 3 portable gas heaters, and I have one going now, a couple of feet from where I sit. I also have on a sort of watch cap, fleecy pullover, socks, slippers and a pair of scrub pants over my pajama bottoms. It's only only November 16.
Where we live now is lower in elevation than where we first lived when we cam e to Michoacán. The house gets more daytime heat through its many windows, so it's generally more than tolerable here.
Back in the Arkansaw Ozarks, where we lived in a rented woodland home for 8 years in the '80s, we had a Warm Morning wood stove that heated the living/dining room very well. It was a big living room, too, and it had that thick rock wall behind it to radiate heat.
The downside were the two chimney fires we had. It's like hearing a 707 taking off in the living room. It's truly a scary experience, but fortunately for us, we had a flue that was true, and our wood frame house did not catch fire.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
Just be sure to keep the dogs warm!
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