Brrrrr It's Cold!

We spent the next few months working on outside projects. Weeding, cutting up the large trees that were laying in the front yard and adjusting to our new home. We also installed a new, high efficiency, propane boiler and water tank to heat the house.

That winter was very cold and snowy. We went through an amazing amount of propane and realized that we would have to do something different the following year to supplement the new boiler. Eric had installed a coal fired boiler in the milk shed to heat his shop in the barn. When spring finally arrived it was decided we would replace that boiler with a larger one and dig a 250ft trench between the barn and the house to pipe hot water through to feed the baseboard heat in the house.

The biggest concern was heat loss to the ground so we had a spray-foam insulation contractor foam the 6 inch pipe the heating pipes ran through. Success! We were much warmer the following winter. We still use the propane boiler in the shoulder seasons.

Later that year we were putting new porch flooring on the kitchen porch. When we removed the old porch floor we discovered that the only thing between the old outside basement entrance under the porch and the inside of the basement was a sheet of paneling. No wonder we used so much propane!!