January 8, 2004

• Okay, NOW it’s Cold!

  
  

  Different people have different notions of when cold is cold, even the same people at different times.  When I lived Outside, “cold” was when it was too cold to drive a sports car with the top down–that is, under 50 degrees.  We have different standards here– in Fairbanks, with notoriously variable temps–summer highs in the 90′s and winter lows around 60 below–some folks say it’s not really cold until it gets down to 40 below.  (I am talking Farenheit here, but FWI, 40 below is 40 below whether you are talking in Farenheit or Centigrade.)  A recent weather forecast for the soft city people in Anchorage said it would be “bitterly cold”, with a low of zero and single-digit highs.  Cold?  Shoot fire, that’s just brisk!   It has to be at least 10 below before I’ll admit that it’s “really” cold.

  
  

  I have my reasons.  Starting around 10 below, your nose hairs freeze when you inhale.  You can feel them, I dunno, sort of crinkle.  Not a pleasant sensation.  And eyes–you have to do this Clint Eastwood squinty thing, to keep your eyeballs from freezing.  Frozen eyeballs = no fun.  At least in my book.  And if you have asthma or any sort of respiratory problem, this kind of cold can take your breath away.  Literally.  Trust me on this, ten below is not healthy for old farts and many other living things.

  
  

  It’s not good for vehicles, either.  Lubricants, even 5-30 weight motor oils, get god-awful viscous.  In really cold weather, like around 40 below, you can stand on the surface of a tub-full of the stuff and not sink in. Even good batteries strain to turn the engine over, and not-so-good batteries simply die.  Once you do get a vehicle started, the clutch feels spongy and weird, and you can starin your shoulder muscles pretty good shifting gears.  Letting the car sit and idle forever doesn’t help; you gotta be rolling to warm up the tranny.

  
  

  Many people lucky enough to have electricity have block heaters, a little dingus that goes into the freeze plug hole to warm up the coolant a tad.  There are also oil pan heaters, same idea only they stick onto the outside of, you guessed it, the oil pan. There are even little insulated covers that slip over batteries and plug in to keep them at greater operating efficiency.  Some people have all three on their vehicles–I hate ot think what their electric bills must be.

  
  

  As far as that goes,  I shudder to think how much juice we are using up right now.  I have the block heater in the car turned on, and there are two 1500-watt ceramic heaters running in the trailer right now.  If I heat a cup of joe in the microwave, we are pulling a good 5000 watts or so.  (To put this in perspective, the little Honda generator we ran sometimes at the old place put out maybe 500 watts.)  I have no idea how much this load is stressing the electrical system in our old trailer.  Oh well, that’s what circuit breakers are for.

  
  

  I just peeked outside to check the thermometer.  Hooray, it’s warming up–now it’s only 13 below, up from 21 below earlier.  One nice thing about 21 below–it makes zero seem fairly comfortable.

  
  

   

  • 3:24 pm
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