how true is this about evergreen colorado (Denver, Littleton: house, transfer)

[Cali4nia925]

Thanks for all the comments, very helpful. We do plan on visiting in December so well see how that goes. We are not expecting anything over 90 degrees we know it's the mountains. Is this place so lonely that the kids won't have any friends, is there anything walking distance can alot of places be in walking and bike distance for my boys

[pinebluestem]

My aunt used to lived in Evergreen on Oberstrass Rd. Nice area and seen some ranch with cattle and/or horses in the area. I do recall in the summer around 1-3 pm they usually get a short rain storm. Not always but a lot.

Is that painting of the deer still on the face of a rock along 73?

[alliern]

So I am sitting at a turf field during my sons' rugby practice in South Evergreen right now (almost 7pm) and it's 56 degrees, the field is packed with kids all wearing shorts and t-shirts and my view of the surrounding mountains and a field of buffalo is spectacular. I just snapped some pictures and would be happy to send them to you.

The weather in Evergreen is actually quite pleasant most of the year. Yes, we get the occasional dip into the negative numbers at night. But, there are many 60-70 degree days in November, December, even January. Seriously. It's a dry climate and it doesn't feel cold to me until it hits around 18 degrees. We do have winds that come seasonally. Certain areas do get windier than others in the foothills. You always keep a layer or two in your car in case the weather changes throughout the day...I'd rather not have to close my house up and air condition it all summer long like Denver residents have to and be cold on a few days in the winter months. It's really about what you want and can tolerate.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by alliern

So I am sitting at a turf field during my sons' rugby practice in South Evergreen right now (almost 7pm) and it's 56 degrees, the field is packed with kids all wearing shorts and t-shirts and my view of the surrounding mountains and a field of buffalo is spectacular. I just snapped some pictures and would be happy to send them to you.

The weather in Evergreen is actually quite pleasant most of the year. Yes, we get the occasional dip into the negative numbers at night. But, there are many 60-70 degree days in November, December, even January. Seriously. It's a dry climate and it doesn't feel cold to me until it hits around 18 degrees. We do have winds that come seasonally. Certain areas do get windier than others in the foothills. You always keep a layer or two in your car in case the weather changes throughout the day...I'd rather not have to close my house up and air condition it all summer long like Denver residents have to and be cold on a few days in the winter months. It's really about what you want and can tolerate.

That's just a wee bit of an exaggeration. I guarantee you that we used the A/C more times in one year in Dallas than we have in the 3 summers we've been in this house combined, and even when it does come on it's off at sundown and the windows are open 'til dawn.

[alliern]

It gets very hot in Denver and there is no real shade either. My sister and her family and many of my friends live in the metro area. I spend quite a bit of time at their homes. Every person is different and can tolerate different temperatures differently, but the folks I know run their air conditioners. I can only comment on what I know and experience.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by alliern

It gets very hot in Denver and there is no real shade either. My sister and her family and many of my friends live in the metro area. I spend quite a bit of time at their homes. Every person is different and can tolerate different temperatures differently, but the folks I know run their air conditioners. I can only comment on what I know and experience.

I can count on one hand the number of times I ran my A/C last summer. We have a whole house attic fan and run it during the night. It cools the house down to the 60s and then we close the house up during the day. Late afternoon it starts to get warm inside and by evening, we open back up again. The only time we need to run A/C is if the overnight lows don't get in to the mid 60s.

But I do agree with you on the cold in Evergreen. Looking at average low temps is misleading. The lows come overnight. The daytime temps are typically quite bearable.

Also to the OP, Evergreen is hardly isolated. There are tons of families and kids there. It's a nice place to live and raise a family of you don't want city living. Much nicer than most of the Denver area suburbs.

[NW Crow]

Is it a Denver or stay put decision or would you consider Reno, Boise, Albuquerque, Medford or Prescott? Those places offer milder winters and longer summers.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by alliern

It gets very hot in Denver and there is no real shade either. (snip).

BULLSH*T

As someone who lived in the Denver metro area, ranging from Park Hill, Capitol Hill, Commerce City, Hilltop, 6th Ave and 7th Ave Parkway areas, Northglenn, Littleton, Old Crestmoor, Wash Park to the DU area, and Ken Caryl ... From the late 1960's through to 2000 ...

I never had a house with air conditioning and never felt like we needed it, either.

Some of those houses had whole house attic fans, and a few had window mounted swamp coolers which were very effective in the dry climate. For the most part, the swamp coolers were run only a few days per year and I used to wonder if it was even worth all the effort to keep them clean, serviced, and drained/covered for the winter months.

In each of the areas I lived, we had quite a lot of trees. Not woods, but sufficient trees to provide wind and sun breaks. When I bought my house in Park Hill (a few blocks away from Colfax @ Colorado Ave's), the century old trees there were so dense in the long neglected back yard that we had to remove half of them and aggressively trim the rest. Opening up the space was so dramatic that my adjacent neighbors had the arborists clean up their trees and remove many, too.

I have a lot of friends in the Evergreen and Conifer areas. Many of them are in areas where the local topography is heavily shaded by the hillsides around them and the result is sites that receive minimal sunshine, if any, during the winter months. To the extent that these houses are iceboxes in the winter months, typically from October through to May.

Please keep in mind that there's a significant altitude increase to go to Evergreen from Denver and the temperature lapse rate is approximately 3 F per thousand feet. While a nice respite from the temperatures on a summer day on the Front Range, in the winter those 3,000' of elevation can be a 10F lower temp during the daytime. At night, given the prevailing mountain winds with frontal passages, it can be a even larger temperature swing to be in much of Evergreen.

Got friends living in a nice open stand of trees off of Gray Fox up that way who cannot stand the cold anymore ... and that's after upgrading their well insulated house with two pellet stoves and an oversized capacity HWBB heat high efficiency (98%) boiler system. The only way that house will ever be comfortable in the winter months will be to install a radiant floor heating system, which they've done in the bathrooms as a proof of concept and to gauge the cost of operating it PSF. While the "official" overnight temp in Evergreen may be in the low-mid teens, they typically see 0 F temps due to their very sheltered location.

As well, had several friends with houses up behind the Brook Forest Inn. Same localized temperatures with the hillsides blocking the sun in the winter months.

Consider, too, that these locations can present interesting challenges getting into/out of your property. Yes, the roads are plowed ... but not your driveway unless you do so yourself. I've seen a lot of Evergreen properties with modest little hillside access locations that would be a normal gradient in CA towns (and I grew up in Point Loma and am very familiar with SoCal housing and streets) ... that are utterly charming in the fair weather months. Come wintertime, and it's a whole new experience.

As alliern would observe, it's all what you're used to for temps and comfort. But to claim that Denver is insufferably hot and requires A/C and sealing up one's house for the summer months and the houses don't have mature shade trees in established neighborhoods is beyond a slight shading of the truth ... it's a total lie. All you need to do is go tour the neighborhoods and look at how the landscaping has been planned and established and grown through the years. To assert there "is no real shade" is simply BULLSH*T.

PS: I visit a lot of friends in the Denver metro area and NONE of them have A/C units. They all rely upon the shade trees around their houses and the natural cooling of the evening breezes. Once the sun sets, Denver's daytime to nighttime typical temp drops are significant. A few open windows, perhaps an attic ventilator fan, and a window mount fan to promote a cross-flow airflow exchange if there's no breeze is quite sufficient for comfort. In fact, I usually turn off the fans and close windows a lot after about 10PM in most of the Denver area houses I visit. Keep in mind ... I'm acclimated to cold weather temps in Colorado with a 2nd home in Vail, many friends in the Aspen area, and have done a lot of tent camping in everywhere from Gunnison to Frasier CO, including winter camping in those areas since 1964. My primary residence now is at 6,000' elevation here at my ranch in WY, where the winters are long and weeks of not seeing 0F for a daytime high are not an unusual winter. We expect to see -mid teens below zero for overnight lows each winter here.

PPS: Gardening at Evergreen elevation. Check out "tunnel greenhouse" structures such as you might see in a FarmTek catalogue. These can be useful to extend your gardening season by getting plants out sooner and keeping them later each year. However, it is not generally practical to supplemental heat these structures, so you'll only gain a month or so growing season at the most in a typical gardening year. Once the first hard frosts hit in the late Fall, you're done for the year and will be bringing in whatever remains to be harvested when the forecast is for those overnight temps. Even at that, site placement is critical and you must have sufficient direct sunshine exposure to maximize the efficiency of the structure for your plants; if there's a lot of trees or hillside blocking the sun, it's not worth the effort.

[Cali4nia925]

I have actually thought about boise but I don't know why I'm so stuck on colorado. But one good thing is that I can direct transfer from my job now to the Denver area. That's makes it easier as I will already have a job setup. When I think of Colorado I think of a more diverse place, I'm scared that In idaho there's more racism and my boys will be looked down on. We are latino. I know these probably aren't facts and plz correct me if I'm wrong

[NW Crow]

Denver metro: 23% Latino. Boise metro: 13%. Evergreen: 2.5%. Golden: 9%. Littleton: 13%. Lakewood: 22%.