Weather (Rapid City: live in, bill, garage)

[yamahastar]

Been watching your weather. When it is this cold do most people in Rapid City area have heaters on their vehicles? Is this a typical winter thus far? Thanks.

[DannyBanany]

What do you mean by heaters ON their vehicles? I just keep my car in my garage and put an ice-scraper in the glove box for after work. I keep it filled up with gas and sometimes I put some Heet into it. I have an SUV that doesn't go in the garage. I start it up about 5 minutes before I have to leave and if it's snowing bad, I put it in 4WD.

The tricky part is driving in winter conditions, I saw two accidents within 10 minutes of each other yesterday.

[ElkHunter]

A lot of folks have a heater installed and a lot use it quite frequently.

It's nice to go out when it's 5 degrees. Unplug your car, start it up, and have heat rolling out of the vents in about 2 minutes.

But truth be known, you really don't require one until it's below zero. I mean your car will start just fine when it's 10 degrees. But your oil get's pretty thick when it's below zero, so plug it in, let the water jacket circulate warm water and keep your oil thin. Starts easy, warms quickly.

But yes, a lot of folks have one and most use them often.

[DannyBanany]

Oh, and this actually hasn't been that bad of a winter. We usually get our first snow in October, or as early as September! We didn't get it this year until November and the snow we got yesterday was pretty much as bad as it has been yet. It's supposed to snow hard this Saturday, but then warm up all next week. In Rapid City, snow tends to melt fast.

[Jammie]

I don't live in Rapid, but live a half day east of there. We used to have a garage, but moved 11 years ago and don't have one so we have a heater on both the car and the pickup. There are several days a year that we plug them in.

[BusySocialWorker]

I've never plugged in my block heater in Rapid - only on the East side from time to time when I lived there.... I don't even have one on the new vehicle I just bought

BUT I am hoping to get a remote start for Chirstmas that I will very much enjoy when leaving work and going to a warm and waiting vehicle

[GraniteStater]

Some people may have needed the block heaters in Abderdeen, SD this morning. The low temperature there was around -15F.

[traveler73]

My Camry has a block heater that I have yet to use. Even when I lived in Bismarck and temps would get to -30, it would always start right up. But I do use it's remote starter, can't imagine life in a cold climate without one!

[ElkHunter]

A word of advice for engine block heaters. I used to plug mine in before I went to bed and it kept the truck engine nice and warm and it was ready when I got up. BIG waste of electricity.

I found out that once I put a timer on the extension cord and had it kick on about 2 hours before I needed it, it worked just as good and didn't eat up the electricity. My bill went way down.