Oil heat (Ellsworth: home, transfer, to buy)

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by nm9stheham

Hey Submariner.. now I gotta ask. Why is the electric power so darned unreliable where you are at? Is it the transmission and distribution, or what?

Over 92% of Maine is forest.

Every time the wind blows, somewhere trees are blowing down. If a tree blows down on a power line, every home downstream from that spot just lost power. If the power line going through your town wound its way through 30 towns before it got to your town, imagine if that tree were to blow down in the first town the power line goes through.

In my township only a very tiny portion of the land parcels have ready access to the power lines.

When trees reach out with their branches near the power lines, we have people who drive around all year-round to trim the branches back away from the power lines. But if you look at the trees themselves many of them are much taller than the power lines.

[Maine Writer]

We took power into consideration when we were considering moving out here. It seemed critically important at the time. Our power company is a coop. We joked about taking turns climbing the poles to turn the lights back on after a storm. We lose power two or three times a year. It's usually once because someone drives off the road and smacks into a pole, and once or twice because of a storm. It's back on in a few hours. We've been very fortunate compared to Sub. Our longest outage was 12 hours during the big ice storm years back.

As for oil heat - we had it in apartments and our first house and never felt warm. This house had an ancient oil furnace that could barely keep the chill out in September. We put in a wood stove before it got cold. We had a small propane furnace in the basement to fall back on when I traveled for work and wasn't home to stoke the fire during the day, but it barely takes the chill out in winter. It's on the north end of the house with the ducts in the cellar and basement. By the time the forced air gets to the south end it's barely warm. The warmth is worth the work.

[92greenyj]

O e thing worth mentioning on the power issue, we found while house hunting that many homes there have whole house backup generators already installed at them. This was the case for the house we wound up buying. I have a Generac propane powered whole home backup generator already set up at the new house. The only thing I am not sure of is whether or not it is on an auto transfer switch or not. If it is not, I will change that for sure when we arrive. Nice thing with that, is if the power does go out, I don’t have to do anything. Within about a minute, the transfer switch will sense the power loss and fire up the generator and switch over to it.

I am glad it is a propane generator vs diesel as well. The downside of the diesel or gas generator is fuel stability. Both long term and in very cold temperatures. Diesel will gel when it gets too cold. Gasoline goes bad over time. Propane does not suffer from these problems and the carb doesn’t get gummed up and nasty and need regular cleaning and maintenance with propane either.

If the house you wind up with doesn’t have one, they aren’t terribly expensive. Northern Tool has the large Generac units for anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 bucks depending on the size of the unit. Worth the price for the peace of mind when living rural for sure. Without electricity, your well pump won’t run, your refrigerator and freezers won’t run, no lights, no internet, no mini split heat pump, no pellet stoves unless they have a battery backup on them, etc.

[nm9stheham]

Originally Posted by Submariner

Over 92% of Maine is forest.

Every time the wind blows, somewhere trees are blowing down. If a tree blows down on a power line, every home downstream from that spot just lost power. If the power line going through your town wound its way through 30 towns before it got to your town, imagine if that tree were to blow down in the first town the power line goes through.

In my township only a very tiny portion of the land parcels have ready access to the power lines.

When trees reach out with their branches near the power lines, we have people who drive around all year-round to trim the branches back away from the power lines. But if you look at the trees themselves many of them are much taller than the power lines.

OK, got it. But I'll mention one thing.... we live up by the Blue Ridge Parkway and the power lines come up here through many miles of forest, with same matter of the trees being taller than the lines. It is steep and we have trees all over the place; much of the mountain is Nat'l Forest.

So we have the same issues, plus this particular mountain is the 'ice storm capital' in this area LOL. You really ought to see how badly the trees get torn up and wrecked up here.

They do regular tree trimming in this area along the lines. In the last month, the power company had a helicopter-borne monster chain saw that they were using to trim back the tree line by the main power line up here. It was crazy.... one saw has a vertical bar that is about 25-30' long and consists of 11 circular blades, that are 2'-3' diameter, in series down the bar. The whole thing is suspended from a 70-80' cable from the helicopter and the pilot maneuvers it to cut back the trees. They also have one that is smaller and has a horizontal bar. It was fun to watch.. wish I could post a video for you all.

I guess where I am going with this is that other areas have the same tree issues and access that is as hard or harder. Trust me; I knew some guys who ran power lines the 4000'-6000' mountains in western NC and it was some 'special' work; they still use mules at times LOL. I just can't help but wonder if there is something else going on that is not the same as elsewhere, in the matter of keeping the power lines cleared up there.

Do you have a lot of evergreens like spruces up there? Our dominant forest tree species locally is oak, both white and red, followed by poplar.

[OutdoorLover]

The latest low temperature heat pumps do have some big advantages - they're inexpensive to operate - cheaper than anything but a wood stove, and they provide cooling in summer from the same system. They can go down when there's a power outage, but so will gas and oil heating - the thermostats, water circulating pumps and air circulating blowers, etc need power to run. Almost all pellet stoves also require electrical power.

A couple of things though - an HVAC system costs a lot of money and many people won't replace them so long as the existing system works therefore. And, heat pump mini-splits typically are configured with few heat outlets. That's okay in a newish house that's tight and well insulated. But in an older home, a significant amount of the heat from what may be just 1 or 2 sources will "leak out" into the environment via the windows, walls and roof, and won't make it to more distant locations in the house, which can make them cold spots. So they may not be the best match for old homes unless you configure them for better distribution or the house has had some kind of energy retrofit.

[dubthang]

As far as boat living goes, if you are on the coast, you are going to need to get a slip. In some places that can be difficult at best, other places it may be impossible. The cost for the slip can also be extremely high.

I knew a guy living in Portland out of his 27 foot sail boat. He lucked out on getting a slip by chance, but it was only for a year. He had no utilities with that slip either.

[92greenyj]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

The latest low temperature heat pumps do have some big advantages - they're inexpensive to operate - cheaper than anything but a wood stove, and they provide cooling in summer from the same system. They can go down when there's a power outage, but so will gas and oil heating - the thermostats, water circulating pumps and air circulating blowers, etc need power to run. Almost all pellet stoves also require electrical power.

A couple of things though - an HVAC system costs a lot of money and many people won't replace them so long as the existing system works therefore. And, heat pump mini-splits typically are configured with few heat outlets. That's okay in a newish house that's tight and well insulated. But in an older home, a significant amount of the heat from what may be just 1 or 2 sources will "leak out" into the environment via the windows, walls and roof, and won't make it to more distant locations in the house, which can make them cold spots. So they may not be the best match for old homes unless you configure them for better distribution or the house has had some kind of energy retrofit.

You actually can put up to 8 wall units on a single condenser if it is sized appropriately. Ironically I just spent $14k upgrading to a new 4 zone LG mini split set up in our house here in CA we are about to put on the market. All well, it helps the property value having a brand new HVAC system.

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by nm9stheham

OK, got it. But I'll mention one thing.... we live up by the Blue Ridge Parkway and the power lines come up here through many miles of forest, with same matter of the trees being taller than the lines. It is steep and we have trees all over the place; much of the mountain is Nat'l Forest.

So we have the same issues, plus this particular mountain is the 'ice storm capital' in this area LOL. You really ought to see how badly the trees get torn up and wrecked up here.

They do regular tree trimming in this area along the lines. In the last month, the power company had a helicopter-borne monster chain saw that they were using to trim back the tree line by the main power line up here. It was crazy.... one saw has a vertical bar that is about 25-30' long and consists of 11 circular blades, that are 2'-3' diameter, in series down the bar. The whole thing is suspended from a 70-80' cable from the helicopter and the pilot maneuvers it to cut back the trees. They also have one that is smaller and has a horizontal bar. It was fun to watch.. wish I could post a video for you all.

I guess where I am going with this is that other areas have the same tree issues and access that is as hard or harder. Trust me; I knew some guys who ran power lines the 4000'-6000' mountains in western NC and it was some 'special' work; they still use mules at times LOL. I just can't help but wonder if there is something else going on that is not the same as elsewhere, in the matter of keeping the power lines cleared up there.

Do you have a lot of evergreens like spruces up there? Our dominant forest tree species locally is oak, both white and red, followed by poplar.

This is called the pine tree state for a reason.

[mainegrl2011]

In Ellsworth, knock on wood, we rarely lose electricity... maybe severe ice storms excluded.

I don't think having an oil tank in the cellar is a big deal. The delivery people have the option for customers to choose auto delivery. They show up regularly. They fill the tank from the outside of the house. You can pay your bill on their website or via snail mail etc.

Many people I know have a pellet stove or a wood stove in addition to their oil furnace.

In recent years heat pumps have gained in popularity. Summers seem to be getting hotter. People want ac when it is 90 degrees for days and days.

The price of fuel oil goes hand in hand with the price of gasoline. Gas prices go up; fuel oil prices go up.

[Submariner]

After living in Maine for ten years, we got tired of the constant power outages, we decided to shift to using solar power.

I got three quotes for installing a 'net-metering' solar power [where you stay 'on-grid' and your solar power feeds the grid] but it was significantly more expensive than going off-grid with batteries, and when the grid goes dark the net-metering systems are designed to go dark also [to protect linemen repairing the power lines].

After using a battery-bank for five years our batteries died [five years seems to be the normal life expectancy of lead-acid batteries]. They died last fall, October 2020. It took us a few months to save up enough to buy replacement batteries.

We just got our new battery-bank in place and operating last week.

If anyone is considering migrating to Maine I highly recommend that you also consider making the shift to solar power.