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I was hoping to get any advice, comments or suggestions on a possible move to Vermont. I was recently encouraged to apply for a position near Williston, Vermont by my company. I currently reside in Lycoming County, PA (Williamsport). The position would provide a nice income boost. I currently have 2 kids (9 & 13), 2 dogs (Jack Russel/beagle), 2 parrots. With the amount of pets, I assume that renting is likely out of the question as I'm not willing to part with the parrots. I have never been to Vermont. My questions/issues are as follows:
1. How much can I expect to pay for a decent house (3br/2ba) near Williston? Willing to commute 30 mins. Willing to pay up to 250k for the right house.
2. Exactly how bad are the winters? I'm not a fan of winter and my wife is even less of one. Not that we are not used to cold winters in Central PA.
3. How are the schools? I have one going to HS and one who is about 2 yrs from Middle School.
4. Are there any activities for kids? My kids are into wrestling, karate, soccer, baseball.
5. How much can I expect to pay heating a home? Honestly, we like to keep it a 68. I currently heat my home with coal, so I'm not opposed to wood or pellets.
6. How are minorities treated? We are hispanic and my wife is from Mexico. We haven't received the warmest welcome in PA.
7. Is 4wd/AWD a necessity in the winter? We have 1 subaru forester and 1 honda odyssey.
All of the above being said, we are content with where we are at right now. While the income boost would be great, if there is no major benefit to moving, I probably won't. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks
I don't have much time to respond to each of your questions, but I think you would be happy with the answers to most of your questions. $250k for a home is approaching the average price, but I think you would find something you like. The only thing that would make me hesitate would be winter. If you do not like cold and you thing PA is cold, then Vermont is going to be a different level of cold for you. Looking at the averages for PA, you guys are just around the freezing mark for most of the winter. In Vermont the averages are around the single digits with several normal spells of subzero weather. This past year has been very cold compared to other winters. We had about 3-4 days where the temp never got above zero. I'm not trying to scare you away from making the move, but if cold is a concern, you really need to think long and hard about that. Normally I would recommend taking a trip up here to see how cold it can be, but we are getting past the really cold weather now. Our averages are around the freezing mark. I think the forecast for the coming week is back down to the teens, but it's just a prediction. We are almost in March, so the temps are going to be more mild than the exreames of winter.
2. Exactly how bad are the winters? I'm not a fan of winter and my wife is even less of one. Not that we are not used to cold winters in Central PA.
5. How much can I expect to pay heating a home? Honestly, we like to keep it a 68. I currently heat my home with coal, so I'm not opposed to wood or pellets.
7. Is 4wd/AWD a necessity in the winter? We have 1 subaru forester and 1 honda odyssey.
I'm going to focus on these two questions since I live in Pennsylvania and I'm very familiar with Vermont's winters. Vermont takes winter to a whole new level. It's rugged up there. At times, it feels like you're struggling to get the smallest task accomplished. It's cold and feet of snow are dumped at a time on a regular basis. Put it this way. You're used to an annual average snowfall of 39' per winter. Williston has an average snowfall of 75' per year. There is a lot of snow shoveling and scraping involved. Single digit and below zero mornings are not unusual. Add the wind child factor and you get the idea.
Pennsylvanians don't need a lot of winter wear. If you wear the right clothing, you're not cold in Vermont. Keeping your house at 68 will be much more expensive even using alternative sources of heat. Most Vermonters post that they keep their temperature set in the low 60s. (There are threads on this. You can use the forum search feature to find them.) When we're there, we turn it down to 58 when sleeping or not home, but we'd definitely keep it lower during the day if we were living there constantly. You will need to invest in base layer clothing and sweaters instead of wearing lightweight cloths inside like most Pennsylvanian's do. You'll need the appropriate outerwear for when you're outside. You probably own all of it but rarely use it like you will need to there.
When I'm in Vermont, I stay for a month or more at a time. I have been lucky to do well with front wheel drive. Four wheel/AWD is really a necessity for living there throughout the winter. There's also mud season to take into consideration.
That said, it's an easy adjustment if you are willing to adapt. Vermont is beautiful. It's very peaceful there.
Thanks for your response. This winter has been abnormally cold in central PA with almost 2 straight weeks at or below zero and more coming next week.
Just imagine that for half the mornings for two straight months in a normal year. While it has been abnormally cold in PA, it has been even more abnormally cold in Vermont. I'm not allowed to comment on how cold it is in PA to my relative who lives in Vermont. LOL
Wood is close to cheapest way to heat, next to coal. I was surprised to find out recently pellets are very close to wood in cost if you do not have free wood. Pellets are a little more expensive and require electricity but offer more convenience.
It comes down to about $15-19 per million BTU for wood or pellets with propane being more like $32/million (assuming ~$3/gallon ).
I'm not sure you really need 4WD/AWD to live in the Williston area...snow tires are far more important than 4WD. It all depends on where you end up specifically of course, but there are tons of FWD drive cars where we are and we get more snow than the Burlington/Williston area.
I'm not sure you really need 4WD/AWD to live in the Williston area...snow tires are far more important than 4WD. It all depends on where you end up specifically of course, but there are tons of FWD drive cars where we are and we get more snow than the Burlington/Williston area.
That's true. I've done well with FWD. But I'd definitely want 4WD/AWD for living there year round. I like to venture around instead of staying in one area. I don't want to postpone taking a trip because of the snow. As long as they have one vehicle with 4WD/AWD, they'd be happy. Vermont does a good job of clearing the roads. The biggest factor will be the driveway wherever the OP choses to live. Even hiring a plowing service, sometimes you have to leave for work before the service arrives.
I've lived in Williston for 5 years and we're very much into the outdoors and travel everywhere. We do fine with FWD and good snow tires, the latter being the key.
Also, while it says the average snow is 75", it hasn't felt like much at all. In fact we've only had 1 snow day. I don't think it's too tough here to deal with it. There are good town services (plowing) and the school buses keep running. And I'd rather look at white stuff than brown slush (though it's raining right now so that's the view I'll have for a while)
Williston and surrounding towns (Essex, So Burlington) are youth-sports oriented, probably the most in Vermont. Those 3 towns tend to be the little league champions, soccer state champs (private clubs), high school basketball champs. Population relative to the rest of VT is a major reason, but they are also very kid-centric towns, with access to facilities helping too. So I don't think your kids will have issues there. Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey and Skiing/Snowboarding are the big ones. Lacrosse is coming along and football is not very big. There is a small wrestling academy in town and the rec dept buses kids there after school. I don't have personal experience with it though.
As far as heating, we have natural gas and pay $600 for the winter for a 2300sf house. We're always out doing something though so use programmable termostats to manage things while not here and that helps a lot.
As far as acceptance, you'll find that VT is not very diverse. However, people in the Burlington area are generally liberal and welcoming. Many people that are here are from somewhere else too, especially in Williston which draws IBM and GE engineer transfers and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is recruiting too.
Good luck to you!
When we lived in Vermont my Wifes Scion box had 4 snow tires and it made it through everything, with no problems.
My fwd Suzuki, didnt even have snow tires and it did OK. The only time I wouldn't go out was at the beginning of a big storm. After the plows took their first run, everything was OK. I drove from Rutland to Albany NY airport after a big storm and had no problems with just regular tires.
I lived in PA and moved to Vermont. The winters are more brutal in VT than PA, for sure, but they can deal with snow better in VT, than PA. Rural PA is very VT like in certain ways, so it wont be that much of an adjustment other than COL stuff. Of all the issues one might have with VT winters, mine was lack of light. It seemed dark all the time. Thats what ended up bothering me the most.
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