Weather Imagery

Ugh, this was not fun. I hate messing around with fiberglass insulation, especially when I’m working with it in cramped locations. For example, a crawlspace.

Once again, Melody homes did yet another crap job, this time “forgetting” to insulate the duct work for our central air furnace which happens to run through a ventilated crawlspace. The ductwork spiders off into many different directions to supply heat to our house, of which about 100′ runs through our crawlspace. So, during the winter the crawlspace is the same temperature as outside; about 20°F. Whenever the furnace is off, the ductwork cools off to about 20°F and takes a good 30 seconds to heat up. As a result, we get an initial “cold blow” through the registers for about 30 seconds, pumping cold air when it should be warm. Even after the ducts heat up, quite a bit of heat is being conducted from the ductwork into the surrounding air which happens to be in a non-living crawlspace. This is a huge waste of energy.

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This was another one of those infamous Colorado blizzards that snuck up with about a 1-day warning. The first forecasts from a few days earlier didn’t mention anything about a significant snow storm, only that we may get a couple inches of snow and some moderate winds. Then on Tuesday, the day before the storm hit, forecasters started hinting that this could be a pretty powerful storm. I figured it wouldn’t be that bad because a fairly potent yet uneventful cold front had already pushed through a few days earlier. Anyhow, here’s the hour-by-hour experience of the December 20th, 2006 blizzard from the town of Falcon just outside the city limits of Colorado Springs:

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