SH> We had three days when the lows were -45 and the highs -38 and when the
 SH> temeperature finally rose to -30øC on Wednesday, we were cheering.

Wow.
We haven't been there yet.
I saw on TV that the northen parts of America have had a very cold period.

 SH> My car started and ran well but I had to be sure that the block heater was
 SH> plugged in for 3 hours first.  The house literally groaned although its
 SH> forced air oil heating system kept us warm enough.

Forced air oil heating system? What's that?
It's nice to come out to a warm car in winter. I alos have a block heater and a
coup‚ heater.

 SH> We've had a fair bit of snow but not recently.  During our cold spell we
 SH> had heavy ice fog which made driving very treacherous.

This night it came about 20 cm and it keeps coming right now.
Had to change my allyear tyres to real winter tyres with spikes now since it
didn't want to go in snow, even with the 4WD in. It just stod still and melted
the snow to ice, but not now with new tires.

 SH> From what I could find through Google, it sounds like you've got a
 SH> sophisticated heating system.  Is it a closed-loop ground water heatpump
 SH> system?

Yes. Installed for only 2 months ago and it works completly ok.
There was so much water in the 130 m deep hole so it should be able to maintain
the function down to at least - 15 C and it has. No extra electrical power has
been used so far.
And I can still use my woodheating if I want to, to even minimize the heating cost.
I still have about 40 m3 wood left and I use this when the teperatur falls so the
heatpump doesn't have to work it's ass of and have to call for extra power and I
also have a fireplace in the livingroom.

 SH> My oil furnace is not particularly innovative although it has pretty
 SH> reasonable efficiency.  However, it burned 997 litres of Furnace 50 fuel
 SH> oil between December 16 and January 26.

 Isn't that rather much? How many m3 do you burn in one season?
Ther is a new law coming here that says you have to inspect your oiltank at least
every 3 year to see if it doesn't leek any oil into the ground and that
will cost about
2 000:- (about 180 USD) and that comes ontopp a very high oilprice so for a normal
house oilheating isn't very cheep here.

//Bj”rn

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