General Chat (Non-Music-Related)

Just wish it would warm the f**k up. Day after day of this icy weather sucks. Not supposed to get above freezing here for another week.

happy new year!


at least you're in a place where people know how to handle it.

Actually Ted. 2 or 3 days of extreme cold... 0... Most of that can be tolerated and overcome .
The problem is temps below 20 have been ongoing for 2 weeks.
Most houses and heating systems are not designed for this weather. Then you throw in stupidity and poor planning and oil terminals freezing, preventing even getting enough heating oil to deliver.
This has gotten so crazy it is pitiful. My customers are covered. LOL.
MAJOR,I mean MAJOR OIL companies, have SHUT THEIR PHONES OFF!!!!! HOLY MOLLY. We got your money, we don't give a crap about you... Sorta like not being able to have electricity in the darkness.
I'm gonna help who I can... But I need at least 2 hours sleep a day.
I would need a year to explain to our government politicians how much you just phucked over the very same people that voted for you. OOOHHHH There are REASONS!!!! I been doing this longer than some of these kid politicians , been alive.

Sorry I'm rambling. I'm getting to old for this cold temp stuff, and stupidity dealing with it.

Dragging hoses across the frozen, snow-filled yards has got to suck when the temps are below 0. I bet the oil flows a lot slower (longer fill times), too. Around here many oil delivery companies were not taking on new customers - people scrambling for better prices or service in the cold weather.
It went up into the 20s last Wednesday and Thursday before getting cold again over the weekend, but this week, the temps are rising here - will be into the 50s by Friday. Usual January thaw before the next deep freeze.

Mike that was a cool post.. PUN intended, about it being cold. Thanks Mike for having the Personal Integrity to actually hang out here and post some good things.

I am shocked that the MAJOR OIL COMPANIES are actually shutting off their phones until they catch up. This is just as bad as hurricane SANDY. People are totally unprepared. It was down to 5 degrees. I am a pure capitalist... But not when it phucks good people!

Good luck with your new car.

There was a local story in the news here this past weekend - oil delivery truck went to a house, started pumping in oil, people in the house smelled something - their basement tank had cracked and 150 gallons of heating oil had spilled out! Guess it'll take some work to clean that up - and get the smell out of the house.

When I bought my house 24 years ago, it had an ancient cast iron furnace that had once been coal-fed, then converted over to oil (asbestos covering removed at some point), then over to gas. It finally conked out 17 years ago and I had a gas fired boiler system put in. (expensive - happened over the Christmas holidays). The old 200 gallon oil tank was still in the corner of the basement, empty, and the pipes were still connected to the outside fill pipes. Finally I got a Sawzall and cut the pipes to get it out of there - but the tank was too large to fit up the bulkhead (which was probably just a dirt hole in the ground when they installed it). So I had to cut the whole tank in two with the saw. Dragged it outside, with the old stand it had been on, put a 'free' sign on it and it was gone in less than a day (we have a lot of metal scrappers in the area). They had scraped some of the oil sludge off the inside before they took it, but I was able to shovel that up into a plastic bag and into the trash.
The old furnace which stood 6 feet high and had multiple cast iron parts all bolted together and a concrete-filled base sat in the basement for6 or 7 years, getting in the way. I advertised it for free on Craigslist and finally got some guy who would take it for scrap (HA - joke was on him, 600 lbs of cast iron would't get you $150!) He had 2 guys helping him, and went through a bunch of Sawzall blades cutting those bolts. Each section weighed about 150 lbs, I thought the bulkhead stairs might break when they were getting it out!

Good post Mike. Very interesting, and informative. Not to me because of the way I do things.
First and most important thing to understand about oil heat is the storage, the good clean oil, and the delivery from the oil lines to the oil burner. 99% of all oil burner problems are caused by the oil tank.
That story about the oil tank was totally avoidable. When I do any service it starts with the oil tank. I have actually lost customers because 38 years of my experience does not allow me to deliver to a tank I deem unsafe. That is what you are paying me for. You have a new car and you kept the old tires to save a few bucks.
HEATING IS NEVER A CRITICAL ISSUE UNTIL YOU START GETTING COLD, YOUR PIPES ARE FREEZING, AND YOU FINALLY WANT TO LISTEN.

FUNNY, your story about getting the old equipment out. I think you started to realize it is not always that easy.
I have done service on equipment that was put in the basement before the house was built around. I have seen old boilers so large, that 100 years ago they were floated on ice to drop them into place as the ice melted.
You were lucky that tank was empty. The sludge at the bottom of these old tanks is so bad that with 3 pairs of protective gloves, it will stink up your hands. Another funny thing... When scrap prices were higherI have actually had people fighting over it when I put something out at the street. I put an old boiler out in the street one time and before I could come back out of the basement... IT WAS GONE!

Anyway good post Mike!