Worm Depository Today

The last few days I have been reading on a list server about the possible use of all the snow that has fallen on Milwaukee as a cooling agent for the summer heat. From what I can gather it will take a tremendous amount of effort and energy to preserve the snow for the summer months and a means to transfer it to cool air. It does not sound very practical. But if it would work, I have plenty of snow in my backyard that I be willing to donate. As you can see in this picture the worm depository pile is topped with lots of snow. However, this is good for the worms. Since snow is full of pockets of air it serves as an insulating blanket to keep the worms in the compost below warm.

Speaking of snow and cold and warmth, tonight my friend John, the creator of the five pane-window inserts in the sun room, took the time to run a test of the heating value of these inserts with their pockets of AIR. We removed the inserts and shut off the heat. In one hour the temperature in the sunroom dropped about 16 degrees. We reheated the room and replaced the inserts. Within one hour the temperature with the inserts in place only dropped about 8 degrees. In other words we experienced roughly ½ the rate of heat loss with the inserts in place. We are happy with the results and it offers more proof of the value of AIR for energy savings. This test and results are no snow job.

Now the daily readings, which are being crunched by John’s father in Madison, are a little bit off tonight. Accidentally the energy gauge was disconnected from the heating unit so it went back to 0. So we do not know how many kWh were used for the time period since the last reading. Below is the reading now on the heating unit. If 18.3 seems high for a short period tonight, remember we had to reheat the room after letting the temperature drop 24 degrees.

Time: 11:26pm, Office Temp.: 63, Sunroom Temp. Average: 55, Outside Temp.: 21, KWH: 18.3

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