Last Thursday I wrote that we were waiting on a propane deliver. Our last delivery was on November 30th and we were getting very, very low--now less than 15% in our 50 gallon tank. Well, they have been promising delivery but that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Thursday AND Friday passed without a tanker pulling into our drive. So Saturday morning I gave up calling and went down to see what the heck is going on.
As I suspected, they have a couple of new drivers. The older guys have found better jobs with the the gas drillers. The newer guys are inexperienced. When the last attempt was made (Tuesday or so) and the driver couldn't find the house, he didn't bother to call the dispatcher or my home phone. (Company policy is that he call the office...he didn't.) Why couldn't he find my home? The ticket for delivery had my address wrong. They used my PO Box number instead of my house number. We got that straightened out ad I was promised (yeah, worth the paper...etc.) that Monday would be a clean-up day for orders and that I could expect a delivery then. (There were no propane drivers on the road on Saturday, just one oil truck. The propane guys were at the gas wells where this same company is supplying heat to keep the fracking fluids from freezing as they pump them down into the shale.)
They have also changed the way they determine when and where they make deliveries. It used to be they would deliver every month whatever your needs. Now they use an industry program that uses the degree days and previous usage. This is supposed to prevent situations where the delivery is so small as to not make it economical. Needless to say, they are still fine tuning their calculations.
Meanwhile, I've been burning wood like crazy to ensure that the propane continues to provide for cooking and hot water. The fireplace manages to keep the house even warmer than it usual. We have the thermostats set to 63 degrees which is sufficient with our radiant floor system. The fireplace gets things to a toasty 68 degrees or so. The humidifiers are working overtime with this dry air the fireplace is pumping out, but that's okay.
You can bet that if I do not get a delivery on Monday, I'll be banging on the office door first thing on Tuesday.
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On a related note, the very cold weather we've been experiencing has at least temporarily broken. It never got below 20 overnight and got up to 38 degrees this afternoon. It remains at 38 as I'm typing this (8:00 PM) and may not get below 30 overnight.
I spread ashes from the fireplace over the driveway in anticipation of sunshine that arrived too late in the day to do any extra melting, but the next two days we are supposed to see plenty of good old Sol (after a brief rain shower during the AM on Monday) and the temperatures getting into the 40s and possibly the 50s. That should help remove the ice from the driveway.
Although we still have over a foot of snow on the ground and much, much more where it's been piled up, the white stuff should be compacting and/or melting. It's already melting off the roof. It will be interesting to see what the ground cover will be like by next weekend.
I hate to say it, but I'm looking forward to mud season.
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