Why is it that heaters always fail on the coldest day of the year?

[Pyro]

Last week we had the coldest nights we have seen in a long time. And naturally the power went out at some point one of those nights and the temp in the sunroom plummeted.

A number of my tuberous took serious damage. My stolonifera are all fragged which ticks me off because they were finally blooming after 5 years. Also the top 3/4 on 2 of my 3 oldest gigantea (hough I noticed that there are 3 small sprouts coming up from the base of one of the frozen ones.)

All and all I am not pleased with things.

 

[Not a Number]

Murphy's Law. It sucks.

 

[pingman]

How cold do you think it got in the sunroom and for how ong?
Thanks,
Peter.

 

[MrFlyTrap2]

That's pretty rough since it was the power that went out. One of the reasons I have my 50 gallon Koi tank in the small green house. If heat were to cut at least there's a large body of water sitting in there that's ~70 degrees. Not sure how much of a difference it would make, but at least it might slow down the drastic drop some.

 

[Pyro]

How cold do you think it got in the sunroom and for how ong?
Thanks,
Peter.

Not fully sure Peter but it was 15F outside and the sunroom is not really "sealed" to keep any heat. It was cold enough to freeze the water in the trays (only 1cm deep) but not enough to start freezing the aquatic tank. I'd guess upper 20s.

Time was 3 days before I realized I had not reset the heater after the power tripped. It was the nights that were the problems as days were getting up to 40s.

 

[jimscott]

That reminds me of an experience I had when I went to Bills game about 15 years ago. It was 11 degrees out.... and then it got colder. That day the car's heater decided it would die.

 

[jm82792]

Bummer If you want insurance you could buy a lp tank and a nice 15,000 btu heater for it to be an emergency item. If you find a good enoghe one you could use it in the house. You could use an denatured alchohol heater those are like clean but somewhat dangerous. Thats my main reasonf or no greenhouse is the frequent power outages and my dad wouldn't let me heat it

 

[Seandew]

That reminds me of an experience I had when I went to Bills game about 15 years ago.

At least they were a decent team back then.......

 

[jimscott]

At least they were a decent team back then.......

They won 37-21 and went to the Super Bowl... and lost. Another thing heaters do is fry your fry! When I was a kid I was breeding bubblenestbuilders - Gouramis, Bettas, Paradise Fish... and one day a heater malfunctioned, raising the tank temp well past 35 C, killing all the babies.