I live in the northern region, along the edge of 1 of the Great Lakes.
Our Winter weather is brutal, but both of us get hit with lake effect snow, hot & cold temperatures well below zero & dangerous windchill, then it’s not unproper for the Winter cold & snow to last for more than five to eight straight months! There are frequent college closings & driving bans. Both of us spend a lot of time inside the house, & rely heavily on the oil furnace. This year, the nasty weather started much earlier than usual. The leaves had not finished falling from the trees & I still had a ton of raking to take care of when it began snowing. I was not at all prepared for the drastic cold to settle in so early. I had not yet hauled out the Winter jackets, hats, gloves & boots. The snow shovels & ice scrapers were still packed away, & I hadn’t gotten around to purchasing rock salt. I was in a big rush to put away the patio furniture & barbecue grill. I needed to shut down & winterize the pool & get snow tires on my car. I completely forgot about having the oil furnace professionally took care of. I simply turned up the control unit & expected heat. While the oil furnace has continued to operate, it’s absolutely not running at its best. I’ve been truly conscientious about replacing the air filter every month, & yet the furnace is introducing a lot of dust into the indoor air. It seems to struggle with the especially cold hot & cold temperatures at night, & there’s cold areas in the house, however my heating bills are much higher than I’d like, but I’m just hoping the oil furnace can make it until Spring. I’ve done everything possible to reduce strain on the heating unit. I’ve set the control unit as low as honorable& put plastic over the windows. I’ve shut the vents & doors to unoccupied rooms, but unfortunately, it’s now the end of April & the weather is still so cold that I’m forced to keep running the oil furnace.