There is somthing to be said for living "up north"...............

[Tom Winship]

Even though I have never lived there, it makes sense to me to be able to go out to your shop in the summer and turn something in less than triple digit temperatures. I know you can't do outside in the winter (to a large extent) but you have football to watch and shops are easier to heat than cool. At least here........

Oh, well, 68 years old is probably too late to uproot, but I'm tired of this stinking weather.......

[Gary Max]

Just think---it's the middle of Feb and the temp is around zero outside. I am out in the shop turning with the wood burning stove keeping the temp around 60 degrees.

[Curt Fuller]

Tom, although I'm not really "up north", I do live in an area that has 4 very distinctly different seasons. And I love it that way. We're pushing 100 every day this week, 6 months from now it will be in the 20's. I turn in my unheated, unairconditioned garage year round and just add or take off layers of clothing accordingly. But I also work outside so I'm used to the extremes. The nice thing about our weather here in Northern Utah is that it rarely stays at any extreme for anymore than a few weeks. But I do sympathize with you folks in the hot parts of the country. Of all the seasons, the hot weather seems to get to me the most.

[Reed Gray]

We have been having a mild summer. Days in the mid 80s, and nights down to 50. Too hot for me. Winter is wet "it isn't that it rains so much, it just takes it so long to do it." Maybe down to freezing, and up to mid 60s. High humidity (90+%) makes it feel a lot colder though.

robo hippy

[Marty Eargle]

I love the heat, so I don't mind the 100 degree days here in NC. Have to stop every once in a while to clean sweat soaked shaving off myself so I don't go crazy from itching, but other than that, I much prefer it to trying to stay warm while turning.

The only thing that hurts worse than a square chuck of wood hitting a knuckle is a square chunk of wood hitting a cold knuckle!

[Jeff Fagen]

Well Tom all the 68 year olds around hear are moving to Texas.I like it here,usually low humidity and moderately cool.I turn in the basement so its usually climate controlled.

[Kathy Marshall]

I hear ya Tom! Today it was up around 116, but its supposed to cool down to around 111 by the weekend. But I do have to say the cold bothers me more than the heat, and I'm talking Phoenix cold, not those sub arctic temps those guys deal with up north lol. But all that said, we really only have about 2 months of miserably hot and about 2 months or miserably cold (for me anyway and just at night), then 8 months of comfortable to spectacular turning weather, so I think I'll stay here and just bear with the next few weeks :D

[Billy Tallant]

Tom, I'm with you on the hot weather here in Central Texas. I get off work @ 4:00 pm & start the drive home. Outside temp 108 degrees. Time I get home I've decided it is too hot outside to think about turning much. Waiting on that temperature to start cooling down a little bit.

[Brian Weaver]

This has been a shorter and cooler summer than we normally have here in north west Montana. This last week its been in the mid to upper 80's. Some of the higher mountains will still have snow when it starts snowing again this fall. I wouldn't live anywhere else, but the wife keeps threatening to move to Vegas......I will miss her. :)

[Eric Holmquist]

It depends on how your house / shop is set up. I turn in my garage which is in a raised ranch, so there is house above and to the side of the garage. After insulating it, all it took was a small oil immersion heater to keep it in the low 60s even when it was 4F outside. I can enter the garage without going outside. This allows me to turn in comfort all year long in CT.

A detached garage would be a very different beast.

[Norm Zax]

Extreme weather is the reason they invented journals, blogs and forums. Otherwise we would be out turning and never give them much attention! 93F here and way too sticky for me. Back to the A/C + PC and maybe a nice cooool drink.

[Mike Golka]

Well I do live "up north", Alberta, Canada to be percise and I can tell you I'll take 40C over -40C any day!!

[Alan Trout]

I would rather deal with the heat than the cold any day. However with that being said I air condition my shop with a portable AC My shop is right at 800 sq. ft. and with the AC on, and a 104 degree day I can keep it at 80 degrees. Not bad by Texas standards. However down hear in San Antonio We are always about 5 to 6 degrees cooler in the summer than you guys in the DFW area. And a heck of a lot warmer in the winter.

Alan

[Ken Fitzgerald]

As the crow flies, I live less than 150 miles from the Canadian border. I suppose that qualifies as "up North".

I also live at an elevation of 750' above sea level in the bottom of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers canyons and 2000' below the prairies to the north and south. If you leave town going east or west you eventually climb several thousands of feet in elevation to cross a mountain pass. If you go north or south you climb 2000' up onto the prairies and eventually mountain passes. The weather in town is moderate compared to the surrounding areas. We often have 3-5 weeks each year where we exceed 100ºF daily. It hasn't happened so far this year. It seldom goes below 0ºF but I have seen -15ºF here.

The 2000' in elevation makes a huge difference in the weather we experience. I have come off the top of the Lewiston Grade where there was 31" of snow, snowing, blowing, whiteout conditions and at the bottom it was bare ground and dry road.

Our average annual moisture is 13". 3" less we would be a desert. We typically have very low humidity.

Unlike others, I would rather deal with the cold than the heat. Fat old men sweat a lot.

I can put on enough clothes to stay warm. If I take off enough clothes to keep cool, it's ugly and one can get arrested for indecent exposure.

Besides, my shop is heated with a hanging gas furnace. I can walk from my backdoor/carport to the shop in short sleeve shirts in the winter.

[Ed Morgano]

Tom,
Seems to me that the grass always "seems" greener on the other side. I used to live in Chicago. Believe me, it's not easier to heat when it's 22 below zero with 40 mph winds than it is to AC at 100. Both require a lot of insulation. The real kicker to living up north is a little thing called SNOW. We had a foot of it in April and it shut the city down....that was way back when...probably 1974. I can also remember one year that it snowed 27" overnight. That too shut the city down. Cars rust out from the salt.....ALL cars. Roofs cave in from snow loads. People get frost bite walking 2 blocks to the buss stop. and so on and so forth. Just my 2 cents worth. I don't have too many FOND memories of the weather there.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ed....you should have been in Chicago for the winter of 78-79. At one point we had 80" of snow on the ground.

I had 3 of my engineers that didn't get around for several days while they dug their cars out. I had a 4WD International Scout. I was driving west on Wilson Avenue off of Lakeshore Drive to Ravenswood hospital to repair a CT scanner. I had people chase me for blocks wanting me to drag their cars out of the snow.

We had just moved back there from Oregon just prior to Christmas. We spent 6 weeks in a motel with 3 kids waiting for the house we bought to close. Schools were closed for several weeks due to the snow.

I'll still take the snow.....my preference.

[Bob Bergstrom]

Tom,
Seems to me that the grass always "seems" greener on the other side. I used to live in Chicago. Believe me, it's not easier to heat when it's 22 below zero with 40 mph winds than it is to AC at 100. Both require a lot of insulation. The real kicker to living up north is a little thing called SNOW. We had a foot of it in April and it shut the city down....that was way back when...probably 1974. I can also remember one year that it snowed 27" overnight. That too shut the city down. Cars rust out from the salt.....ALL cars. Roofs cave in from snow loads. People get frost bite walking 2 blocks to the buss stop. and so on and so forth. Just my 2 cents worth. I don't have too many FOND memories of the weather there.

Snow is just part of the problems in Chicago. What is the "kicker" is the dampness. There is a big difference between living too close to the lake and living 30 miles away. Living on the south end of the lake provides some nice summer breezes , but oh those north damp winds in the winter. I'm right on the edge of the snow belt and can look over at Indiana and see a totally black skies full of lake snow. I guess the snow birds have the right idea. Go south in the winter and come back with the spring. The problem is that the turning budget just dominate my lose change and then some.:eek::eek:

[Tom Winship]

Well, you guys should have been here on Feb. 3 until about noon. The great snowstorm of 2011. I'm sure you would be amazed at how an inch of snow can shut this place down. 205985 Don't think it ever got belose freezing

[Chris Burgess]

I am with you Tom, to an extent. Summer here in the Houston area is brutal and the record drought we (Texans) are in the middle of is helping nothing. But on the other hand the heat will break soon and I can live w/ the low 90's for a while and winter will be a chilly 45 degrees. So yes now is no fun but the future brings nicer weather and seldom do we deal w/ anything below 30 for very long.

[Jon Nuckles]

I've lived in Houston and in Minneapolis, and now I'm in Chicago. I thought Chicago would be in between the two extremes and in a way it is: it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter! Because my shop is heated but not air conditioned, I prefer turning in the cold weather. Mind you, I still turn when it is 100 degrees, but I would prefer that it be cold.

[Mark Engel]

I've lived up north most of my life. Born in CT. Moved to Chicagoland(Woodridge, Il) and then back to NH.

Finally, a couple of years ago we moved down here to NC. I love the weather down here.

Of course, yesterday, we had that earthquake. And Irene is on her way, should be here around Saturday.

It don't matter where you live, Mother Nature will throw something at you, and probably hit you right in the wallet. :D

[Robert Newton]

Sheboygan WI is up north for a lot of folks, seldom gets above 100, living near Lake Michigan helps keep temp from the extremes. Workshop in basement so never to bad and plenty of WOOD.

[John E Wallace]

I live in in the Austin TX area after moving from Houston, Salt Lake City, Washington DC and Miami in that order. Houston was much more humid than Austin. Utah was as hot as Texas in the Summer and much colder in the winter. DC was as bad as Houston in the Summer. Miami was great in the Winter. The hottest weather is forecast for this weekend, 108 Friday and Saturday. The best time for me to turn is from about 0600--0800 before things get busy and hot. I plan on insulating the garage this winter and putting an air conditioner in before next summer. I would like to get the garage down to 75-80 degrees next summer.

[Tom Winship]

Well we were blessed with some un-forecast rain last evening. Received almost 1/2" during a thunderstorm. My wife and I sat on the porch with wind blowing and trees popping like we were teenagers. First rain in at least six weeks. Thanks for what we received and pray for more.:D:D

[Ralph Lindberg]

Robo and I are just spoiled. The highest recorded temp here is 103, the lowest is 0. Of course it does "sorta" rain for months on end. Up until the last couple of weeks we had three days when the temp went about 80 (it's much cooler here then down in the valley where Robo lives). Now we've had about 8 days.

I have a plan to replace the heater in the shop with a split-unit heat-pump. Thought I would get to it this year, but it ain't happening. I really didn't need to worry about cooling this summer. I do abandon the shop about Christmas though and don't go back out until about Valentines day. Just takes too long for the heat to take the chill off come that time of year.

[John Beaver]

If you don't mind paying exorbitant prices for homes and gas and everything else, you could move to Southern California where you can turn with the garage door open 365 days a year. The few days that it does rain I usually just open it 1/2 way. Near the coast it's between 50-85 (and that includes nights) probably 340 days a year.

I hate to think what 1/2 an inch of snow would do to the So. Cal. Freeways. It would take us a week to clean up the traffic. Thank God it doesn't happen.

It's a little more affordable on the central coast near San Luis Obispo - great place to retire.