Tonight (Sunday, Dec. 11), our weather conditions are forecast to be a bit colder the 99% heating drybulb (ASHRAE recommended system design temperature) - accompanied with strong winds. By recording the time my burner fires during the night, I will be able to do a real-life heat-loss experiment - and determine the margin in my boiler's capacity. This will be easy for me to do because I have a 24-V elapsed-time meter permanently wired across my gas fuel valve. People in the East have a little time to rig up something before this arctic weather hits. One idea is to haywire an analog electric clock that runs whenever the boiler fires. If your burner is controlled with 24-V, you could rig up a 120V-24V transformer to give you 120V for the clock when the burner is firing. With an oil-fired boiler, maybe connect the clock across the 120-V burner motor. For a forced-draft boiler, connect to the fan motor. You want to record the actual time the boiler fires - not when there is a heat call. With a modulating boiler, you probably couldn't do it.

I have water baseboard heat for the house. The basement is unheated. All of the water pipes are running through the basement and there are a few bigger water pipes. I know that you need the aluminum fins and the covers to get the heat off the pipe. Someone mentioned to me that I can just make a U shape out of thin aluminum like flashing material and drap it over some of the pipes and it would direct some hEAT off the pipe in the basement and maybe warm it up a bit. Do you guys think that would work?