Surviving New England Winters

One of the major insights missing from most people's eyes is why New Englanders complain about weather all-year round. New England is one of the few regions in the United States that fully experiences all four seasons with such style. Spring brings months of rain and mud, summer dumps humidity and sweltering heat, the fall brings 'leafers' and the winters as of late have been beyond brutal with unrelenting cold and snowfall.


This current winter (2014-2015) has been one of the toughest I've seen in my entire life. Going back further - people are saying this compares to the Blizzard of 1978. Towards the end of 2014 the winter was quick to start at first, hitting many with snow right before Thanksgiving causing countless families to lose power for Thanksgiving Day. After that it slowed down. The temperatures weren't terrible and snowfall was minimal till the end of 2014. Once 2015 started though it dumped on huge portions of New England. Many lost power or were trapped in areas of heavy snowfall. Also enough nights of negative or least single and double digit temperatures to remind people of the film: The Thing.

For many this has proved to be one of the most challenging and expensive winters to date and it certainly has been for us. Oil, electric and wood pellet usage have all skyrocketed and the risk for injury has been high throughout. Commuting to work in poor conditions is always dangerous, but even ice dams on the edges of roofs can be dangerous. While breaking up ice around the foundation of my house a 50 lb. icicle broke free from the edge of my roof and smashed my hand - bruising it and leaving it sore for about 3 days.

News reports of feet of snow and ice built on house roofs causing them to cave-in ran rampart causing panic among most. Products used to melt ice for roofs sold out within a hundred mile radius of us and prices for them doubled and almost tripled online by early February 2015.

All we could was hunker down and maintain our house as best as we could.  For the majority of January and February my backyard was inaccessible with thigh-height snow. 

Now that we're close to mid-March the main issue everyone is going to run into is basement flooding from all the melting snow once Spring rolls around.

All you can do is keep working at it, homeowners.

Let's just make it till the end, shall we?