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Heating security reminders as chilly climate rolls in Massachusetts

Daily SF News — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 06:58:09 +0000

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. (WWLP) – The low temperatures overnight into Friday morning will be in the low to mid-40s and some spots in the Berkshires may get into the upper 30s!

The Great Barrington Fire Department is reminding homeowners of preparations to take as thermostats are kicking on the heat.

Fall’s chill sets in, New England’s temperature drop

7 Day Forecast

One of the most important things in our area is making sure your chimney is clean and in good shape. We strongly encourage leaving the roof climbing to the professionals and Santa Claus – hire a professional chimney sweep to clean and inspect your chimney.
Check your Heating System- Before it gets really cold—early October is the ideal time—turn on your heating unit to ensure it is working properly. Your unit has been sitting dormant for about 6 months, so you’ll want to make sure everything is in proper working order before you really need it. Especially if you have oil, we recommend having a professional HVAC tech clean and service your equipment. It will burn better and more efficient. Make sure you have a working CO detector on every level of your home including the basement. It will – without a doubt – save your life.
Perform a DIY home inspection, then break out the leaf blower and rake! Something as simple as a pile of leaves can be the catalyst for a fire. Take a couple of hours, and clean your gutters, check your downspouts, and remove all leaves and debris from the perimeter of your space. Make sure to clean them out from under decks and porches.
Never park your vehicle over a pile of leaves. The heat emitted from your car can ignite the leaves, destroying your vehicle and all things around it. Certainly not a good way to end the day.
After every load of laundry, always clean the lint screen. While the chimney sweep is there, have them clean your dryer vent, at minimum clean it yourself.
Every month, test your smoke detectors. Doing it more than twice a year that you change the batteries is a good practice.
If you plan to use electric heaters, make sure that they are in perfect shape. Consider replacing them with a more efficient model. Make sure that the cords are in good shape and not showing any sign of wear and always plugged directly into the outlet and not an extension cord.

When is the first day of fall 2023?

The first day of fall is this Saturday, September 23rd, also known as the autumn equinox. The clocks roll back one hour at 2 a.m. on November 5th. Use that extra hour to prepare your home or business for a fire-safe fall and winter season.

WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 providing local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Follow 22News on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Elevating a child is the most costly in these Massachusetts cities: report

Daily SF News — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 17:37:37 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (NEXSTAR) – It’s no secret that raising a child can be expensive. From childcare, housing, food, and other associated costs, the expenses can rise quickly.

Depending on where you live, being a parent can be even more expensive.

Using data from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, personal finance website SmartAsset found that nationally, raising a child costs roughly $20,800 annually. That cost includes childcare (which, on average, will set you back more than $9,000), food and housing, healthcare, transportation, and other necessities.

SmartAsset reviewed 381 U.S. metro areas to determine how much it could cost for a two-adult household to raise a child in 2023.

Unsurprisingly, many of the most expensive cities were in California, specifically in and around the Bay Area.

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Topping out the list was the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley area, where SmartAsset found the annual cost of raising a child is more than $35,600. The high costs of food and housing in the area ultimately pushed the metro to the top of the list.

Close behind was another SoCal metro, Santa Cruz-Watsonville. Though the overall annual cost of raising a child was lower than San Francisco’s at $33,877, Santa Cruz’s housing expenses exceeded $12,600, well over its fellow California city’s $10,499.

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara rounded out the top three at $33,228. Housing costs in the area were around $8,600, according to SmartAsset’s analysis, thousands of dollars cheaper than the previous California metros, but San Jose’s high childcare costs — nearly $15,800 — kept it in the top three.

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It wasn’t a California metro topping out the list for the most expensive childcare costs. Instead, it was Ann Arbor, Michigan, where childcare costs surpassed $22,000 a year, SmartAsset reports. Another Michigan metro, Kalamazoo-Portage, had the second-highest childcare costs at more than $19,800, followed by Barnstable in Massachusetts at just over $18,000.

In all but one of the 10 most expensive cities — Santa Rosa-Petaluma, California — raising a child will cost more than $30,000 a year.

Here are the 10 most expensive cities, according to SmartAsset. You can view the full analysis here.

San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA: $35,647
Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA: $33,877
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA: $33,228
Barnstable, MA: $33,184
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH: $32,307
Ann Arbor, MI: $31,670
Trenton-Princeton, NJ: $31,314
Kalamazoo-Portage, MI: $30,786
Napa, CA: $30,412
Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA: $29,544

As SmartAsset notes, these costs are for a two-adult household that adds just one child.

Metros on the other end of the list were scattered across southern states.

The cheapest metro reviewed by SmartAsset was Morristown, Tennessee, where the annual cost to raise a child is about $14,600. Childcare costs are below $5,000, while food and housing costs are below $2,000.

Sumter, South Carolina, the second most affordable metro, had the lowest childcare costs at just over $4,800.

Rounding out the 10 cheapest metros were Jackson, Tennessee; Gadsden and Dothan, Alabama; Longview, Texas; Columbia, Florence, Hilton Head Island-Bluffton, and Spartanburg, South Carolina.

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Massachusetts power officers announce funding for Woodstove Rebate Program

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 10:32:42 +0000

The state will renew discounts to homeowners who replace older, inefficient wood-burning stoves with cleaner, EPA-certified wood and pellet stoves that use less fuel, reduce energy costs and improve air quality.

the Commonwealth Woodstove Change-out Program will provide $ 450,000 for citizens who meet eligibility requirements. The announcement was made by state energy and environmental officials during a tour of The Fire Place in Whately on Thursday.

The program has helped more than 2,300 residents swap dirty, inefficient stoves for newer, cleaner models, with 50 percent of the funding going to low-income residents. To improve air quality, all newly installed stoves must exceed federal emission standards. The program has also increased its incentive to support ovens with proven high efficiency.

To qualify for a discount, a resident must have a functional, non-EPA certified wood stove. Apply, the resident should visit a participating wood-burning stove dealer or contact a participating stove specialist such as a chimney sweep, who will process the discount application on behalf of the residents. Residents across the state can find a local participating wood stove professional by viewing the list of wood stove dealers who have registered to participate.

Discount requests will be accepted until August 5th, 2019.

The Commonwealth Woodstove Change-Out Program was launched in 2012 and is administered by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) with support from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP).

If you have any questions about the Commonwealth Woodstove Change-Out Program, please call (617) 315-9300 or email woodstoves@masscec.com.

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