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It almost hit -30c where I'm at but apparently those last couple degrees is where the coolest people like to chill. I'm out there looking like a rack of unwanted coats at the back of the store and you're ready to show an evil frost wizard the meaning of pain
-21 this morning and my truck screamed why you do this to me while starting it despite having had the block heater on for 3 hours.
The only reason to go out in -30 is because it was -40 yesterday
Is a block heater that it sounds like? Something to warm up the engine block?
Makes my pampered ass wonder what the operating temps are for ICE engines now.
It's an electric heating element. It warms up the engine, helps a lot.
I will add there are other heaters you plug into the car for where you need to make sure to unplug before too long. Block heaters tend to only heat up to a point, pan heaters are like an element on the stove so gotta make sure to not burn anything.
Where I grew up you didn't want a vehicle with some engine heater but block was the usual. No reason to live in that area if you can't afford a block heater for sure...I had a cheap car with a pan heater it sucked but was like 1/3 of a paycheque.
Remember those (I live southwards now) you get warm air soo fast too. A -30°C steering wheel is a bitch.
Operating temps? Generally speaking, ICE is fine once started. Consider piston aircraft, it's nippy up there.
Starting temp is where the real challenge is. Fluids (oil, gas, coolant) will be thicker, which makes the engine turn over more slowly - or not at all. Diesels especially struggle with this as their fuel can gel when it's cold enough. The battery will also be cold, which makes the engine turn over more slowly - or not at all.
Been there even at that temp, though when I learned there was someone who had to run in front of the dogs and break trail. I ended up having to break trail more than operating the sled, guess they didn't want to overload the dogs.
Nothing like camping at that temperature and groggily waking up hearing 'the fire is out' and reazling your hands are freezing, leader kid thought he'd stay awake enough I guess, this was all high school era. Thankfully there were backup cabins to retreat to when shit sucked. We did have a successful night in a quinzee on the same trip though.
We had guests last winter, all female dogs in heat (of course). At 1 I decided to sleep outside with the dogs, so Max, the nonstop barking horny idiot shuts up and guests can sleep. I don't like camping, even in summer. But I agreed to make the tent program, as it is very demanded by customers. It was supposed to be -8 in the morning. At 5 I woke quite frozen, so I closed my outer sleeping survival bag completely and started breathing heavily to heat up the inside. At 7 I woke up, tried to get into my boots, they were frozen solid. So I walked on top of them in order to slide in. Found the thermometer and it was -21.5C. Fun story to tell, but for me personally a nightmare.
Heh had the same issue with shoes one time, school thing (dogsled bit was from a school too) and one pair of shoes we had were some high top canvas sneakers guess converse like? But random supplied by the school you had to take (folded into packs nicely at least). Maybe the sole was better though. Then hiking in the Rockies up high in late August it did freeze (many decades ago now probably not today at the same time) and cause of river crossings during the day and no way to properly dry them lthe canvas froze in whatever lumpy position they rested in. We all had least two pairs of shoes so not too bad but having to deal with and was probably only -5 at worst. Mean I least I know how to deal with it but not something I'd purposely put myself in anymore.