F · Texture
Daybook.
Short field entries from the heating season. Cold snaps logged with the outside temperature stamped, service calls recorded with the time and the disposition, shoulder-season tuning visits where we balance other crews' systems. The two longest entries from the 2024–25 season open below.
The daybook is the bound-paper analogue of the binders we leave at every install — except this one belongs to the shop itself rather than to any one homeowner. Lars opens it on the workbench every Monday morning at 7 a.m. and reads back the previous week's entries before the day starts.
Entries published this season
2026 Jan 21 – Jan 23 · 03:15 MT
–22°F
The longest sustained sub-zero event of the season: 72 hours below 0°F, peak –22°F at 03:00 MT on January 22. Three service calls during the event. Truck rolled twice. Full account of the Bridger Canyon actuator replacement at 03:15 MT, the Cottonwood snowmelt running idle-on through the depth of the storm, and the call we did not roll for.
Read the full entry →
2025 Apr 18 · 14:00 MT
+41°F
A balancing visit on a system we did not install: a 2018 ski-cabin radiant install up Bridger Canyon, called in by the homeowner after the family noted the third bedroom was reading cold every night. Two-hour visit, one actuator adjustment, one outdoor-reset curve recalibration, one set of bullet points for the installing contractor's records.
Read the full entry →
Shorter entries · recent
2026 Feb 04 · 22:40 MT
+4°F
Cottonwood snowmelt: 7″ of dry powder over a 3-hour window. System held idle-on; surface clear by 06:15. Outdoor-sensor reading drifted 1.5°F from the slab sensor at peak draw — flagged for spring calibration. No service call required.
2026 Jan 09 · 11:00 MT
+18°F
Belgrade townhomes (JB-2023-04): scheduled mid-season check on units 2 and 3. All three Navien NCB-150 plants firing at design profile; condensate neutralizer pH 6.8–7.0 (within spec); expansion tank pre-charge held since last service. Halla rotated the binder log forward; coffee at the Belgrade Cabin Bar on the way back.
2025 Dec 22 · 19:20 MT
+12°F
Homeowner call from the 2020 Hyalite Foothills install: the upstairs office (loop M-3, C-2) reading cool. Talked the homeowner through opening the M-3 manifold cabinet, reading the actuator state on C-2 (green LED, calling), and reading the supply/return Δt at the manifold (8°F, low — should be 18°F). Diagnosed restricted flow at the supply-side ball valve which had been throttled by a renter the previous summer; talked the homeowner through opening it. Setpoint restored within 90 minutes. No truck rolled.
2025 Nov 30 · 09:00 MT
+22°F
First measurable snow of the heating season — 3.5″ overnight. All five active snowmelt systems on the operating list ramped from idle to active-melt within 14 minutes of the moisture sensor wetting. No abnormal cycling reported. Lars logged the event and sent the morning summary to the on-call rota.
2025 Nov 14 · 07:45 MT
+34°F
Heating-season start review at the shop. Iris read the load files for the seven new-construction systems scheduled to commission between now and February. Wendell confirmed the commissioning rota. Halla pulled the on-call phone list and posted it on the board. Coffee from the Stovall press; pastries from
Wild Crumb.
2025 Nov 02 · 06:30 MT
+27°F
Season opening. Per the workshop tradition since 2014, the season opens with a walk to the front door of the shop, the heating-season chalkboard turned over to read Vol. XII · No. 1, and Lars firing the small commissioning boiler on the test bench. The reset curve on the test bench was set to the canonical residential curve before any client work commenced. Coffee.
Older entries from heating seasons 2011–12 through 2024–25 are kept in the bound paper daybook at the shop. Selected entries from the deep cold snaps of 2017 (–37°F at Wilsall), 2019 (–34°F at West Yellowstone), and 2023 (–28°F at Big Sky) are queued for typesetting and will appear here.
Read across: the job book for the as-built systems referenced; the commissioning scope for the audit visits.