Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Roughing It in the Cold

Well, winter weather is starting to set in for sure.  When I climbed out of bed this morning, there was a bit of snow on the ground (not as much as they got in Western New York - have you seen the pictures?!), and my little weather station told me it was 13° outside...and only 56° in my bedroom.  Oy.

At time of writing...
 We've been keeping our thermostat set to 62° to save money on natural gas.  But in an old house with literally no insulation in the walls (I did not realize this until Tom informed me of it the other day.  Apparently, in the 1920s, there was little need for insulation in houses, since coal was so cheap - and probably especially so here, as we live in coal country - and you could always just throw another shovel in to the furnace to make it warmer...), the upper floors never even get that high.  

There's a Facebook group I'm part of, and one of the women recently asked what temperature everyone kept their thermostats set to in the winter.  There were dozens of responses, ranging as high as 72°.  The average seemed to be between 65° and 68°.  Only one person I saw kept theirs lower than us: at 60°, and she said she lived in Vermont so maybe she's just used to the cold...? 

Here, we spend the days wrapped in several sweaters, thick socks with down-filled slippers on top, and scarves and hoods as needed.  Sometimes I even sleep wearing a hat.  My body maintains a low level of constant shivering.

Anyways, if I thought my room was cold this morning, it felt like a veritable sauna compared to the attic.  I went up there to wake Sly, and could hardly stand how cold it was.  You can see your breath up there!  Poor kid. The ducting just has no warm air left to give by the time it reaches the one tiny floor vent that's supposed to service the whole third floor - and that's after we've selectively closed off several of the vents in "unnecessary" rooms below, such as the bathroom....brrrr!

Tom and I have been brainstorming about measures we can take to help keep it a bit warmer in the house/cheaper to heat.  He's partially through with covering the windows with plastic, and using spray foam insulation along the drafty bits in the foundation in the basement.  Hopefully that helps a bit.  And he found a tutorial for how to strategically add insulation to the specific type of attic shape we have.

As much as I want to complain about how cold it is here - and I think I pretty much spent a whole blog post doing just that! - I keep reminding myself that in terms of human history, we are so lucky to be enjoying a house that's as warm as it is during the winter.  Even into the Victorian period, many people had to close up the majority of their houses during the winter, living in just a room or two, huddled around a common hearth.  And insulation or no, I know our house is much toastier than the little loft where the Ingalls girls slept in the Little House books!

10 comments:

  1. space heater? Our heater recentlt died and limped along with borrowed space heaters for a couple of days. I now plan to get a couple. We also live in an old, drafty house. They arent too pricey.

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    1. Yeah, we have one in there now, and have been turning it on a half hour before his bedtime...but I feel like it hasn't made much difference. Also, we're nervous to leave it on all night in a kids' room :-/

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  2. Does your space heater blow hot air into the room, or is it more of a radial type heater? My parents had the latter in their kitchen and I feel like it was less of a fire hazard. (The metal got hot to the touch but not hot enough to catch fire; the actual heating element wasn't accessible at all.)

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    1. Thinking of Sly's room; I meant this more as a response to your comment!

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  3. Pellet stove? Not sure how expensive they are, but it might help keep things a little cozier...

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  4. I keep wondering what happened to fall! We had -12 with the wind chill two nights ago! In the past, we've kept our therm at 64 during the day and 58 at night, but I made a plea for it to be upped this year, as our house heats so unevenly, and weve noticed Jack's room feels like an ice box. Plus, I have to get out from under the covers to feed a newborn... brrrrr. Hopefully this winter won't be as bad as last!

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  5. We keep our house at 64 technically but I think only a few rooms are actually anywhere near that. We have a sunroom, lined with windows, which isn't connected to the heating system and cannot be closed off from the rest of the house, that I think is sucking up a ton of heat. Spring project: install doors so we can close off the sunroom. Our house was built in 1865 and though the three layers of brick hold some heat, they also hold cold and of course there's no insulation. The kitchen is an addition and boy! is it cold in there today. I have to put on an extra sweater to do the dishes. We are blessed to have a wood stove in the living room and last night we all slept down there, leaving our icy cold bedrooms empty. It was pretty cozy if my sanity can handle all the bedding piled around the room during the day.
    Anyway, before this comment turns into an entire blog post, I'm sort of glad to hear we're not the only ones who struggle to heat our house in winter yet I"m also sorry other people are dealing with being cold, too. It sure makes one long for spring.

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  6. Old houses...yay! The boys' room (3 external, windtunnel-facing walls) is usually 5 to 7 degrees colder than our room which is piping hot at the moment. No idea why. The heating guy was just here to check and fill all the radiators. I'm pretty sure I could keep milk in the back corner of the kitchen counter. I had cherry tomatoes there the other day and they were frozen.

    It's a great kid-education time! To point out how many blessings we have and to pray or do other things to help those who have a more difficult road. I'm happy to see some of the guys in the underpass of 279 have gotten tents. I can't imagine how cold it must be.

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  7. You're my role model:) I wimp out at around 64 degrees during the day. Our last house was built around the turn of the century and the first project we did after we bought it was to have insulation put in. They took off some of the siding, drilled holes, and blew it in between the studs. They did a terrible job, but even so it made a big difference in our heating bill!

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  8. I have found that covering the windows with plastic and heavy curtains upstairs have really helped a ton in our old house. I can't bear to let my husband cover the livingroom windows, though. I feel claustrophobic, which I know is totally lame.

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