Western NYS, USA is three degrees below zero (Farenheit) today.
Wonder what all I can do about the cold? Obvious answer is to stay home and turn the heat up. I've got a towel acting as a door snake, help keep the cold from coming in under the door.
Only trace of snow, no snow moval today. I guess I'll hope the utilities stay on.
Our house can get rather cold in the winter even with various sources of heat that we have, so this year I tried one of those radiator oil heaters on wheels, and it worked great! We liked it so much I bought another one for the back part of the house.
People in farm country would put plastic over the windows and stack some straw bales around the houses years ago. The fortunate ones had a good windbreak north and west of their houses. It was also nicer if the outhouse door wasn't on the north or west side of it.
If it gets any colder, we may close the windows. ;-)
awe ... I have spring fever, I think.
Per Stormin Mormon:
That is what I have been doing at night.
But now I am thinking "Electric Blanket".... on the assumption that
100-150 watts of electric blanket is cheaper than raising the temp of half the house.
Why don't you have an energy audit done? Then you'll know why and what to do about it.
He already knows why - it's a mobile home with 2" thick walls and no insulation . Has aluminum windows that are single glazed and have no thermal break and also let air infiltrate . Also has a poorly fitting doors if he has to use a towel as a door snake .
I suspect you are correct, the warm bed is cheaper than the warm house. As for me, another blanket helps, during the winter months.
I just toss another log on the fire and open the inlet air damper a bit . Right now it's in the high 30's and I've got the stove turned all the way down and a couple of windows cracked so it doesn't get too warm ... this stove is way oversized for our current space . Sized it for the final structure , about 4X the current floor space .
My first house built in the '70s had wood burning fire place I retrofit to natural gas burning. This house has 2 fire places direct vented gas burning, even cabin I am going out today(family day long week end) has same gas fire place. No more stacking/splitting wood,LOL.
Sounds like 5th wheel trailer I used to have for camping was better insulated. I could go winter camping and it was comfy inside. Cold in winter, then hot in summer as well...... Worried about more bugs in coming summer here because we are having such a mild winter. High temperature record set in 1926 is broken now.
I thought Muggles was female? Oh, maybe I'm mistaken. Sorry, Mr. Muggles.
Right now we know the house needs more and better insulation, but have to make due with what we can actually afford. We'd have to do some major insulating and wall repairing to add more insulation, and can't afford it right now.
It has to get pretty cold for us to fire up the wood stove because the thing puts out more heat than we really need.
Yes, I'm female. lol
Turning up the heat should not be required - the furnace will run until the set temperature is reached - unless the thermostat is on the sheltered side of the wall close to the heat sourse and the house is so drafty that the rest of the house never gets warm...
My Dad liked his oil filled radiator. I've always been a fan forced heat kind of guy. But, I may try oil filled, some day. Thank you.
Both good idas. I've got some window plastic. I'm sure the park would disapprove if I used hay bales. This summer, a friend crawled under and found some holes in the insullation. He was kind enough to call out sizes for me. I cut pieces to shape, and slid them in. Also handed in screws, drill drivers, washers, etc. Hope that helps, it certainly must help.
We used to have a floor furnace, bit it died of old age. We replaced it with a wall gas heater, so now 2 rooms have those. The heat is OK while they are on, but just don't produce enough heat for the whole house. The back bedroom has some electric baseboard heaters and a wood stove. Again, not quite enough heat via the electric baseboard heaters, and it's messy to use the wood stove unless it's gets cold enough to put up with the mess, including, putting up with the occasional smoke while building fires. That can really mess with my asthma, so it's a use when we really need it kind of thing.
We've tried various kinds of space heaters, and none of them really kept the house warm until we tried the oil radiator type on wheels. The brand I researched had good reviews, too, and since we've been using them we rarely get cold anymore. Best space heaters I've ever tried.
I would like to be proven wrong, but I just do not see any advantage over the oil filled heaters over the electric heaters that just have a heating element and a fan blowing across them. Isn't electric heat just the same either way and you are wasting the money on a more expensive heater ? Anything that produces heat from elecrtricity is going to use the same ammout of KWH to raise the room to the same temperature.
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