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I had a heated mattress pad and an electric blanket. One morning I woke up to find my wife had put an apple in my mouth and was jabbing me with a fork...!!
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I had a heated mattress pad and an electric blanket. One morning I woke up to find my wife had put an apple in my mouth and was jabbing me with a fork...!!
Donn I found out about them from my buddy in misoula. I thought he was joking when he'd 'set his bed on roast'. I can totally picture that apple! The high setting felt like the tropics.
If you have an older house, the windows really lose a lot of heat. You can buy rope caulking to prevent drafts, or plastic wrap that you 'blow dry' onto the windows. These are great solutions!
We've used that plastic wrap blow dry stuff in almost every old house we've lived in... we first got it when living in a house built in 1910 that had shifted a lot and had tons of drafts. It's cheap, and awesome (though kind of ugly but if you use drapes no one sees)... the next house was built in the 40's but the central heat didn't work, and this house we are in now (that we bought) was built around 1915 but has been updated more (newer windows, more insulation) so there's less of a draft problem.
I don't have much to add to this thread since we live in San Antonio, TX and it doesn't get that cold. However, the past three places we've lived have not had central heat... the current one has working gas jets and newer, modern gas space heaters but we haven't used them yet (we've been here one winter in this house, the heaters came with the house but are all in storage). I'll admit I have a bit of an irrational fear of gas heat and appliances, which is pretty common to my generation, or so I hear.
We mainly just dress more warmly and use electric space heaters and/or electric blankets, electric mattress pads, and deal with being a little cold. Better than being hot any day! We have some of those oil filled space heaters too, which are nice if you remember to turn them on early in the day to have the room warm by bedtime. One electric "baseboard style" heater that is awesome, and a tiny little electric heater for by the computer for your feet. We also all have down comforters as well which help a lot. The only discomfort I ever have in winter is my head getting cold. I can't stand to sleep in a hat though.
My mom uses her fireplace a LOT to keep it warm... she and my Grandma live in a mobile home with central heat but they are always cold, so it's nice they have a fireplace. We seemed to find the only old house in all of our house hunting that did NOT have a fireplace... seems like all the others we looked at did!
The only room we keep consistently warm is the BATHROOM. Nothing worse than a toilet that's like ice when you wake up in the morning!
(again, before someone says it, I realize the cold here is not like in other places!)
We always look forward to "winter" (if you can call it that here) since it means a big break in our utility bills. Summer is the real killer for us, $$ wise, because I absolutely cannot tolerate being the slightest bit hot.
Last edited by fierce_flawless; 10-16-2008 at 11:17 AM..
LOL Lisa- No doubt I dread cold seats, but having wire and water interface- makes me nervous. I've always given that a wide berth for pro's, excuse myself because I'm in clueless territory. I'd be nut enough to wonder where I could mount a dead man stick that matches the decor.
It might be engineered perfectly, I concede I could be irrational here, but I'm a consummate worry wart and keep a vigilant lookout for murphy's law. Of course we've all got different problems to solve, so our solutions will be different. Another blogger has a successful heated bathroom floor that's electrical, but the hydronic system I priced out would cost less per sq ft. to install, cost less to repair from underneath (vs tear out tile from above), and is more consistent with whole house solution. It also gives me the option of choosing the source of BTU's with more flexibility (electric solar panels, solar hot water buffer tanks augmenting gas hot water heat etc)
Yet another blogger jokingly calls things 'sailor proof', which I can totally get behind. A low tech wooden seat and heated floors has the upside of making me worry less about a short in wiring.
Fierce old construction, especially where insulation or modern heating were an afterthought... ouch! I'll add to your solutions, that if you've got 'windy' electric outlets on exterior walls a can of spray foam can help seal off that problem.
LOL Lisa- No doubt I dread cold seats, but having wire and water interface- makes me nervous. I've always given that a wide berth for pro's, excuse myself because I'm in clueless territory. I'd be nut enough to wonder where I could mount a dead man stick that matches the decor.
It might be engineered perfectly, I concede I could be irrational here, but I'm a consummate worry wart and keep a vigilant lookout for murphy's law. Of course we've all got different problems to solve, so our solutions will be different. Another blogger has a successful heated bathroom floor that's electrical, but the hydronic system I priced out would cost less per sq ft. to install, cost less to repair from underneath (vs tear out tile from above), and is more consistent with whole house solution. It also gives me the option of choosing the source of BTU's with more flexibility (electric solar panels, solar hot water buffer tanks augmenting gas hot water heat etc)
Yet another blogger jokingly calls things 'sailor proof', which I can totally get behind. A low tech wooden seat and heated floors has the upside of making me worry less about a short in wiring.
Fierce old construction, especially where insulation or modern heating were an afterthought... ouch! I'll add to your solutions, that if you've got 'windy' electric outlets on exterior walls a can of spray foam can help seal off that problem.
Just be sure you use the more expensive White foam (DAP MAYBE?) Not Great Stuff or equivalent. the cheaper yellow foam gets brittle and disintegrates over time. The white foam is less expansive, and more expensive, but it lasts longer.
My house was built in 1930, plaster walls, no insulation, radiator heat. My first heating bill that came in I almost cried.
Every winter I would take pieces of flat cardboard and wrap them in aluminum foil and place them behind the radiators. The heat reflected off the foil and back into the room instead of being completly lost in the walls. It made a difference!
I would also keep the heat set on 67, I used an electric throw on the sofa and had a space heater in the bedroom for the mornings.
I just moved to SW Florida from Baltimore. I have my space heater with me for our "winter" months.
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