small rooms and good insulation (Columbia: house, purchases, price)

[Abbymoulton]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

Maybe I should stop losing weight - I may be needing the extra insulation!!

Send me those whoopie pies!!!

Yeah!!!! That's my story (insulation) and I am sticking to it!!!

[CapeCodder]

Originally Posted by Bydand

You don't need a smaller built house, you need a well built house. One that is wind tight goes a LONG ways. Mine has no insulation in most of the walls, but in order to know if the wind is blowing hard outside you have to look out a window. No drafts, so it heats better than you would think. A well insulated house with poor fitting windows and doors that let in the drafts, will kill you at the fuel tank come heating season. Look for tight closing doors (if you can rattle them, they are drafty) and tight sealing windows. You will notice most of the older houses in Maine have a door on every room, mine even has one at the bottom of the stairs, just so they could close off rooms they didn't use in the winter.

Yeah, really that's the key. This little house is so tight, when you open the door you can hear the suction from it. It has blown in insulation, even the outlets on the outside walls have the little insulators in them. Plus lots of windows and a southern exposure mean passive solar heating. It's a very open floor plan and has no heat source upstairs. I thought I would freeze living here...we keep the heat around 60 and have been very comfortable.
Heating with K1 I really do appreciate the thought that the original owners put in to that stuff.

[GraniteStater]

WOW!
It would be a good idea to have the maximum amount of insulation allowed for your house in ME when I scan the low temperatures this morning.
Houlton and Presque Isle had temperatures around -26F and lower this morning.

[starwalker]

Originally Posted by Plains10

WOW!
It would be a good idea to have the maximum amount of insulation allowed for your house in ME when I scan the low temperatures this morning.
Houlton and Presque Isle had temperatures around -26F and lower this morning.

Maximum amount of insulation allowed? I didn't know there was a max...

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Plains10

WOW!
It would be a good idea to have the maximum amount of insulation allowed for your house in ME when I scan the low temperatures this morning.
Houlton and Presque Isle had temperatures around -26F and lower this morning.

In a woodstick construction, the thickness of the wall interior determines how much room you have inside there to put insulation. Walls built with 2'X4' studs will have 3.5 inches of space [not a lot].

In our current house there is an outer metal skin, but I determined where to put the interior wall. So I could have put it at 4 inches, or at 4 feet. Allowing as much insulation as I desired. I determined that I wanted the interior walls to hang at nine inches away from the outer walls, so there they are. Giving me nine inches of room into which I was able to put insulation.

However a guy that I have seen on TV, and that I listen to his radio show each week, is Tom Goezce [sp]. He routinely strips the outside siding off houses, then wraps a house with Tyvek, then hangs Styrofoam sheets on the outside of that. One inch, two inches, three? He caulks them all so there are no leaks or gaps and then rehangs siding over it.

I just saw him last night pulling down kitchen cabinets and removing them from the kitchen, to hang Styrofoam sheets onto the inside of the interior walls, to panel over and rehang the cabinets again.

[starwalker]

Forest, I am glad to read what you have written about the added layers of insulation... in and out... it is what I was visualizing doing myself!

That and cauling and the Tyvek... which is new stuff since I last did anything like this, but I have seen it put up on houses under construction near me and on a renovation as well.

[Elcarim]

So, in planning to lease a house at first, how do we go about having it checked out by someone who is experienced with the Maine winters? How exactly will we know what we are getting into with our limited knowledge? What kinds of questions will be on our list to ask?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

So, in planning to lease a house at first, how do we go about having it checked out by someone who is experienced with the Maine winters? How exactly will we know what we are getting into with our limited knowledge? What kinds of questions will be on our list to ask?

I would not bother.

Just come here, and get into a place.

Once here, then you can really be looking for your next move. I came up in a motorhome for my first summer, and rented an apartment in the fall. My DW and son came up that Fall and we wintered over in that apartment.

It cost me $650 / month and included heat.

Then the following spring - summer we moved out of it and into our house.

I would recommend that you do something like that.

Your first place, is just a temp operating HQ. To learn about the area and prepare for where you are truly going.

[Bewitched]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

So, in planning to lease a house at first, how do we go about having it checked out by someone who is experienced with the Maine winters? How exactly will we know what we are getting into with our limited knowledge? What kinds of questions will be on our list to ask?

It can be hard to get any head's up about heating costs, especially if you can't talk to the previous renters, or the landlord didn't have a congenial, informative relationship with the former tenant and has no idea of the recent costs.
One thing you can do, is contact the companies that supplied the oil, propane, kerosene, or whatever. They (usually) should be able to give you a "guestimate" at the very least, of how much oil was used, how many deliveries, amounts used during different seasons, etc.
(It's what we had to do as the last tenants left in a hurry and dropped off the face of the earth)

(One more thing...when the companies gave me their "estimates" or a monthly cost projection...I added 20% on to their amounts, so I was pretty confident there would be little to no surprises)

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by Plains10

Houlton and Presque Isle had temperatures around -26F and lower this morning.

Yeah tell me about it. Scheduled to change a 4 unit apartment building meter bank beginning of the week when it was supposed to be +35 today. SUPRIZE! didn't break 0 until we were almost totally done. Kind of chilly out there this morning. Right now is the first time I have been inside today sense 6:00 this morning. Been home for about 1/2 an hour and about ready to die of the heat, it is 68 in the house and feels like 100.