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As of right now it is 9 degrees outside… we live in a house that was built in 1926 and hasn’t been updated since (besides for the bathroom that we did). Its very drafty… I try to keep the heater down… TONS of blankets on the bed and the warmest place in the house is standing over the floor heater! lol
Jennifer wrote:We have mad insulation in the walls and attic of course. Our windows are newer double-paned that are supposed to be.. um. Argon? Argon-nitorgen? It’s hard to say. The sellers wrote it as part of the house agreement so lets hope they were honest! We also caulk all the doorways and windows in the winter to make sure there is no draft. We keep the house at about 52°; my indoor winter wear usually is a sweater and a goofy looking flannel jacket on top. Our bed has about a billion blankets on it which is fine with me, I like the weight, but because the bedroom is furthest from the stove sometimes it gets down to 49° in there. 2048 sq. feet of house thereabouts to heat (that’s with the finished basement) and our coal runs us about $1,000 for a season, give or take, so if you spread it out that’s between $150-170/month. Our gas forced air furnace is straight from 1963 and is about as efficient as blowing the flame right out the chimney; the prior owners showed us their gas bills for the winter and no thanks.. $500+/month! So the gas heater is emergency backup only.
Yep,insulate the house,bundle up in layers and wait it out…. 🙂
Every act matters.No matter how small💞
(Wanted......Brimstone Lap)
Male Hearth....one day🤞Dream on.It is around 22 here. The sun is shining brightly though so no snow. Down here the schools close if the roads are too icy for the cars. We are such wimps down here.
In my region of the East Bay California, it’s about 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and foggy. It sprinkled a little today. So it’s a little odd for our region, but rather pleasant. Dang, I’m reading all this, and feeling super spoiled.
Uggh I hate when it gets under 30f because my parents dont heat their house at all….My room gets to 35f at night. I hate it. my window in my room doesnt close all the way so even more cold seeps in. So I live with my boyfriend more because our studio stays at around 75 year round because I own reptiles that will die without a minimum temp of 70. As others said it is around 50 miday in east bay, but first week of december we had 4 inches of snow in richmond. It has defiantly been a cold winter for cali. As for Idaho I go there for hunting in november and it was -15 last time I was up…That cold hurts. No amount of layers make that better. Since ultimately You have your face only partially covered. The house temp was 20 in mornings so it hurt to get up and take a shower too. :-/ heaters in my family are non-existant.
How on earth do they keep the pipes from freezing? O_o
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My art: featherdust.comFor all you who keep your houses below 60 for the winter, how do you keep your pets warm? Or do you have pets? Or do you only have hardy pets (furred dogs and cats)?
I have parrots and fish; the parrots stay quite comfortable unless it drops below 40°F for extended periods (which would never happen indoors), and the tanks have two heaters each. 🙂
Everyone thinks of parrots as living in hot, tropical paradise, but many parrots live in the high elevation ‘cloudforests’ of South America and temperatures in the 50°F range are not at all uncomfortable to them. Many other parrots live in arid regions like Australia, where the deserts actually get quite cold at night! Actually 50°F is not uncomfortable to most bird species as long as there isn’t a draft on them. 🙂Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comMy cats are happy in just about any temp….but my 75 gallon hermit crab tank has it’s own heaters, and humidity setup…they like it much warmer and humid than the rest of us. 😀
Lokie wrote:For all you who keep your houses below 60 for the winter, how do you keep your pets warm? Or do you have pets? Or do you only have hardy pets (furred dogs and cats)?
My house is usually above sixty, but I think this technique could be transferred to a cooler environment. For my reptiles, I use ceramic heating elements (like a lightbulb but emits no light, only heat) hooked to thermostats or rheostats. That knocks the whole room a little bit warmer, so my tarantulas stay comfy. My tropical millipede lives on top of my larger snakes cage (built like a box with a sliding front, not like an aquarium with mesh on top), so she gets some ambient heat from that. (if my house was colder, my tarantulas would also live there on that enclosure). It’s also my room, so I appreciate that extra bit of warmth.
Insulated enclosures, like plywood, particle board etc, seem a little more efficient at securing heat than glass aquariums or (thinner) plastic enclosures.
For my pet chicken, we just refurbish the straw in her coop before cold snaps. If it seems like really really bad weather, we hang blankets or towels over the mesh door overnight.
I keep my apartment around 60, and since one of my cats has a bad heart murmur, he’s very miserable with any sort of cold, and it gets worse each winter as he gets older. I used to just warm up a microwavable heating pad for him (still do) but for this Christmas I got my cats an electric heated bed (indoor/outdoor style with reinforced cord) and they love it! 🙂
Jennifer wrote:How on earth do they keep the pipes from freezing? O_o
I am told that dripping your faucets keep the pipes from freezing and bursting. At least that’s what the apartments I reside in while in school ordered us to do before I left for the holidays.
It’s not warm here yet…Although our nifty always right weatherman…He says it’s gonna warm back up somwhere around the middle of March or so… XD
No, actually it’s supposed to begin to be slightly warmer in north western Illinois in about the middle of this week. Highs of lower 30’s! Just below freezing ofcourse. 😛
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