Thursday, October 02, 2008

Batten Down the Hatches

Boy, it just doesn't seem possible that it is now October! Where the heck did this year go so quickly?

Bill's been trying to take the time to do some extra winterizing on the house this year. Last year's fuel oil prices were bad enough to deal with and now, we're looking at another winter already with the wind blowing, snow falling, ice storms and such. Something I don't particularly relish, for sure!

So far, Bill's put that heavy-duty plastic on some of the windows on the house. He did all the windows now in my little bedroom and I hope it does cut down on the draft issues there. The radiator in my room works but not very well. In order to get it to heat up to any noticeable degree remotely comfortable, we'd have to kick the thermostat here up to about 75 degrees at least and that would have the upstairs turned into a virtual oven -plus, at today's oil prices, would not be even remotely affordable then either.

My son as well as my son-in-law are both big Volkswagon fans too and they each have a "Bug" they have restored as well. Last summer and fall, Bill tore down an old house here in town for the guy who owned it in exchange for whatever lumber was usable from the place and then, he built a garage at my son's house where they could store their "Bugs" to protect them from the winter elements. If he hadn't done that, they definitely would have had to invest in a car cover for each one of these vehicles to give them some protection and help keep their hard work from being destroyed.

Wonder if we could get a super-sized one and just drape it over the house from October through April? Would that help hold the heat in?

10 comments:

Linda said...

My house has two zone heating but the zone upstairs never seems to work so we use small electric heaters when we're upstairs. They don't seem to use much electricity and do the job quite well.

I don't mind sleeping in a slightly cooler room at all it's just getting out of bed when the room is freezing that makes it even harder to get up in the morning than it normally is!

Cold, dark winter mornings - ugh! Not looking forward to them at all!

Berni said...

Cool today, although we have had Indian Summer, for a couple of weeks so we can't complain. We have the wood stove going but I have the door open into the solarium because it is quite bright in there and the heat from gets in there from the living room. We could have snow any day now but I really hope it holds off a while. I am watching TV from in here and making jewelry as well as checking blogs. Multi tasking.

terri said...

That's a great idea! Just drape a cover over the house. I'm already nagging my family to put on more clothing rather than turn up the thermostat or flip on the gas fireplace. I am not looking forward to the heating bills this year!

Anonymous said...

I just could not tolerate snow and ice! It's cold in the house tonight but that's because the air conditioning is set at 67 degrees ;)

Sandi McBride said...

I was going to suggest a small electric heater for the small bedroom...and heavy insulation in the attic...good luck with the winterizing, Jeni!
hugs
Sandi

Mary said...

Jeni,

We can get sufficient heat in our part of the house but the upstairs apartment always seems to be cold. Heat rises, so I can't figure this out. This is an old house and while renovating the upstairs, I sealed around the windows by folding and sliding newspapers in the cracks and then finishing them with wallboard mud - then sanded and painted. We are also going to silicone around them for added protection.

I hope that the winterizing that Bill has done will help. The cost of heating bills today is atrocious. However, sometimes I think we keep our homes too warm, which can cause colds and flu. When I was growing up, we had only woodstoves and there used to be frost on the inside of the windows in the morning. I don't remember ever being sick with colds back then. We just heaped on the blankets and quilts.

The artificial heat dries out our membranes and sometimes I think that is what brings on the colds and flu. Food for thought.

Stay warm. I too dread the coming winter. Guess I'm getting old. LOL

Blessings,
Mary

janet copenhaver said...

I not looking forward to wintering in Denver. NO WOODSTOVE to keep me nice and toasty. Well we have one out in the shop, but can't live out there all the time.

fermicat said...

It has just now started to get cooler here in the deep south. Still no rain. We're in that time period where we can turn off the climate control and just use the windows. I really enjoy that, especially at night, when we can listen to the crickets.

Travis Cody said...

We have zoned thermostats and it works pretty well. Of course that reminds me that I need to test them because they haven't been turned on since May.

I better make a note. I don't want to get into the really cool weather and find out something isn't working properly.

Dianne said...

I enjoyed the visual of a house under a giant car cover :)