My house is freezing!

[Daisy14'sDH]

I forgot to mention, make sure you replace any windows with the best quality you can reasonably afford!!! You can lose a lot of energy through poorly crafted windows, especially when they are installed incorrectly!!!

 

[RNMOM]

Have you tried adjusting the baffles on your furnace runs? There should be little handles that control the position of a baffle that opens or closes a baffle inside each run from the furnace. Perhaps the ones to your downstairs are closed or partially closed and the ones to the upstairs are open wide. See if you can figure it out and adjust them.

 

[Jennasis]

DH has our heating/plumbing company coming this morning to check it out.

 

[Iott Family]

We have heating issues due to trying to heat two levels(3700 sq ft.) and a furnace that just meets code. In the winter we close all the upstairs vents and leave the downstairs vents open. We keep the thermostat set between 66-68 and we find this works best in maintaining temps in the whole house.

Right now we are in an arctic chill here. Wind chills are running in the -10/-20's and we are on a slab so I am running three oscillating space heaters. The kind that blow hot air/not the ones where the coils get hot. We are on a slab also.
Anyways, I have one at the front of the house where the entrance/dining room and formal sitting area are located. One in the back of the house in teh sunroom area that DH has turned into his office and one in our main living space. Our heat is set on 66 and our thermostat is reading 67 Also the downstairs minus our main living room is all hardwood flooring so I think that makes a difference too. At least my toes think so!!!

 

[Jennasis]

Well, the heating company guy just left. There was good news and bad news.

Good news is that the system is working 100%.


The bad news is that the system is working 100%.


So this goes back to our theory of no insulation and poorly sealing doors and windows. DH is off to Home Depot at lunch to buy some plastic sheeting and thermal curtains and caulk. We're going to seal the bejeezus out of that door and the big window, then sheet over the whole thing and hang thermal curtains over the un insulate wall. Eventually we'll cut a hole in it and blow in insulation.

The heating company guy told me to open ALL the downstair dampers and leave all the room doors open so the house can "even out" and not have any cold rooms acting as heat sinks. So that's going on right now.

He also said to keep the upstairs dampers closed all day and the upstairs door shut, and to open it at night when we go to bed.

Apparently, his company installed our heater for the old old owners back in 1991. He said he remembers begging the owner to install a second heater to take care of the upstairs because the single one they were buying was insufficient to heat our entire house based on square footage. He said if we ever decide to do it, give him a call.

I HATE people cutting corners. I really do.

So, hopefully we have a plan of action to try to seal us up as best as possible until we can someday replace that terrible wall and all our old windows/doors (huge $$$$$) and get a second heater (more $$$$).

sigh...and it's supposed to snow tomorrow!

 

[Jennasis]

Well well well...alert the media. I was right and DH was (shhh)...WRONG!

I opened all the downstairs vents and closed the upstairs and what do you know...it's 69 degrees MAGICALLY in the whole lower level and guess what the thermostat is set on? 69!

I've been telling DH for TWO freezing winters that we can't keep the vents closed in rooms we don't use because it will suck the heat out of the rooms we DO use. he kept telling me No and that my thinking was wrong.

I'll never gloat to him. Just here. So happy to have a warm house tonight!

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

...I opened all the downstairs vents and closed the upstairs and what do you know...it's 69 degrees MAGICALLY in the whole lower level and guess what the thermostat is set on? 69!

Glad you figured it out.

 

[ameraumi]

Well well well...alert the media. I was right and DH was (shhh)...WRONG!

I opened all the downstairs vents and closed the upstairs and what do you know...it's 69 degrees MAGICALLY in the whole lower level and guess what the thermostat is set on? 69!

I've been telling DH for TWO freezing winters that we can't keep the vents closed in rooms we don't use because it will suck the heat out of the rooms we DO use. he kept telling me No and that my thinking was wrong.

I'll never gloat to him. Just here. So happy to have a warm house tonight!

LOL! Add that to the plastic and other stuff and you are going to feel so much better!

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Now my mom's house. OY! 1730 cape. Insulation was newspaper wrapped around the framing. We wanted to salvage the horsehair plaster walls so we insulated from the outside in.

Our walls were hollow, as I understand it, and they just went up in the attic and blew insulation down the sides. . .

 

[Jennasis]

I can't gloat too much...almost burned the house down boiling two pots of water earlier. I lost track of time and boiled all the water out of two big stock pots! I smelled something burning and went running into the kitchen. Pots were bone dry and smoking.
Oy!

 

[Hannathy]

I can't gloat too much...almost burned the house down boiling two pots of water earlier. I lost track of time and boiled all the water out of two big stock pots! I smelled something burning and went running into the kitchen. Pots were bone dry and smoking.
Oy!

I thought of you today when I was simmering a pot of water! It was -6 and the water did help. Here's a hint set the timer on the stove when you put a pot on, I have menopause brain and I would forget them also!.

Glad you are warmer tonight.

 

[robinb]

You don't have to boil water on the stove. A humidifier will do the same job .

 

[Genie 410]

For starters, it's an old house. 1800 square ft. Only one bedroom and a bathroom upstairs, and two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen/livingroom, dining room downstairs. Our heating bills are outrageous...we are hemorrhaging heat! The upstairs is hot as Hades but downstairs it's 57 degrees with the heat set at 70 and running constantly!

I think we narrowed the cause down to one wall in our living room. I can feel cold air coming through the light sockets in the wall (it's an exterior wall)! If you place your hand on the wall itself it feels cold. We think there is little ir possibly NO insulation in that wall. The wall also house a "bay" window with an exterior door. The house is so old that the door frame has shifted and settled and is no longer square. At the very bottom of the door, you can see light. Iknow it isn't sealing properly.

DH bought those foam insulators for the outlets and is installing them today. Also got weatherstripping to try to seal up any leaks in the window/door. The living room is on a slab. Someday I want too pull up the carpet and put down radiant heat and hardwood.

Anyway. Has anyone ever had an energy audit done? How much did it cost? Did it help (the info you got)? I can't sit in a cold house all winter while I am paying for heat!!

We had an energy audit done- very much worthwhile. It can be done by your local utility company - is best done in the winter. It cost about $100 and was applied to our utility bill. They found a few very easy things for us to do and helped us save way more $$ in energy bills than it cost us to do. Check with your utility company or a local non-profit focused on energy improvements in your community.

 

[Daisy14'sDH]

Our walls were hollow, as I understand it, and they just went up in the attic and blew insulation down the sides. . .

Worst thing about this way of insulating is that ther is no structure or proper air gap, it will fall, if it doesn't it will prove to be inefficient in the long run. THe opinion of most contractors I know in the area is that it is a decent temporary bandaid but for longterm solutions it is not realistic due to its nature.

Now to put it in an attic it is nearly ideal, it will settle but wont crush itself due to density like in a wall.

Its basic physics when you think about it...

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Worst thing about this way of insulating is that ther is no structure or proper air gap, it will fall, if it doesn't it will prove to be inefficient in the long run. THe opinion of most contractors I know in the area is that it is a decent temporary bandaid but for longterm solutions it is not realistic due to its nature.

Now to put it in an attic it is nearly ideal, it will settle but wont crush itself due to density like in a wall.

Its basic physics when you think about it...

Oh they did that too, where it was feasible. The house was an typical old colonial - you know the 5 windows on top, 4 and a door on the bottom? The second floor WAS finished out when the main part of the house was built in around 1800 or so (It was pretty obvious it was built as a one pen or "little house" previous to that when you look at the framing.) so there was a crawlspace for an attic above the second floor (with all the cool roman numerals on the timbers).

The thing you also have to remember is that even though the walls were hollow, after so long, it wasn't a pristine sort of hollow. All sorts of things were blocking the hollow after so long. Yeah, it will likely sift down, but from having to replace some sills on one side and getting to look up into the walls at the time. . .I think that will take some time to happen.

It's like when we replaced the sills. We got all sorts of reccomendations that it was water rushing down the hill that had caused the sills to rot and we needed to take preventative action against the water. Well, that was true, but when we tore into it, we found out that it had taken 200 years for the sills to rot. We replaced the wood and the joists and all with better quality material and will leave it to someone else in 200 years to do the same.

Same for blown in insulation. If it takes 20 years for it to all sift down, that's still better than if they'd not done it at all.

 

[Jennasis]

You don't have to boil water on the stove. A humidifier will do the same job .

Um...I know. We don't have one (or rather DIDN'T). DH bought one last night.

 

[robinb]

Um...I know. We don't have one (or rather DIDN'T). DH bought one last night.

Sorry, I didn't intend to insult you . I would not have even considered boiling water on the stove. We run humidifiers in our bedrooms at night most of the winter. It helps to breathe at night when we have a cold/virus, it helps with dry skin and it makes the room warmer.

 

[Jennasis]

Sorry, I didn't intend to insult you . I would not have even considered boiling water on the stove. We run humidifiers in our bedrooms at night most of the winter. It helps to breathe at night when we have a cold/virus, it helps with dry skin and it makes the room warmer.

S'ok. We used a humidifier way back when we used to get a live Christmas tree. The theory was that the tree would not dry out as quickly. Now we go artificial.

 

[maraki527]

We got the window kit from Home Depot and sealed all our windows with it. We also cover the grates on the fireplace when it is not in use. At Home Depot we bought vent covers and sprayed them with the high heat spray paint to match the fire place. You cant even tell they are on when it is not in use.

 

[Hannathy]

We got the window kit from Home Depot and sealed all our windows with it. We also cover the grates on the fireplace when it is not in use. At Home Depot we bought vent covers and sprayed them with the high heat spray paint to match the fire place. You cant even tell they are on when it is not in use.

That is a good idea! right now I just have a rolled up blanket in front of mine to stop the draft. As soon as the Christmas madness dies down I'm goin g to go look for some