Baby it's cold... inside

[dreamshark]

Last night the temperature dropped to something like 15 below zero, with a bit of a wind. It was cold, inside and out. This morning the actual temp registering on the thermostat in the dining room was 62. Yikes! The thermostat was set to 70! My immediate fear was that the furnace had gone off, but no, it was cranking away. And all the radiators were warm (except the one in Amber's room, which doesn't work very well). The heat was just leaking out of the house faster than the radiators could warm it up.

Now, -15F is cold, but nothing close to the record cold for this date (-36!!) or even the coldest it's been since we've lived in this house. We've got some serious heat leaks somewhere. Of course, it didn't help that someone had draped towels and stuff all over the main radiator in the living room. I cleared the radiators off and turned on the ceiling fan to distribute the heat a little better, and the temperature went up a couple of degrees within the hour. We also discovered a hell of a cold draft coming in the landing window, which still has the air conditioner in it (covered with plastic for winter, but the technique was less than perfect). I stuffed an old towel into the gaping crack at the TOP of the lower casement, and the cold draft by that window diminished significantly. The inside temperature eventually made it all the way to 70 (at least at the thermostat, which is situated at the warmest possible spot in the house). We'll see how we do tonight, which is supposed to be even colder.

Comments

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

There's nothing quite like spending a Minnesota winter in a house built back when heat was dirt cheap.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Of course, it would also help if we had all the storm windows on the house. Richard took a bunch of them off to repair when we first moved in 20+ years ago, and several of them are still in process. *sigh*

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that doesn't help. Do you folks shrink-wrap the stormless windows? I remember doing that with some of the windows on the 16th Avenue house, and it seemed to help quite a bit.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Some of them. It does help.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Makes you want to crawl in a shell and dig down into the substrate, doesn't it?

B

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

It's scary how fast people begin to identify with their pets.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am so going to pinch you the next time I see you.

B

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

And I'll jump straight up into the air like a gerbil and come down with my teeth in your neck.

Better watch out - my animal totem is more aggressive than yours!

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize. When it's 70 degrees in the living room, near the thermostat, it's always at least ten degrees cooler in the bedroom.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

While it's a bit late to mention it, we still have a space heater sitting in the mud room waiting for you to liberate it...