This winter is gearing up to be a real doozy when it comes to energy bills so I figured any info. to help save money would be helpful. Here some good links I found…
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/flex/tips.html
Anyone got any ideas???
I strongly recommend Southern California. 
ROFL… tempting, very tempting…
Thanks for the links. We’re in the same boat here, and we’ve basically chosen to shiver under layers of blankets all winter rather than turn the thermostat up. I think we have it set to 62 during the day and 45 or 50 at night. We’ve also bought a couple space heaters so we can leave the heat off and selectively heat just the room we’re in. They’re an engergy drain, and we have to be judicious in how much we use them, but I figure it’s better than burning enough oil to heat the whole three-story house.
Here’s my lastest trick: I have trouble falling asleep at night if it’s cold; usually I’ve been watching TV most of the evening and my metabolism is slow and I just can’t get warm. Several weeks ago, I bought a used exercise bike for cheap off of Craigslist, and I’ve found that hopping on for five minutes just before getting in to bed is enough to get me warmed up.
Whatever works right? I also love curling up in big blankets to sleep at night…I am just going to need more blankets this year. 
Ugh, I’m channeling my father here, but:
- Turn down heat.
- Put on another layer of clothing.
Problem solved.
I’ve been resorting to a good old-fashioned hot water bottle lately. True, the heat doesn’t last all night, but the bottle pre-warms the bed in the place of your choice (such as where your toes go) and you don’t expend any energy warming up the place with your own body heat. Plus, it’s amazingly comforting.
We have gas heat. Previous years we bought a programmable thermostat and set it to 60 when we were at work, and 62 or 63 in the evenings. We sleep with a down duvet and flannel covers. You do get used to it – except my hands were always cold. Drinking and holding endless cups of tea helped. Now that we have a baby, though, I don’t like to keep the house quite so cool.
This year, we replaced our wood burning insert with a new, very efficient model. This was spurred on largely because we found a source of free firewood (husband made friends with the guy who took our tree down, and who has subsequently brought us loads of wood and even let us borrow his log splitter). We save old phone books, newspapers, and all the sticks that fall down in our yard for kindling. The insert gets the house into the high 70’s or even into the 80’s with little effort, and we run the central air fan (no heat, just fan) to help distribute it through the house. And we can keep the fire going for days at a time, if need be. So, no more running the heat. Pretty cool. (Too bad they don’t make an insert to provide AC!)
Over the years we have also done a few other things, like installing replacement doors and windows, putting an interior door up to block out a cold, drafty room rarely used, and putting temporary plastic shrinkwrap-type stuff up over the windows (before they were replaced).
The cheapest thing we’ve bought that has given us the most mileage is better insulation, though. When we moved into the house there was barely 1/2". This August we bought a ton of loose-fill insulation and rented a blower, and now have more like 10". We’ve been kicking ourselves wondering what took us so long to do it.
(Yes, I realize some of these options – namely the replacement doors and windows, and also the insert – are rather expensive and cost way more than a season of heat. We tried to make good use of our DINK days to prepare for these leaner times, and needless to say, they’ll pay off in the long-term, especially with heat prices rising.)
I received a pair of goose down slippers last Christmas that are great for keeping me toasty warm without needing to crank up the heat. Luckily our place has decent windows. Wearing a hat inside helps a lot too, as I think a large amount of lost body heat is from the head.
The trouble with turning the heat down too much for us is that we have a baby who doesn’t keep blankets on himself and there is only so much bundling it is safe to do for him at night. Looks like we may need to insulate the exterior walls, which will be a big pain in the ass and a big mess. Why oh why didn’t people used to insulate their walls in Michigan when they built?
So it looks like the choice for us is going to be broke.
Yikes! Can the baby sleep with you some nights, either in the bed or in the same room? Does each room have it’s own heater with independant controls (our place is like this)?
Does it ever rain there?
I wish…no we don’t have seperate controls although we did close the vents to the spare room we don’t use. His room is in the middle so it is a little warmer than ours on the corner since it only has one exterior wall, and we have sealed up his windows with that plastic stuff. I am afraid if we kept him in bed with us it would disrupt everyone’s sleep and I don’t want to start that with him as he is good at going to sleep on his own.
If it gets really cold I will put an electic heater in his room I think, or we will just eat the heating cost. Either way someday we need to insulate better and get new windows. I never knew not insulating exterior walls was common practice (our house was built in 1955). It’s just such a pain to add it later!
Yeah, but they warn 'ya; it pours!
I’m going with cold. The house I’m renting leaks like a sieve and doesn’t warm up with the outside, meaning that right now it can be 80 outside and 60 inside. But I’m trying to save gas and keeping the furnace off. I’ve started putting on a pair of polyester athletic pants (think sweats) and a polar fleece sweatshirt when I go to bed because it is like 55 when I wake up in the morning.
On the plus side, I used about 100 less kwhs in October than I did in September. Maybe I can partially balance the heating bill with savings on the electric bill.
Do an Amazon search for “wearable blanket”. There are a companies who make large fleecey sleeveless sacks that zip up the front for just this reason. They only cost around $15-$20. We’ve used Halo Sleepsacks since our son was a newborn and they’ve worked really well. (He’s 17 months now and only just moved into the “large” size.) On really chilly nights we have him in footed fleece pajamas and a fleece sleepsack, and he’s always comfortably warm even when his room gets down into the low 60’s. And no matter how much he tosses and turns (or occasionally, gets up and bounces), we never have to worry about it coming off or becoming entangled.
You live in Michigan and there’s no insulation in the exterior walls? How is that possible? What year was the house built? Adding insulation would be a good idea even if fuel oil wasn’t as expensive as it is. If the expense is a problem, perhaps you can get assistance from the state government, or the gas utility.
I must admit, after Wilma swept through it got pretty chilly here. Lows in the mid-40s! Brrrr! I had to wear sweaters to work for a week!
What? 
I don’t know if they still do, but Michigan used to have a loan program for home improvements. I believe you only had to pay it back when you sold the house. You might look into it. A friend of mine used it.
And just to be all “neener neener”, I’m still running my AC at night, because I like it cold when I’m sleeping.
For those of you planning on purchasing space heaters… stay away from the fan forced ones. I have 5 of them that I used before we got central heat. Even when we just used one at a time, our electric bill was outrageous. One small heater used more energy than our huge window air conditioner.
There’s one room in my house that’s not insulated and it’s where I spend most of my time. I bought one of these wonderful things. I caught it at Lowes for $30.