I live in an uninsulated house in the mountains Virginia, have only electrical baseboard heating, and I’m on an extremely tight budget so here are the things I do:
Weatherstripped all windows (cost, $12 for 6 windows)
Sealed off the guest room to allow smaller heatable space.
Made curtains from bargain fabric (cost, $2).
Only heat the room I’m in.
Bought a floor length curtain to block off the living room to allow more effective zone heating. (cost, $15, suprisingly effective)
Moved furniture around to take better advantage of “warm spots” (for example, I put the couch near the baseboard heater, so it feels warm even if the heater is on quite low) and sunny spots.
Keep a lap blanket on the couch.
Always wear warm socks & slippers.
Sleep with the cats.
Unrelated to heat but also:
Turn off computer after every use
Wash majority of clothes in cold water.
No-heat dry in dishwasher.
Only wash full loads.
I’m lucky that it rarely gets much below 30F here in the winter but I’ve been able to keep my energy bill below $100 most of the time. I had an all-time low of $35 in November
I’m going to try this. It might be just my imagination, but I have metal in my hip, and it aches when I’m cold. I was going to just wrap something around me, but a hot water bottle might work. I figure my body heat will keep the water warm for most of the night. Thanks!
We’re lucky though. The guy we bought the house from installed triple-pane windows throughout, lots of insulation and new siding, and there’s a wood stove in the basement that vents to the rest of the house.
In previous houses, we’ve weatherstripped everything and put plastic over drafty windows. I open curtains and blinds on sunny days and close them at night, and we close off unused rooms.
There’s a farmhouse not far from us where the guy wraps his entire house. :eek: I’ve always wondered if that’s dangerous, or if going in and out lets enough fresh air in.
Just wanted to note that 2L. plastic soft drink bottles make great free hot water bottles. So why not go wild? Put one at your feet, one or two on each side…
If you are will to spend a bit of electricity, the best buy is an electric mattress pad. Turn it on for half an hour before going to bed and then turn it off. Your bed will be wonderfully toasty and you’ll avoid the worries about electric fields you get from sleeping under a running electric blanket.
One small thing that helps is to leave the plug in when you have a bath or shower, and let the water get to room temperature before draining it. There’s no point warming the sewer!
(Zyada says she’s done that and had a cat leap into an unexpectedly full tub. Even though the water was deep enough to be over the cat’s head, it only got its toes wet. I always knew cats could levitate!)
Thanks for the suggestions. We used a sleepsack when he was a newborn but I couldn’t find the bigger sizes at the store, maybe I will order one. He is 34" tall already at 16 months. I don’t know if he will like wearing it though, he wants to crawl and walk around in his crib and it might just tick him off. So far we have had unusually warm weather so not a big deal yet.
I didn’t know it was common to not insulate outer walls either, but when I expressed suprise when I found out (we gutted a bathroom down to studs and I saw there was no insulation on the exterior wall) my husband and others I mentioned it to didn’t seem surprised. The house was built in 1955 and the attic space is adequately insulated. The windows were top of the line when the house was built and the quality of the house does not suggest that they were just being cheap by skipping it so I guess it was common to not insulate. Actually the expense of insulation would probably not be the problem, it is putting holes in the walls between every stud to blow in insulation that would be a big mess and pain in the ass, but I say we have to do it sooner or later. Usually I think people go in from the exterior when they do it, but we have a brick house and I don’t know if we could do it that way.
I know we could get a little tax credit for improving but I will look into other home loan options, thanks.
