Here in my college dorm, my heater is worse than broken: It actually spews forth cold air. That’s not very useful in Kentucky in February. So, in addition to wearing an obscene number of layers, here’s how I’m keeping the room warm:
All the lights are on. This is way more effective than I would have imagined.
My roomate’s refrigerator is propped open (no food in it). I learned in high school that this would warm up a room. It works!
The blinds are shut. Slows down heat transfer!
With these three things, I’ve been able to get the temperaure up to almost 57 degrees. And the dorm Nazis STILL won’t let me bring my spaceheater. :mad:
One trick I learned in my old, frigid dorm was to turn on the shower with the hot water all the way up, and then open the bathroom door so the warm steam could leak out.
But at least it’s a dry heat. Kentucky with no AC is a drippy, oppressive moist heat that smothers you, and I should know, since my old dorm room was on the top floor of a dorm with no AC and horrible airflow.
If the air coming from the “heater” is actually colder than the air in the rest of the room, can’t you do something to block it off? Pieces of cardboard, newspaper, even moving a desk or something…
Also, what appliances ARE you allowed to have? I bet some of them give off a decent amount of heat. Old computers and monitors can keep you nice and warm if you can get them. Extra lamps would help, halogen if those aren’t forbidden. Or how about heating pads? Did they remember to put those on the list of Forbidden Dorm Items? If you have access to a microwave and some uncooked rice, you can make your own heating pad. Put a bunch of rice in a sock, tie the sock closed, and nuke it for a minute or two.
Before you go to bed, rig up a little blanket fort over your head so that the heat from your breath stays near you instead of dissipating out to the rest of the room. Or sleep with your head under the covers. Make sure you’re wearing a hat, by the way.
Figure out a way to get a whole bunch of people to come hang out in the room for a while so you can steal their body heat. Try porn or food.
Colleges seem to do nothing to make us feel good about paying them a bunch of money to stay in a prison cell of a room with someone we don’t know and have a bunch of broken crap.
In mine, our building is about 50 years old (they are tearing it down in May) and it is a piece of junk. Our heater doesn’t circulate warmth, it emanates hot air that doesn’t make you feel warm until 8 hours later you wake up sweating to death. Japanese beetles get in through the air conditoner. I had to tape it up completely. Got sick of killing bugs (my best guess is that I killed at least 100). They won’t do anything about it. Guess we’ll be uncomfortable Tuesday when it is supossed to be around 70. Our power in the room goes out all the time. It was out for eight hours, starting at 2 am. today. Usually it’s just one side of the room, but this time it was both. I’ve been in the room sick and all I wanted to do was watch TV. We have community bathrooms and only one of the stall doors actually closes. The shower curtains don’t really cover the doorway to the shower completely, and the showers are miniscule.
Can’t wait until August when I get my own apartment.
Dude, you guys have dorms named Holmes Correctional Facility?
Build a tent out of blankets over your computer and monitor. Your body heat will warm it up fine. Learn to keep a blanket around you at all times. Wear a hat. Buy a small metal desk lamp and keep it where you can warm your hands on it.
I meant that the heater did that when I turned it on. Therefore, I’ve left it off.
Also, thanks for the suggestions, but it’s not that cold. It’s just kind of annoyingly chilly, hence an MPSIMS thread. Leave the coat on, curl up with a blanket, and you’re good to go. And if I get too cold tonight, I’ll just sleep somewhere else.
Here’s another tip. To avoid climbing into an icy-cold bed, prop your blankets up in such a way that they form a tunnel from the head of the bed to the foot. Then set a blow dryer up to blow through the tunnel. (Do not leave this setup unattended!) After a few minutes, you can climb into a toasty warm bed and avoid that highly unpleasant period of warming it up with your body.
Try military training in that Southern moist heat. When I arrived in San Antonio I heard that the hottest it got was in the low 90s and I said “Piffle on thee! In Arizona we bench-pressed buildings in 130 and liked it. Uphill both ways.” Turned out a Texas 80 is worth about an Arizona 120 and a half.
The cooling system in a refrigerator is basically a heat pump. Because I couldn’t be arsed to pay attention in heat class, I can’t give you much more detail than that, but there it is.
I don’t know if it’s accurate but what my father explained to me is that because the door is open, the cooling mechanism just constantly runs, and generates a lot of heat, but not much cool air.
