This is too funny! My cubicle just happens to face the thermostat for our area. About every fifteen to twenty minutes, I’ll see a gal come adjust the heat up. About eight to ten minutes later, I’ll see a guy come adjust the heat down. This goes on from about 9 until 1130, when everybody leaves for lunch. When everybody gets back from lunch, the heat stays on high and doors at both ends of the building are opened. :rolleyes:
Didn’t anyone read “The Long Winter.” Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family survived a Minnesotan winter with only hay to heat their house and only bread made from coarse ground whole wheat to eat. They spent their days twisting heat and grinding wheat.
Yeah, but to satisfy this particular outburst of curiosity, I’m not interested in life at the edge of civilized society. I was more interested in what it was like for the “normal” household.
From the sounds of the replies so far, it would be interesting to track the progression from “no distinction between inside and outside temperatures” to “will someone turn down the heat already?” that we enjoy today.
The Ingalls were living in town during The Long Winter. The town had a school, church, post office, and stores. It was built near the railroad track so the trains could bring in the needed supplies. That was a really harsh winter, and the tracks could not be cleared for the trains to get to the towns.
Yes, but still not normal conditions. I’m interested in what a barrister or a clerk in Boston would have experienced while working. Indoor temperatures just warm enough to thaw the ink in the ink wells? Were the rich any warmer than the working class? Did everyone huddle in the kitchens in the evening? Were people more inured to the cold? (I read that in Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole when they were stranded on the ice, the men complained when the temperature reached freezing because it was too warm.)
Well, Jeez! If I was standing on ice, I’d be complaining when the temperature reached freezing, too! Only one more degree, and I might not be standing on ice anymore! 
I’ve just finished ready a biography on a British woman called Lady Barker who lived around middle of 19 century. She did have a fairly priviledged (as in lived with rich relatives) upbringing and lived in fancy London townhouses as well as country mansions. Basically every room had a fire but the number of servants was incredible, as they had to keep all the fires burning, cleaned out etc, not to mention all the other chores. She never mentions the cold.
In NZ we mostly don’t have central heating - even in the colder South (houses build since 1990 probably do have central heating but not always). I grew up wearing thick jumpers/jerseys inside and was totally used to going to a freezing bedroom. When I’ve been in the States, I had to get used to taking clothes off inside and putting a coat on for outside - a bit of a novelty for me! I found central heating to either be too cold or oppressively hot and dry.
When I lived in Japan, everyone heats one room and stays there in the winter (I lived in the far north). My house wasn’t insulated, in fact, the carpet used to lift off the ground in a storm and you could see daylight where the boiler pipe went through the wall in the kitchen. After one bad storm, I had a naturally made snowman in my kitchen, about a metre tall.
I left for a holiday one summer, and I though my goldfish would be fine as the tank was fairly large but when I came back the tank had frozen and the goldfish was living in a tiny bubble in the middle of the tank. His digestion was never the same after that.
[nitpick] They lived in De Smet, in the Dakota Territory; it’s now part of North Dakota.[/nitpick]
I’ve been thinking of those books, too, how when the schoolhouse got to be too cold, Laura let the students cluster around the stove and move about, but when it got to be above freezing in the room, she judged it warm enough for them to sit quietly in their seats, away from the fire.
I remember hearing somewhere (one of my French classes, maybe) that serving red wine at room temperature really does a disservice to the wine because “room temperature” at the time that custom developed was a good deal cooler than it is today.
My mother and her family used to sleep in the kitchn during the coldest days of winter because that was the only room that could get and stay warm for an extended period of time. When the weather was slightly less bitter, they’d spread out into the living room, which had a pot-bellied wood stove. The bedrooms upstairs were never used in the winter.
As far as colonial New England homes, we have to distinguish what type of fireplace the home has. The oldest homes, generally, are the ones with the big massed central chimneys that were used for both heating and cooking. These are the ones that Duck Duck Goose is likely referring to. By around 1700 they figured out how inefficient these type of chimneys were. On later colonial homes you are more likely to see end chimneys, which connected to modern style fire places, which are more efficient. There is also usually a smaller chimney at the back of the house for a cooking fire.
Don’t forget that four-poster beds with canopies and curtains weren’t made only for style. They helped keep the heat in while you slept. And they were built big enough for multiple people.
In Scotland, I stayed in a manor house with huge ceilings. Coming from the sub tropics- never having seen snow and it was almost Chrsitmas- it was terribly cold. And raining- all wood and coal was wet. I had no experience making a fire and almost choked everyone. But even with a huge fire going I found it cold to move outside the immediate radius of the fire. And at night- it was shocking.
The South Island of New Zealand gets bloody cold in Winter (it’s not especially warm in Summer, either for that matter!)
Our house had two fireplaces (one on the lounge, another in the dining room, which also heated the kitchen and laundry), and for the rest of the house it was electric heaters and hot water bottles all round. I remember at one point having 2 heaters in my bedroom for the morning- I’d turn one on when I got out of bed and started getting ready for school, and when the thermostat kicked in and turned the heater off, I’d turn the other one on to keep the room at a tolerable temperature.
The fireplaces were lovely, and I miss them now I live in a tropical state… But I also like not being cold anymore or having to shovel my car out from under snow-drifts before I can drive to work.
In the mountains above Hiroshima, we made do with two kerosene heaters. One in the room we were at and one in the room we were going to next. The walls were a sort of mineral infused plaster over lath. Fully a third of the outer wall area was essentially two layers of paper. This was an upscale neighborhood. The soaking bath was the evening highlight. We’d come out after 15 minutes or so the color of lobsters with steam rising off the bodies. Immediately to bed with one heater still going on low at the bottom of the stairs (fire paranoia). My wife would have the electric blanket (dual controls a must) set on “eleven” and mine would be just off zero. I’d still get the full body clamp around 4am. For giggles, the second year we got an indoor/outdoor thermometer. Temperature difference first thing before firing up the heaters, about 4 degrees F.
When I was a kid we heated a 5-pound stone on the kitchen wood-stove, wrapped it with a towel and put it in bed, in the unheated room, before going to sleep. We had thick Swiss feather duvets and were never cold (never sick either). Sometimes in the morning I would find the ink frozen hard in the inkpot.
There are lots of mentions of monks during the Middle Ages who worked copying manuscripts complaining because the ink in their ink pots was frozen. They were working indoors.
When I was poor, I kept the heat low (thermostat at 50[sup]0[/sup]) to save money. And turned the heat off altogether at night - I remember waking up and seeing my breath. With an electric blanket, I didn’t care.
And you can get used to a lot of things - I was always uncomfortably hot visiting other people who kept their houses warmer.
And it is the same at work now - the air conditioning is set too cold during the summer so I freeze, and the heat is too high in the winter.
Regards,
Shodan
The same for wing-back chairs (style, that is). Those insulated shields by your head kept off drafts.
People also used to use bed warmers. I’m sure it helped a little.
A strong distinction must be drawn between stoves and fireplaces. The former heated much better (or maybe ‘not as poorly’) as a fireplace. But yeah pretty much it was cold. Indoors in the winter meant mainly that the worst of the wind was blocked and you didn’t have snow falling on your head. You had a heat source or two that could be used to warm things (food, water, wet clothing, your hands) but at best the air around you was above freezing, and then not always.
As touched upon upthread, people did lots of things to cope that seem like quaint customs now. For example, hanging stockings by the chimney was how you dried out your cold damp socks.
Since this is GQ and all, I feel obliged to nitpick your nitpick. De Smet is in South Dakota.