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Winter is Coming !

Watchman here on this fine Saturday.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere you know Winter is coming !

I know, I know, we have all of FALL yet to enjoy. I am however thinking about the list of tasks to complete before the ..ahem SNOW flies.  I hope this little off the cuff post gives you a few ideas.

So, yeah, you maybe thought I was gonna write about G.O.T. and left-handedly I am.

Let us consider for a moment the actual medieval castles of the kings of yesteryear.

most were freezing cold in winter, the chambers had huge fireplaces and even with a roaring fire they were cold ! *1 (see Below)

The Tapestry: you have at least seen pictures of them, or maybe in movies, or in museums. These while they can be highly decorative, were meant and used for large room dividers and/or attempted insulation of the exposed COLD stone walls. By making the heated space smaller, you could actually get warm in an otherwise freezing cold castle. A Tapestry is in essence a glorious RUG. So YOU can head to the remnant store and buy some funky patterned remnant and make YOUR heated space smaller, or HANG on the walls and over windows to add a layer of insulation. IT WORKS ! Consider the Russians living in great, aging/old, concrete tenements, with sporadic heat and electricity, if you have ever seen any documentaries, there is always a rug or tapestry hanging on the walls, it's NOT just for decoration !

Another alternative I like is a thrift store, even Walmart, micro-fleece blanket. They are modern miracle "fabrics" and in fact you can buy it in bulk at fabric stores. They come in a wide variety of colors and patterns, and there are the prints of animals and other neato images. cover walls, doors, windows with them.

THINK LAYERS:

Just like you bundle up in layers for outside winter play, you should think about layers over windows, doors and walls. 

Consider this: a single layer of window glass is approx 1.2-R  (R= the resistance to heatflow thru a material)

so even that fancy expensive triple pane window is only a 3.6-R

and NO it does not matter if it's argon, CO2 or vacuum between the layers, while "air" or any gas for that matter does in fact resist heatflow it is a mere .2 -R (POINT 2, two-tenths, minuscule)

I don't care what you paid for them, those fancy new windows are not going to save up to 50% on your heating bill, unless perhaps with your old windows you could throw the cat thru the openings.  The window salesmen are the equivalent of "Tin-men" the old vinyl siding salesmen -aka rip-off artists.

Yes buy a new window if the old one is single pane, broken, no storm window, and hard to clean & open, but don't replace it because it's going to drastically reduce your heat bill, it won't.

Further, that neato single layer of plastic you staple up every year is at best a 1.2 -R and probably less. Wile it does add another layer to your window and all the layers DO add up, plastic alone is not gonna help. It DOES do a fair job of sealing a leaky air window by reducing the Linear footage of crasks that leak to just the perimeter of the plastic and Nil, if you use a board to cover the perimeter and nail thru the plastic. THEN add a micro-fleece blanket over that, AND a heavy winter curtain over that ! For windows that you don't use, consider cutting up some foam insulation panels to fit between the interior window and the exterior storm window. For windows you really don't use, caulk them shut with a laytex based caulk. Consider first though, if the window could be used for ESCAPE in a FIRE, before you make it nearly impossible for your child to open. Ditto with Doors.

DOORS:  same thing Expensive does not = heat savings. at best a real thick door is going to be an R-14

I will stop here and talk about R -Resistance.

Considering in the U.S. the MINIMUM R-value for a home WALL is R-38 these days, you can see why a window and door alone does not meet that R-Value, Windows and Doors are considered part of the wall in an energy audit, although we DO account for the square footage and lesser r-value when tallying up the total heat flow thru that wall.  So adding storm doors and windows, placing foam insulation on the backs of solid doors and in-between windows, caulking wood members and cracks, weatherstripping that fits tight, a layer of plastic, then a blanket or rug over that can get you Closer to that R-38 but still far less.

Tighten screws on hinges and doorknobs. make sure the door latches tight against the frame (move the striker plate if you have to TIP: wooden matchstick in the old hole makes this EZ) add or replace the weatherstripping, and add a "sweep" at the bottom of the door, have grandma sew up one of those draft-stoppers to lay along the sweep when the door is closed. Yell at the kids to stop opening and closing the door so much all winter, and keep the opening/closings to a minimum yerself !

Put an insulation kit on your ELECTRIC-ONLY Hot water heater, follow the directions. TIP: use duct tape to secure the insulation blanket and then the white tape that comes with the kit to cover the ugly duct tape. You are supposed to cut out the HWH pressure valve and you SHOULD, you also should not cover the element covers because it can cause them to burn out faster, but I have had mine covered for over 20 years and they were fine. Add pipe insulation (think foam noodles for pools) along the hot water pipe to the sinks etc. if you get ambitious do the cold water too or at least four feet of it off the tank.

HEALTH & SAFETY:

I will be writing more about this later because there are some VERY Specific winter dangers you need to think about. This is the perfect time to change the batteries in the smoke alarms and get and install new ones.

Go take a look at your child's bed, and SEE the height from the floor where their head rests on the pillow it is THIS height that you install the carbon monoxide alarm, and put it NEAR as you can to their and your beds !

Carbon monoxide is a heavy gas, so it fills a room from the floor up, although it can mix into the rest of the room's air. a very TINY amount of the deadly gas can kill. Think: the  CO given off from a SINGLE gas burner on your stove is around 3-5 PPM (parts per million) That is enough to make you sick and even kill you in your freshly tightened-up-for-winter home !

I will write a WHOLE separate article on Carbon Monoxide so FOLLOW me !

it's a pet peeve of mine, and every damn year I read of several people in my area that DIE from it !

it's is a needless death, and totally can be prevented !

One way to prevent it is to have your heating equipment cleaned and tuned before you use it, it also keeps it running and consuming the minimum fuel. Have the chimney inspected or check it yourself using a mirror and flashlight thru the cleanout door or remove the exhaust pipe to check, birds and squirrels build nests in chimneys as do BEES, they need to be removed before you heat.

A electronic setback thermostat is useful, you can program them to fit your schedule, if your microwave clock is blinking then perhaps this is not for you, although they do make analog thermostats that use physical rotating timers and dogs to tripp the settings. setting it back to 60 or so when you go out for more than an hour can save money, in general the more frequent and longer the setback period the more you save over the entire winter.  IE turn it back every night before bed. Put your electric HWH on a timer too you will be glad you did.

Get blankets and hats for everybody where you live and sit, even electric blankets, this allows you to keep the house a few degrees cooler until peeps complain. Sweatsuits are for this and not Walmart shopping trips !

Electric space heaters are great too for tv and desk time. In a small room if you live alone you can shut the door and run the heater, aka a smaller space to heat, it does transfer the cost to your electric bill, but it is great in the "swing" seasons of fall and very late winter/spring in helping avoid using other fuel, and avoiding a fill in late winter/spring when prices are still high from a long winter.

if you use OIL, consider adding a second and even a third tank, in general a homeowner can store up to 900 gallons legally, buy in summer and when the price is low, and have the lions share of your winter heat BEFORE winter and the heating season sets in. if you use propane, buy your OWN tank ! the rental fees add up or if you use less they charge you more, having your own tank adds up over say 5 years. Again get it filled when prices are low BEFORE you need it. Get a LARGER tank, look at your bills and see what you use for two years and get that size tank, it's about $1200 installed but can pay for itself in savings in the next 5.

these are some of the tips I can think of off the top of my head, look for more formal ones in my posts to follow !

ASK me questions, be specific, and I may respond in a post !

-Watchman

*1) An open fireplace with it's chimney and a fire roaring can suck 200+ CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) or air out of a given room/space. This is a) inefficient because a tremendous amount of heat energy goes up the chimney and b) The large volume of air creates a negative pressure in the room, Nature abhors a vacuum, so any cracks, holes, openings, in the room will "leak" cold, dry, outside air into the room. THIS is why you feel drafts around windows and doors. SOLUTION:

OK: a Glass enclosure/doors for your fireplace opening

Better: A fireplace stove insert that fits the hearth and seals the mouth of the fireplace.

Best: Close the damper, Block off the fireplace mouth with plywood, and back that plywood with 2" foam insulation, use putty or clay to seal the edge of the plywood perimeter where it meets the brick. If you have carpentry skills you can make it friction fit, so you can pull it out when you want a fire, the clay will not mar the brick and is easily removed.