Posted by Snow in 
More winterizing tips
1. Hold Heater ‘Office Hours”
Turning the thermostat down to 68 degrees is wonderful, if the whole family doesn’t get sick and start missing school and work. Get the family used to “office hours”, a set time each evening and morning when the heater is on and everything can get done.
Do chores, make lunches, switch laundry, iron clothes, fix dinner, clean rooms, and get bathed. The rest of the evening can pass in comfort without overextending natural immune system resources in the chill. As office hours for the heater draw to a close, withdraw the family into an inner shell of one heated room.
2. Get on the Road
If your family is headed into town or home after dark, expand the window of time spent away from home. If you’re expending the resources for gas anyway, pull out homework at the coffee shop or do your email after dinner at a friend’s house.
Shared space with humans involved creates heat at no cost. Park the car inside a parking garage or lot, garaged if possible, inside a “nest” of other cars so the mall trip home doesn’t chill the kids. Heating the car to go 15 minutes means the family dashes into the freezing house, while the nylon and plastic inside the car gives up heat to the atmosphere.
3. Talk to the Manager
Many public venues like restaurants, movie theaters, and libraries talk about “centralized systems” when individuals ask to turn the freezing AC off. It can be just laziness on the janitorial or managerial staff to switch the settings to a seasonal temperature. At 11:00 pm at night in an empty franchise restaurant, the AC doesn’t need to churn at the same speed it would on a 100 degree day. Some staff “condition” the public to go away by cranking up the AC.
Make a complaint to the owner if the policy does not change. Heating a grill and manning a staff of people for a dining room costs money. The owner may not even know. A fast food franchise that houses a dozen people in six hours is a tip off. If the staff is “closing” one part of the restaurant early, find out if the heating is still directed at that part of the place.
4. Conserve Transitions
Sometimes people feel more cold than others. This is usually because their bodies have undergone temperature changes at varying degrees of rapidity during that day. The body’s resistance wears down over time. If the kids need to take showers right when they get home and the house is cold, have one parent run inside and run the bath while the kids stay in the (still) warm car. Muffle up in wraps, scarfs and gloves before going outside and losing heat, then putting them on. Use car warm-up time to text work, communicate chores or dinner instructions, or review shopping notes or errand plans. Kids who stayed at the bus stop for extended cold times or played outside at school should stay in.
5. Have a Strip Off
Get a handle on the heat envelope for your home by setting up an improved framework of weather stripping. Your home will heat quicker and stay warm longer. How to tell if your home has leaks? Turn on an electric blanket at various parts of the house, for equal parts of time. Timing the clicks at the same temperature, record on a piece of paper or clipboard where the clicks come fastest and how far the blanket is from the window. Look at indoor traffic patterns. If guests avoid one bathroom, pause in the kitchen to unwrap instead of the mud room, and nobody every wants to eat in the living room, there’s a reason.
6. Stay Above C Level
Vitamin C was made to preserve human health. With proper hydration, the biologic formula for energy creation requires these acids to make energy and help the body work properly. Starts the kids and adults on a dose of Vitamin C well before bedtime and in the morning before school. A vitamin supplement powder mix can go in their backpacks to be mixed with water bottles at school or during a break. Keep vitamin C candies in the pockets of coats and inside purses and backpacks. Replacing a candy habit with a Vitamin C habit in winter could stave off an ugly head cold.
7. Storm the Vents
Storm vent and air drains create volumes of latent air that must be heated whenever the HVAC goes on. These are infamous heat leaks. Find a way to close off these volumes by stuffing them with oxygen-resistant material or fireproof blockage. Blocking storm vents can safeguard wet weather by safeguarding the home from winter mold formation. Don’t drive up your heating bill keeping empty ducts warm and toasty. If this can’t be done, line walls outside these ducts with heat conducting furniture that can absorb and distribute heat and keep the home warmer. Heat does not love a vacuum.
8. Stuff up the basement and attic
That pristine empty attic you show off to neighbors? It’s eating heat. The sparely organized basement? It’s a death chute of cold iciness. If you have plastic storage boxes resistant to possible leaks fill up the basement and attic with blockage for drafts. Empty attics in winter fill up with the heat rising from the rest of the house. Then the heat goes…nowhere. Through roofing slats or leaks, the heater keeps churning away. Hint: setting the heater to 68 degrees won’t help if you have massive leakage or a severely flawed heat envelope in your home.
9. Use the Cheapest Heat, smartly.
Doing the math the cost of heat help in winter. How much taking a bath cost? When electric heating and fan lighting for the shower is added in, how much is a shower? Does running an electric stove for three hours with the oven on cost more or less than turning on a gas heater for the same amount of time? If heating a few turkey roasting pans of water to fill a bathtub doesn’t cost additional when using the oven or stove, then the shower run for a shower’s length of time into the commingled water should be a savings, except the individual gets a real bath.
10. Install window fasteners for Window Shields
I am sure there is a product somewhere that fits this description but I have not seen it. Measure your window bay or sash area, paying particular attention to depth. Form a square upholstery pillow using these dimensions, and stuff it with re-use sponge foam, polystyrene boards, or whatever can be found. if the pillow size doesn’t present itself in any material, make a soft frame out of dowels or yardsticks and fill with “warm” clean clothing, like flannels or wools.
Use a vinyl or leatherette on the interior house side for easy cleaning. For inset windows create a hanging frame with velcro fasteners in removable adhesive to position in place. Not only will the home be warmer before you even turn the heater on, but heat retention will skyrocket.
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