Help me keep warm.

aeighty — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:44:12 -0800

Hello MeFites, please help me make the first floor of my house a little bit warmer. The problem is big single pane windows that are leaking heat. Here's a rough idea of my house's layout. It's about 40 years old, and has patio style windows (huge floor to ceiling window + patio door) on the north and south sides, and walls on east and west side. This first floor is always cold. The further you move away from the window the warmer it becomes. The second floor, has 3 bedrooms and while the first floor may be a little chilly, the second floor is noticeably hotter (hot air rises, right?). The patio windows are all single pane, and probably original (so 40 years).

Minor googling reveals lots of tips which are rather general. I'd appreciate any specific recommendations for products which can be purchased in Canada/US.

My specific requirements are as follows:
0. The solution has to be somewhat visually attractive (my wife will appreciate that).
1. I'm not really concerned about the use of the patio doors, they can be obstructed.
2. I'm not really worried about the setup time.

Eventually, I'd like to replace the windows (go double pane), so this is a stop-gap solution.

Thanks in advance!

How to improve our efforts to winterize our drafty, old apartment?

tempest in a teapot — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:47:04 -0800

Are there more affordable, non-permanent things we can do to winterize our apartment? This will be our second winter in our ground floor apartment in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Last winter was mild compared to average winters, but we still froze. We try to keep the thermostat set no higher than 15C (for environmental and financial reasons), and we wear proper, Canadian winter clothing inside. Hats, fingerless gloves, long underwear, everything! And it was still too cold to manage.

The steps we took last year:
•caulking around all of the windows and sealing them with plastic
•draft dodgers at the bottoms of both doors
•weather-stripping around both doors
•uncovered the windows during the day to allow passive heating, then covered them at night for extra insulation
•used the oven and hot pots of water to warm up the kitchen

We have forced-air heat, and when we jack up the thermostat, it does warm the place up— for about an hour.

Our building was originally a dry goods store built sometime in the 1880s or '90s, so we know there's no insulation. One of our exterior doors is really a hollow-core interior door. Our storm doors and windows are ancient and warped, and we can't convince the landlord to replace them.

We do all the right things, but our oil bill was still astronomical, and as I said, we weren't warm. We don't want to suffer through another winter— what can we do?

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Help me keep warm.

How to improve our efforts to winterize our drafty, old apartment?