Comfort Level: Learning to Love 63 degrees

By Betsy Teutsch, GREENandSAVE.com
Posted on Sunday 1st February 2009

Where to start on our typical Philly stone colonial? We learned it’s possible to blow insulation right into exterior walls and under the roof, which we did (in the summer, when insulators are happy for work). By insulating our coldest rooms, we discovered they stayed cooler in the summer as well. Duh!

Storm windows are a great way to cut way down on drafts. A Chicagoan shares her experience: “My boyfriend and I spent almost $4,000 on traditional wooden storm windows to replace the flimsy modern vinyl ones a previous owner had installed. The difference is amazing. We used 40% less natural gas this November than last November. And the house somehow feels warmer even though the thermostat is still at 64° like it was last year.

We purchased electric room heaters and gave ourselves permission to tank up the heat in the rooms we frequent. Preheating helped – my home office was inviting and warm by the time I sat down to work. And my down vest became a permanent feature of my life.

Gas fireplaces require no venting, so we splurged. A beautiful, inviting faux-fire roaring in our hearth, both warming up the room and cheering up the mood, was perfect for when guests arrived. Our teenager even stopped complaining about our Arctic Circle frigidity and started hanging out with her friends around the fireplace.

Then there was the clothing makeover, stocking up on warm socks (check out WyomingWear ) and long johns – especially WinterSilks or CuddlDuds . The trick is to have enough so they never are all in the laundry, which means about a half dozen sets, and a dozen or so pairs of truly warm socks. Eventually the kids stop coming into the kitchen barefoot, complaining about the cold.

In colonial times, as described in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy, Almanzo's family preheated their beds with hot pans from the fireplace. Flash forward a few centuries and there’s a great product which does the same thing, an electric mattress pad. They’re designed with the bulk of the heating element at your feet. While it turns off automatically after 10 hours, odds are you’ll be so warm and toasty, you’ll turn it off yourself as you drift off. A friend uses a lower tech version for her kids, microwaving rice or buckwheat bags to slip into their beds.

Bottom line: we’ve reduced our winter gas consumption by fifty percent (this includes replacing an ancient boiler with a new, higher efficiency unit). I knew we had recalibrated our norm when my husband ragged on me this morning for not turning the heat down the night before, since our house was so warm. Checking our thermostat, I showed him that, yes, it was indeed registering a nearly tropical 61°….

Betsy Teutsch writes for GREENandSAVE and blogs at Money Changes Things .

GREENandSAVE.com is a free resource for anyone that wants to save energy, money, and the environment. The articles, product reviews, online tools, and return on investment calculations are researched from a diverse range of public and private sector sources. Overall, the company is passionate about saving money as well as creating healthy homes, offices, and lifestyles.

A great way to heat your home, while adding personality and heart, is with a Fireplace . Make your living spaces more romantic or livable with a gathering place for the entire family. If you want to take action to start saving money on your own utility bills, one of the best options is to get an Energy Audit or a Home Efficiency Check-up .

test image for this block