help! our house is freezing.... where to start?

Cabin fever may become a problem. Be sure to plan for this.

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Sorry you are so cold! Our last house was similar. No insulation, no heat upstairs and we had BAD windows!

Call your heater guy back. Ask about an electric heater fan to go in the vents to upstairs... it will blow air upstairs faster. Ask if he could install a "zone heater" or monitor heater upstairs. We found that zone heating during the winter was best.

Bump up to a bigger wood stove. Anything with the word "King" in it will look like the back end of a classic car and keep you hot... Use "ecofans" on your wood stove to blow air. For a high price, high class unit... look at Jotul wood stoves.

The master bedroom was the coldest room in the house... so that became our play room and we would just heat during the day.

Electric oil heaters work in a pinch...

Good luck with your heating issues.

We use to just heat one room at an old place we lived at. Was much cheaper and we were at least comfortable (in that room it was 65-70F). Rest of the place was ice cold freezer! I've got photos of the Thermostat registering 45F (thats what we would set it at!).

There is a clear caulk that you can seal your windows and doors with, even in below zero temps. In the Spring it just peels right off. BE SURE TO GET THE PEEL OFF TYPE IF YOU EVER WANT TO OPEN THE WINDOWS AGAIN!! (Ask my hubby why I know this! LOL)
Buy big rolls of plastic and plastic up the walls on the outside of the house and use whatever you can to keep it on the house even covering the windows. Plastic the inside of the windows.
Walk around the inside and outside of your foundation looking for cracks and seal then up with "Great Stuff"...you can always cut off the excess Great Stuff in the Spring time. It's sort of messy if you've never used it before.
If you have bunk beds that you have apart right now, put them together....the kid in the top bunk will be warmest Move the beds to the middle of the room or closest to the door to get away from the chill coming off the walls.
Put dressers, hutches and any other big furniture against the outside walls to block the cold BUT watch for your furnace vents and cold air return vents, they need to be as open as possible.
Everyone should wear a hat.... seriously! You lose most of your body heat through your head.
Cuddle up and read books together

That was our problem years ago. Our house was built in 1930. When we moved here it had NO insulation at all. We had a woodstove in the living room which kept it nice & toasty. It also kept the thermostat from kicking the furnace on & the rest of the house was freezing. We had insulation blown in the attic & also into the walls. When they did our walls, they drilled a hole every few feet between the studs on the outside & blew the insulation in. The holes got plugged with a small plastic cap. We also had storm windows put on. We hope to replace the windows a few at a time along with putting new siding on. It is much easier to keep our house warm now. We usually leave the furnace set at 68 degrees. We don't have a stove anymore. We used to have the furnace on 74 & would be freezing from the drafts.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

Oh, I know. I hate recommending new siding on an old house because so few people do it right. I only mention it because odds are (sadly) that the original siding is already lost.

RedTartan

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Ok. Here is what I think. First, how big is your wood stove and does it put off a lot of heat? If it puts the heat off you must move it to where you want it. After playing with different fans we found that the little 6in personal fans from Dollar General works great. We got the ones that will come off the base. Figure out where you want your heat from the heater to go and take the fan off its base and find a beam in the ceiling and fasten the base to the ceiling with a wood screw. We have one fan in the corner behind our heater to blow the heat out to the middle of the room. The other fan is on the ceiling in the same room about 3ft from the door into the kitchen and blows warm air into the kitchen. Our stairs for upstairs is in the same room as the heater so with blowing the air out of the corner at the heater it goes upstairs by itself. We have the downstairs ceilings finished with the 4x8 insulation boards to keep it from being to hot upstairs. It is amazing how much heat you can move with a small fan when it is in the right place. Oh I forgot to say the fans are pointed down at about a 45 degree angle. And the only heat we have is the wood/coal heater and a 20,000btu propane wall heater for backup. This old house was built in 1930 with logs cut off the property here and we had to tear out all the inside walls as they had holes in them along with water damage and we insulated the heck out of it. I hope all this rambling on helps you or some one else, and try to stay warm. Sam
PS We still have some of the old windows and we put clear plastic over the ones that we feel cool from. We use the kind that you put on with double sided tape and shrink with a blow drier to take the wrinkles out.

I've rehabbed several antique houses over the years and am in the process of doing the one Pelenaka bought before meeting me. I also just took a class through my job on this subject.

First as someone said above. The stovepipe upstairs should be double wall or triple wall and should be cool to the touch.

Go get yourself an old fashioned oil lamp. Light it and adjust it so it smokes. Take a walk around your outside walls and watch for the smoke to blow around. You're looking for air leaks from the outdoors. The rule of thumb is airtight first, insulation second. It is possible to install replacment windows incorrectly. Especially if they didn't caulk them in right. Seal all the leaks you find. Beware if you use the spray in foam. It expands alot and you can actually bow a door or window frame with it to the point they won't open or close.

Take your smoky oil lamp to the cellar. Odds are you have an old stone foundation. Guess what, 30-50% of the heat loss in most homes is right where the wooden sill meets the foundation. As much or more than goes out the roof even. That's even with block foundations. I assure you, it leaks. And if there is no insulation on your ductwork, you are losing alot of you furnaces heating ability right in the cold cellar. Seal that up pronto!

Now insulate the floor. Remember if you use fiberglass, paper goes to the warm side. In other words against the floor not towards the cellar. Yes it's harder to staple that way. But, insulation installed backwards in a couple years will be the same as no insulation. They make wires for installing insulation in cellars, or in an older home where things aren't standard widths, use furring stips to hold it in place.

Attic is next for insulation. Again remember the paper always goes to the heated side of a wall, ceiling or floor. Always, no exceptions. Another rule to remember. Never ever compress the insulation. If you have a 5" cavity, 4" of insulation will have a higher R value than 6" squeezed in. Insulation is not what keeps heat from going out. The air trapped inside the insulation is. Squeeze the air out and it doesn't insulate anymore.

Next comes the walls. You may get lucky like I did here. Our first floor plaster on lath is fairly pristine all things considered. Upstairs however looks like a herd of gorrila's with sledge hammers went through. We are slowly redoing our upstairs walls. The lucky part is we are balloon framed. That is the same wall studs run from the top of the house to the bottom. As we rip out upstairs walls, I'm pouring cellulose into the first floor walls and after putting in fire stops fiberglassing the second floor.

Another thing to consider. As we have replaced windows in this house. We have kept the exterior trim work as intact as possible. We install the old wooden storms right over our new high efficiency windows. You can feel the difference.

As for your ductwork. The modern thought is small ductwork with a high volume blower is more efficient. Modern thought doesn't always take old houses with partial gravity heating into consideration though. If you do the floor grate thing between floor 1&2 try and put the grates directly above the heat runs. It will help alot. Be aware that your homeowners insurance carrier might not be happy about these grates. They consider them a hazzard in a house fire as they are a path for the fire to spread.

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We have a newer home (built in 97) with double paned windows. Even with these windows, the difference after adding window film is simply amazing.

We got lazy this year and hadn't put it up until I saw our last gas bill. With similar outdoor temperatures, our gas bill was from double last year.

I use the window film that you put indoors and shrink it with a hair dryer. The first thing you will notice is that the breeze flowing through the house will be greatly reduced. You may not notice as much of a difference due to the lack of insulation but it will help.

It takes me about 10-15 minutes to do each window. It's a quick and inexpensive fix. For that reason, I'd recommend this one first.

Repeat: Plastic bubblewrap

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"I have tried the bubble wrap..but the duct tape won't stick once it gets cold! Brrr!"

I remember reading somewhere that bubblewrap doesn,t need to be taped.. Just dampen the window and put the bubblewrap rite on it.. Static cling will hold it. The wrap should be cut to each window size. No visiblity but its insulated.. In the spring just take it down and save it for next yr.

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You need to buy a case of good quality caulk. Then wait for the warmest day and caulk.

Woodsrunner gives VERY good advice on everything....


Chances are good that you have cold air coming into the basement at the foundation. Then it seeks a path up to the roof. A good blower door test will show you how the air is flowing from the basement to the attic, sucking the heat from the first and second floor. Stop that path!

You're quite correct - and these heat grates are also contrary to most building codes now as well for exactly that reason.

I stapled mine to the windows before I learned the water trick. It's there all year, so I don't have to see the neighbors except as blurry objects passing by (I doubled the layers at eye level).

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Now this is some good recommendations. all the insulation in the world is worth nothing if the wind is blowing through the place. I lived in a timber frame that had 8 in of insulation in the walls. 16 in the ceiling. Place was as cold as could be. They never sealed up around the windows and doors and wind came right through.

As far as historic preservation. If your careful taking off the inside trim, or outside and take a few precautions thee is no reason you can't preserve the historic look of things and still get a warm house.

The biggest problem most people have with redoing exterior walls from the inside is that they don't plan a head for the mess. Make sure you have plenty of containers and a good shop vac. INsulate,vapor barrier,drywall or plaster, Trim-it ,paint and finish and move to the next one. If you do one room at a time and get the mess out and OFF the property (unless you got your on landfill on site) things will go well and before you know it you will be done. Just do the exterior walls in one room at a time. Your budget which you didn't mention will also thank you.

Our 100 year old farmhouse had been abandoned for a year or two when we moved in, and had been remodeled extensively in the 1950s and 1970s for sure. It had various qualities of paneling nailed on and through the plaster, window sash had been replaced, and it was very drafty. Over about a 15 year period, we removed old paneling and the damaged plaster and lath, put in foil covered foam board (mostly 1" thickness) on the inside, then new sheetrock over that. New windows or sash inserts depending on the quality of the existing units. In the late 70s opr early 80s it had cellulose insulation blown into the walls, and since the walls had tongue and groove sheathing on both sides of the studs, we left them as they were. Every time we do some work on the windows, doors, or outside walls, the house becomes more uniformly comfortable, and easier and cheaper to heat. When we put in a new Charmaster wood furnace a year ago or more, we did some work on improving the return air portion of the ductwork, which makes it even more comfortable in winter.

Something to remember is that fiberglass or other soft or porous insulation may do a good job of insulating, but only if there is no air movement through it. It doesn't stop drafts, only filters the drafty air and slows it a bit. You also need something to stop air movement, and batt or similar insulation doesn't do that. Most foam insulations or air infiltration barriers are what stop air movements.

You could also try getting a couple of those $40.00 oil filled eltc heaters I have 2 of them and it keeps this old MH at about 65*. Never turn them up all the way on high cord gets hot I turn on both buttons but have the #dail on 5 I use those at night so I do not have to use propane,Paula

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I agree that the most pressing problem is likely where wall meets floor. On old houses, wall studs are nailed to floor joists, there is no bottom plate. Many times the entire stud cavity is open from crawl/basement to attic with no fire breaks. This is particularly true old poor folk houses using native rough sawed green lumber. It was too hard to drive the extra nails. If possible to get at it, stuff insulation, dirty laundry, anything to stop air at the floor/wall joint. Note, if you blow in insulation without plugging this hole, in time, the insualtion will fall completely out, not just settle to bottom. If you climb into the attic, you can sometimes feel the updraft of air coming up these cavities. A constant winter breeze inside the wall, even when the wind is calm. If crawl space is inassessible, plug it from the attic, impede the flow. Also insulate your receptables. Buy those little foam backing to the receptable plates, they help. Caulk gaps between receptable boxes & wall. I have even loosened & pulled out receptables & caulked all the holes in the electrical box(turn the power off). In an open cavity, electrical box can leak a lot of cold into a room.

Chickenista is right about the misery of using a cold bathroom...things just clench up in the cold!!! lol, #1 thing to do it go buy one of those squishy vinyl toilet seats. I'm so not kidding, my 5yo dd thanked me last year, and still talks about how she likes the toilet seat, lol.

Only follow redTartan's advice about the plaster if it is in good shape. The house dh and I remodeled had plaster walls that were bowed and crumbling, all covered up by wonderful 1970's paneling. It all went, and we insulated, one room at a time.

I agree with checking the basement, our previous house had a hand dug basement with dirt floor and stone walls... and our pipes would freeze coming into the kitchen. Once that was insulated it kept the pipes from freezing, warmed the floor and stopped drafts on our feet.

Even if you have new doors, that fit perfectly, consider storm doors. The doors in our current home all have gaps so we bought new storm doors, they are full glass so I can still see out, and have a built in screen that rolls down for summer. No kids hands through the screen, and no remembering to put the glass back in.

Farmers had a quick and easy solution to that. They placed straw bales all around the foundation. I brought the practice with me into the city but use bags of leaves.

For the idea of a smoking lamp to find drafts, you can also use a candle and watch the flame.

One thing that we didn't have was a double or triple stove pipe upstairs. It was always nice to have that warm place to take the chill out in a hurry when getting dressed. But one also had to be careful not to accidentally get too close with bare buttocks!

Martin