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

You ahve had many good ideas but there is a simple one that is overlooked. Most of the wood stoves now days have a double wall with some type of fan. If your doesn't concerder replacing it with one that does. Next since you have a basement it will be easy to either do tow things
One bring in outside air to the jacket of your stove. Yes the air is cold but the stove will warm it and the result is that you are now presureizing your house. This means that where there is a draft there will be heat going to it. I did this with a 100 year old home and it made the difference. You can run a return from you upstairs which may be as simple as finding a interior wall theat is hollow placing a grill up stairs and boxing the bottom into a fan blowing into the stove. This will heat your house

Any chance you couldmove the wood stove upstairs, and heat the downstairs with the furnace?

Or maybe seal off the hot air registers on the first floor to improve the heat that makes it upstairs.

Rick

I use the cobwebs to see where the drafts are.

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my 100 yr old house has NO insulation! inside there is panelling over oak rough cut nailed to rough 2x4 frame, covered outside by gaping old lap siding.
in the attic there is just lap siding with 1" cracks to the outdoors! looks like a barn up there! we want to finish the attic for bedrooms for the kids (3) they are sharing right now, but it's getting a little tense in there!

oh, check your baseboards! there is a huge amount of draft that comes up around ours because the quarter round has all been taken up when someone carpeted (back to hardwood now) years ago - i am planning on caulking under the baseboards or using spray foam there before i put down new quarter round to seal up some drafts

HEY!!!

Your handle says "shellbug" but you're describing the house I grew up in !!!! Are you SURE you're not "joy'smom" in desguise??? grin. Maybe not...Mom would NEVER have left out that we used to be able to look through the floor and seeing the ground underneath, or that when we left dad he let a poison ivy grow up through the floorboards, up the wall, over the ceiling and it bloomed. He called it his "house plant". shiver.

grin.

Joy

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Joy Alba
Oak Hill Ranch
since 1834
Bedias, Texas

You know I saw special "greenhouse" bubblewrap in my greenhouse catalog and WONDERED what would happened if I put normal bubble wrap on our house windows (I've saved every scrap of bubble wrap all year long!!!) Hubby figured we'd look like freaks and have been fighting me on it (he's losing. giggle).

You know I bought four green navy wool blankets this summer with the intension of making wool cloth diaper covers (at the tune of 2.00 a piece). Never got around to it. First cold snap I put flannel sheets on thew beds and those wool blankets. Unless it's !!!COLD!!! we tend to over heat and throw them off !!! I've found that the easiest way to make sure the little kiddies stay warm is to put them in their sleeping bags INSIDE their wool blankets (folded over and sewn on one side and the end), OR drag them to bed with us (since they tend to wiggle out of their sleeping bags and then freeze. *silly twirps*)

The house I grew up in was a 100 y/o preacher's house. Talking COLD!!! Fleece zip up footy pajamas w/ housecoats w/ warm slippers!!! WOOL SOCKS to sleep in!!!!! Fleece pull-over hoodies!!!! Flannel pajama bottoms worn under your jeans during the day. FLEECE pajama bottoms worn under your jeans during the day. As my mother would say LAYER LAYER LAYER !!!! giggle. I remember being so cold as a kid I actully wore three pairs of underware!!! giggle.

Good Luck!!! You WILL get through it (though your joints may HATE you!!!)

OH....ELECTRIC BLANKETS!!!! They dont heat the room JUST YOU!!! awesome!!!

-Joy

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Joy Alba
Oak Hill Ranch
since 1834
Bedias, Texas

The greenhouse catalog sells a spray adhesive that they used to mount the bubble wrap. I wonder if the adjustible photo spray adhesive I used in collage would work? ummmm. It can be found in any art/craft supply, even in Walmart, I believe.

-Joy

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Joy Alba
Oak Hill Ranch
since 1834
Bedias, Texas

I would think that your stove pipe going up through your second floor is hopefully of a triple wall design, and it should be warm or even cool, not hot.

Don't forget to check out your local nonprofit weatherization agency. In Wisconsin we're lucky enough to have coverage for the entire state. In Dane county yours would be Project Home 246-3737. You qualify for their services based on income, but their services are free of charge for the weatherization program. It's at least worth a call to see if you qualify. They'll be able to address some of your most pressing issues (no insulation, air infiltration, heating system tune ups/replacement/repair). I believe they have a website if you need more info. Hope this helps.

There are several factors here. Your FIRST STEP must be to get the woodstove chimney cleaned. If it is cold, you could creosote that thing up until there is a chimney fire, and then you'll be a mite too warm for a short period of time.

How cold the interior of a building is depends on several things. A) The difference between the temperatures indoors and out, B) The amount of heat generated indoors, C) The amount of heat lost to the outdoors.

"A" above is just math. You crank "B" up to match. The most regular concern is "C", the amount of heat your house loses (per hour) to the outdoors.

The first consideration is air infiltration/exfiltration. If hot air rushes out and cold air replaces it, the R-factor of your windows, doors, walls and ceilings means precisely squat. Start with making the outside walls, doors, and windows airtight. Then, find out what insulation is in the outside walls and ensure that you have a good R-factor in the walls. Do the same with the highest ceilings in the house. Then move to doors and windws. Make sure that you have foam core or otherwise "solid" doors and vacuum-pane windows. When you have a "shell" that retains heat, adjust the heat output of your heating devices to match.

As far as air movement in the home is concerned (cold rooms), you can use active movement (fans and forced air) or passive movement (heat registers in the floor, etc). For a wood stove on the 1st floor, there is little better than simple holes cut in the second floor floors, covered with grates to let hot air do its thing (move upward).

Let us know how it goes!

R

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When faced with issues in life, where do you look for the problem; out the window, or in the mirror?

Everyone else is talking remodel, but that isn't easy in the middle of winter.

I thought I would ask what does "freezing" mean to you? I ask because I know you just moved here from CA and winters here are different. I live 55 miles north of Madison and moved here from CA 12 years ago.

What temp is downstairs and what temp is upstairs?

What do you wear around the house? Do you wear socks and slippers?

Our 1865 farmhouse is usually 10* colder upstairs than downstairs.

I think they skimped on the heating ducts to the second floor because most time is spent downstairs. In the upstairs bedrooms you can always add more blankets to the bed. I used to have trouble sleeping because my head and neck got cold and knit hats didn't stay on. I don't have that problem now because I started using a wide fleece scarf in bed. I cover my head then tuck the ends under the covers and I am very warm!

deb
in wi

Just curious. How do you folks that are In cold houses, keep your pipes from freezing?

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suz

I don't think I could add anything to the suggestions already mentioned.

When energy bills start arriving this winter, I think a lot of people, with well insulated/undrafty homes, will start emulating your current situation.... turning the heat wayyyy down, because they can't afford the high bills.

Unfortunately, fixing your problem, is best done when it's not freezing...

You know, the best cure is to move south... We were outside working yesterday in shorts.... I hear it do get a bit nippy up in the North Country. I love it cold...when it gets below 40 here, I open the windows (and my GF closes them ). The only reason I use to turn the heater on was because my wiener dog liked to curl up under or next to the woodstove (plumbed with free gas )... the beloved dog passed on Monday, so now I could care less whether the heat comes on or not...

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Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

"cold" is a relative term...that's why I asked for temps.

We have a very simple plumbing set up. Water pipes in the basement and 1st floor are on one side of the house. The kitchen, bathroom and clothes washer area by the back door have the largest heater vents in the house. The furnace's thermostat is in the livingroom (1st floor) and we have that set for 60*, but the temp in the kitchen is often a bit higher. During bitterly (-20) cold weather, we open the cabinets under the sinks to keep the air moving around the water pipes

The stone basement of our 1865 farmhouse generally is around 53* and will slowly get colder during bitterly cold spells. We've lived here nearly 5 years and the coldest the basement has gotten was 46* (there was no snow cover). We keep a thermometer next to the water pipes in the basement so we can watch the temps there.

-Deb
in WI

My house was built in 1910 and has zero insulation, nor any heat source to my bedroom..the windows are all original. Last night it was in the 20's with wind gusts to 35MPH..inside, it was 70..There is propane heat via a boiler in the cellar.

I put putty caulking around each and every window in November..then made door "cushions" out of old blankets..they are rolls which are placed by the bottom of each door..no drafts. A half hour before bedtime, I combine old with new by microwaving 2 handmade rice bags until they are piping hot and placing them in my bed..sooooo comfy..when I had a woodstove, I'd heat a few bricks and use those wrapped in flannel. I've lived in old houses most of my life..none had heat to the bedrooms..just a grate in the floor to capture the downstairs heat as it rises.

Our basement gets to well below 40 deg. if we don't turn the furnace on down there every now and again. No big deal, except that the pipes and heater core would freeze if we didn't (fieldstone basement walls leak heat).

We keep the downstairs at around 65 deg... wood floors throughout... upstairs gets below 60 by morning.

R

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When faced with issues in life, where do you look for the problem; out the window, or in the mirror?

Heres another thought for a temporary help. Buy some Halogen construction lights and use them. They put out a lot of heat!! I ve used one to heat a room before. And you need the light since the days are long. Don't know how hard your electric bill would be hit but it would be a little at a time. And environmentalists might go bonkers

No kidding. The push by manufacturers to replace old historic windows comes close to being a scam.

Destroying the history in an old house with ill-planned "improvements" often negatively affects the resale value, incurs costs that are difficult to recoup, and don't significantly affect the comfort level of the house.

We own an 1843 farmhouse here in Virginia. The windows are the original old-growth wood with spectacular glass. Research absolutely shows that a well-restored old window with a quality storm window will meet the energy efficiency of a replacement window. We had ours restored with a very specific kind of weatherstripping applied and repaired/replaced storms as needed. Our windows are now beautifully insulated, the optical effects of the glass is gorgeous, and I defy any new window to withstand 164 years like mine have. Not to mention, the work was FAR less than the absurd expense of replacement plastic windows.

Please folks, do your research and be good stewards. The data is out there.

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Beth ~ Old Church, VA
3 Nigerian Dwarf goats, 4 cats, 3 Pekin ducks and 7 chickens. One very patient husband~

I wonder if cathleenc froze? She hasn't replied back to this thread at all.

That's the best solution now that it's winter. Deal with a definitive solution in the spring.

Gas heaters are best, either natural gas or propane, since they come with ODS (an Oxygen depletion sensor) and a thermostat. In a pinch you could use a kerosene heater instead. That's what I'm doing now.

Ventless is safe but you have to pay attention to a couple of safety rules.

1) Get a carbon monoxide detector/alarm and mount it next to your smoke alarm. You can find them any place that sells smoke detectors. I got mine at Wal-Mart. They start at about $20.

2) Install in an unconfined space, being defined as providing 50 cu. ft. per 1,000 btu/hour of gross heating capacity. Adjacent spaces count as long as they aren't equipped with a door.

I just purchased a 20,000 btu/hour propane heater at eBay for about $100 + $25 shipping. Here is the exact model:

http://cgi.ebay.com/COMFORT-GLOW-20K...QQcmdZViewItem

It's equipped with a thermostat and ODS, but I haven't installed it yet. For the time being I'm still using a kerosene heater that I got at Home Depot for $124. It's 23,000 btu/hour.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...ctId=100045793

The primary advantage to kerosene is that it doesn't require installation. Just put it where you want it and light it up.

We get plenty of heat from the kerosene heater, but it's less than convenient not to have a thermostat. Not having ODS doesn't bug me as much as not having the thermostat.

One thing, if you do get a kerosene heater be sure to use K-1 kerosene. It's ultra-low sulfur & nitrogen, which eliminates any NOx or SOx fumes. I get it at a local petroleum vendor from a gasoline pump (that delivers K-1 kerosene, of course) for about $4.00/gallon. You might check around for fuel availability before committing to a kerosene heater.

An added feature to ventless heaters is that since they don't lose any heat out the vent along with combustion gasses, ventless heaters are typically 99.9% efficient.

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