Anti Aging Skin Tips

Ways to make my house warmer!?

My house is freezing 24/7. We live in a really old gigantic house on the bottom floor, and its surrounded by other huge houses so no sunlight gets in. The vents are all on the floor and the genuises who built this house put them next to the huge windows. I'm tired of being cold, and our last gas bill was 300 bucks! That's just from keeping it on 70, and its still cold on 70. What can I do to bring down the cost and the cold!?

Public Comments

1. Same here with the vents. We have no insulation in the walls. What we did though is, insulate very think in the attic and in the crawl space below the house. We installed better windows, with insulation in between the glass. I bought, thermal back curtains which helps tremendously, we carpeted all the floors, even the kitchen with indoor outdoor carpeting. Keeps the floor warmer. Made sure all outlets had some sort of insulation. Insulated the water heater. Now, yes, this costly, but in a year time, we noticed a BIG difference in our heat and cooling bill. Also make sure your doors have a good seal, so heat cannot escape or cold air get in. Good luck! :-)
2. Insulation....lots of it. Or you could always just bundle up.
3. further insulate your home, block the spaces at the bottom of your doors with towels, turn down your heat when you are not home to save money, and bundle up at night!!! hope your wallet stays full and your body stays warm!!!
4. my bill was 500 last month- we keep it at 60, and we have a renter who must be toasty warm while we freeze. We upped the rent, put plastic on our windows, shut off the bedrooms and caulked. Heavy drapes might help too.
5. Do your best to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. If it is your own house, you might consider adding more insulation. I would definitely put that plastic wrap you blow dry tight onto the inside of the windows. Also, you can put something at the base of your doors to keep drafts out. We even hang a wool blanket over the door we get the most drafts from. You can also put a space heater in whatever room you spend the most time in to keep it toasty without running the heat all day.
6. OR if you don't own the house add the cost of the gas bill to you existing rent and find another comprible priced place
7. You give some good clues why the house may be uncomfortable; "really old", "gigantic", "no sunlight". You only live on the bottom floor (renter?). The heat vents are placed correctly, to offset the cooler air at the windows, otherwise it would feel cooler because of drafts from different temperature air "pockets" at different areas of the room. The house is quite likely very "leaky" with a lot of air moving through it. The best thing that can be done is to seal as many of the gaps & cracks with caulk or some other material, and to be sure there is adequate insulation at the right places. Too many things for me to get into here but a very good website is www.energystar.gov (free info from your gov't!). There is some d-i-y info there you can read & follow. Good luck!
8. A programmable thermostat allows you to preset temperatures for different times of the day because you don't need to keep your home at 68 degrees around the clock. Ceiling fans help bring heated air down to earth in rooms with cathedral or high-sloped ceilings. Slide the reversing switch on the side of the motor housing to the winter (clockwise) position. Then run the fan on low. Move furniture away from vents, registers and radiators. Cut down on spaces cold air can enter your house, like under a door to the outside. Seal this gap with a "door snake," a long thin cloth sack, like a bean bag. Fill it with dried peas or rice, something to make it heavy enough to stay in place. You can sew one using scrap fabrics. If you feel cold air seeping beneath a door leading outside and find that using a door snake is inconvenient, install a draft-defeating nylon door sweep. This long, thin broomlike vinyl-and-pile attachment gets installed along the inside bottom edge of the door. Cut the sweep to fit with a hacksaw and keep it in place with four or five wood screws. Dead air is a very effective insulator, and you can create a pocket of it by installing clear plastic film across the inside of your windows. Got drapes or curtains that block sunlight? Open them during the day to get free solar heat (make sure windows are clean). And then close the curtains just before sunset. If you have a forced-air system, changing the furnace filter can save you some energy (up to 5 percent) and keep dust down in the house. Each degree you lower the thermostat on your heating system decreases your fuel bill by 3 percent. Going from 72 degrees down to 68 degrees doesn't matter much in terms of comfort, but it can save up to 12 percent on your heating bill. Hope some of this info helps!
9. First of all, keep in mind that this answer is from someone that keeps the house at 58 degrees. I have propane and am too cheap to give the petroleum companies even more of my money. This is the story about how I stay warm. First of all, I have a fireplace with a wood burning insert. The fan is thermostatically controlled and goes off if the fire dies down. You didn't state whether or not you have a fireplace. If you do, you must hire a chimney sweep to clean the chimney and advise you whether or not it is fit to burn wood with. The sweep can answer any questions that you have. Failure to call a chimney sweep prior to burning in an unfamiliar fireplace can cause a house fire. Check Craig's list for scrap wood or look for $60-$75 face cords. Windows are glorified holes in the wall. No more, no less. You must seal all of your windows. Since you cannot go outside, look for a product called Wind Jammer. It is a removable caulk which peels up quite easily in the summer. You want to put that along the track on which your window moves. You also want to use permanent caulk along the glass of the window where is meets the wood or vinyl. Be sure to clean the area of old caulk as you want to have a fresh start. Go to the store and buy insulators for all of your electrical outlets and switches that lie on outside walls. You can feel wind blow through them, so you want to stop that wind. They are relatively inexpensive and well worth it. You said that you live on the lower level of the house. Is there a thermostat on the upper level, also, or do they rely on you for their heat? They might be roasting up there from the heat that is escaping from your unit. If that is the case, they would open a window just a crack. That crack of an open window will suck the heat out of your unit as fast as the furnace can put it out. (I was once an upstairs tenant and did this. Needless to say, I had some unhappy people around me.). Talk to the upper level tenants--quick! Make certain that you have a rug on every bare floor. It helps. Any doors that are not used should have a wind breaking sock in front of them. You can buy a wind stopper or make your own by filling a tube (old socks sewn together or remnant material) with feed corn or barley. Come spring you can empty this in the yard for the birds. Yes, they will find it! The doors that you do use should have a good fitting threshhold. Put your hand at the bottom of the door. If you feel a breeze, go to the local hardware store and buy a weather strip that is metal and rubber. The rubber part will seal against the threshhold when the door is closed. If it does not seal off the entire breeze, then you probably need a new threshhold. In that case, make another sock and put it against that door when your home. Changing threshholds in the winter is a pain; wait until summer for that job. Put a blanket on your hot water tank. Lightly boil water in the kitchen. The humidity helps the air to stay warm. This is a perfect time to bake, also. Before going to bed, heat up a corn sack. What is a corn sack? It is an old pillow case with whole (bird feed) corn. Tie the case in a knot and you have a corn sack. A sack with 7-10 pounds of corn heated in the microwave for 12-15 minutes will stay hot for hours and warm all night. You can use it for months. The longer you have it, the more moisture will evaporate out of it, so drop down the heating time accordingly. We have one for the feet and one to hug. Of course, after all of this I will tell you to dress warmer. Yes, it's a pain, but it is worth the savings. Wear sweats at home and socks with slippers. You can buy a blanket that zips into a (sort of) robe to wrap up in while watching television. I've worn a hat in the house on those days when I feel a real chill. Do I feel silly? At first I did. But as I realized how much cash has stayed in my pocket and not gone to the oil companies, I feel pretty good about it. So far this winter I've saved about a thousand dollars. For that much money, I'll bundle up! Note: I turn up the thermostat when company comes over. Good luck to you!
10. 1. Insulate (I know... they said that) - but it's the best first step- and relatively cheap 2. A programmable thermostat. (OK, I'm still not original) 3. Weatherstripping... Seal the gaps in doors & windows (geez- this has all been covered!) 4. Caulk ! All windows and all door frames. know where Not to put it, too. A fully sealed house can breed mold - moisture needs an escape. 5. Clear plastic film across the inside of your windows. - Or better yet- replace them with double-glazed High E units (yes... there's an expense!) 6. If you have a forced-air system, changing the furnace filter (or clean the electrostatic type) (but you read this, too1) 7. Visit your forced-air registers... re-set the airflow to provide warm air Downstairs. That will rise. The registers upstairs should be modestly open- NOT wide open. If that renter is a problem... consider a zoned system - Either via an in-duct damper system or (another expensive solution) an independent furnace (with the utilities passed to the tenant). 8. Replace the furnace with a high-efficiency unit. Modern systems do not exhaust through a chimney- they don't exhaust enough heat. So they use a fan to blow out the combustion gasses. That can raise your combustion efficiency from (in an old unit) about 55% to about 90-94% depending on what you spend. See your Utility for possible rebates or favorable lending programs. 9. Radiant heating for the lower floors is attractive- but rebuilding an old house for water-tubing can be cost-prohibitive. And Electric heat is just not efficient - and thus- costly to run. - Oh- $300 is what I (sadly) expect in a cold winter month (in NJ) - but I now know I need to remove some moisture-damaged insulation- and add more to the 50-year old standard used here.
11. replace windows, insulate the house for long term efficiency