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Old-fashioned ways to keep your old house warm

By: Shannon Lee , Contributing Writer
In: Home Improvement Tips

Last year we were quite proud of ourselves for keeping our electricity bill as low as possible. We used fans instead of the central air unit, used natural light instead of flipping a switch and made a point of keeping everything unplugged when not in use. But what's that old saying: Pride goes before a fall?

That was what went through my mind when we got our first winter propane bill.

Preparing an old house for winter

I knew that the cost of propane was high, but let me be clear: The number on that bill was obscene. It erased every bit of savings we had made on the electricity and then some. If I had been motivated in the past to make changes to our energy usage, this time I was compelled in a way that bordered on obsession.

So this year, we were ready.

We started with the basics: make sure we have enough insulation in the house, cut down on the drafts that came in around those big windows, and otherwise seal the house up as well as we could. A few contractor visits later and we discovered a need for more insulation, which felt like a smart investment. Then we set to work on the windows and doors, making them as snug and tight as possible. We used foam inserts for the light switches and outlets, and caulked well around any area that led to the outside, such as the dryer exhaust.

Once the house was prepared to keep the cold out, we started looking into new ways to make the most of the warmth inside.

Finding new ways to heat an old house

It was clear that we had to burn less propane, so we turned to other options for heating. A reflective insert in the fireplace promised to push even more heat into the living area, and we stocked up on blankets, quilts and comforters. For those really chilly evenings, we invested in electric blankets to keep us toasty warm while playing board games or watching a movie.

After some serious math (I confess that my husband did the math, because I hate it with a passion), we decided that running small radiators in most rooms during the evening would keep us warm enough and cost much less than the propane. We considered replacing our furnace with a wood stove, but quickly realized that a project like that would take much more planning than we thought -- so that option was filed away to look at in the spring.

In the meantime, how could we make the most of the heat we had in the house? Here are some of the things that seem to work well so far.

  1. Close off the rooms that don't need to be heated -- assuming that those rooms don't have pipes running through the floors or walls.
  2. Rugs on the floors work wonders for keeping the room cozy. Rag rugs that work anywhere can be moved around and simply thrown in the washer if they get soiled by that inevitable spilled cup of cocoa.
  3. Handsome quilts hung on the walls not only make great home decor, they also serve as an extra layer of insulation. There is also the psychological effect: I look at a quilt and somehow feel warmer.
  4. Heavy drapes over the french doors can be pulled closed at night, and opened during the day to let the sunlight stream in.
  5. Hot water bottles placed at the end of beds, under the blankets, make great modern-day footwarmers that seem to keep the entire body toasty warm on cold nights.
  6. Invest in plenty of warm clothing, and use it! Wear layers during the day, especially socks and fluffy house slippers. At night, layer the beds with plenty of quilts and blankets.

We do still use the propane on occasion -- when we left the house for a short vacation, we used the furnace to keep the pipes from freezing during our absence. But so far this winter, we have used much less propane than we did last year and our house has stayed surprisingly warm. Here's to hoping that we will be able to continue finding new ways to heat our old house throughout the rest of the colder seasons -- and save even more propane by the time spring rolls around.

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