New Windows Help In The Cold Snap

Phew ;-)

The outside temperature is currently -12C/10F. If we had our old windows, they would now have sheets of ice on the inside (frozen condensation), unless I had the furnace up to about 24 or 25 (75F).

I went to high school in the interior of BC - my old hometown is currently at -33C/-27F. Houses there are built a little differently though - ALL the windows have two separate, independently sliding pieces of glass, with about a 4 inch cushion of air in between (when we first moved there from the south coast when I was in high school, I thought they were the strangest windows I'd ever seen, but when the winters produced weather cold enough to freeze exposed flesh, I understood ;-)

Anyway, thanks to our new Energy Star windows, we have the furnace set at only 18C/64F, and lo and behold - no ice anywhere (inside the house, that is ;-)
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My Two Green Deeds For The Day

Green Deed #1: Lil' J and I went to get haircuts while A is in school, and we went on foot, with the toboggan. We arrived early and stopped at a nearby produce store to pick up some bananas and potatoes first.

I had a big backpack, and J was bundled to the hilt, in layers including snow pants. He had fun :-) The only minor glitch was trying to decide what to do with the toboggan once we arrived at the salon, but after I wiped all the snow off, I was able to bring it inside and stash it in a corner.

Green Deed #2: With the weather outside at -6C, we are keeping our heat inside down at 18C. It's quite comfortable, and the furnace only has to turn on occasionally for a few seconds to maintain it.

Do you have any green deeds for today to share?
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The Results On My Gas Bill

Did I mention that green is my favourite colour?

(lol)

Here's a stat from my gas bill that sums up the results of being energy conscious:

"Average Daily Usage GJ"

Nov 07 - 0.28
Nov 08 - 0.18

That's a decrease of about 36%. I'll take it!!

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Which Is Greener - Wood Burning Heat Or A Gas Furnace?

The other day walking home I could smell the aroma of wood burning: a fireplace lit to ward off the chill of our fall weather. It took me back to the cozy, lazy days of my childhood when we had a fireplace (ahhh!!). Memories of camping marshmallow roasts came flooding back. I miss wood burning fires!

In my Google (is that a verb? ;-) to learn more about the environmental pros and cons of such, I found an interesting article at The Christian Science Monitor. I enjoyed reading it and found it very informative. Here's the link:

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/21/wood-heat-rises-again/

More About Our New Energy Star Windows

Ahhhh!!! Warm house in the chilly autumn :-)

Not only are the new Energy Star windows good at keeping the cold out, they're also good at containing the heat.

My Dad is visiting and staying in our basement suite, so I have the electric baseboard heater turned up to 20C (68F) for his comfort. I am noticing that the entire house is warmer, whereas for his visits prior to the installation of the new windows, the heat on in the basement would not have made a difference upstairs.

This to me reflects the benefit of the fact that the heat is no longer escaping through drafty basement windows...

Are New Windows Really Less Drafty?

You bet!!!!

Since having our new windows installed, I can leave the heat turned off all day, and the room temperature will dip by only .5 to 1 degree (10 degrees colder outside). With the old glass, the house would have gotten down at least 3 or 4 degrees, if not more.

In fact, last night when Heat Junkie Hubby came home, I forgot to turn the furnace back on (usually I scoot over to the thermostat when I see his car pull in the driveway ;-) He gets home at about 5:30, and it wasn't until the kids' bedtime that I realized I'd forgotten. Meanwhile DH hadn't said a word, 'cause he was still comfortably warm.

Now the unfortunate part is that we have to pay for the windows (not like we can return 'em!!). Over the long term, though, they will save us money (plus the house looks so much nicer :-) !!

Brrrr...

We get new (double paned, LowE2) windows installed on the 16th, but meanwhile it's not so toasty being green!

I'm huddled over my laptop trying to keep warm, thinking about all the $$$ I'm saving keeping the furnace off. Hubby thinks I'm nuts. He doesn't handle the cold well. What the hell, once he chisels the ice out of his moustache he should be fine.

Wimp.

Windows Windows!!

The first day of autumn is here with a vengeance!!

Ok not quite, but boy is it cooling down. I may have to plug in the electric oil heater in the bedroom to deter Hubby from turning on the furnace ;-)

He's not totally "ungreen" though, in spite of his trigger happy ways with utilities. He's the one who wants to replace our windows. If we did that, then we wouldn't have to turn our furnace on as often, or up as high. I'm just cringing at the cost.

Replace them we will, however; hopefully by Christmas we'll have new, energy efficient, double paned glass throughout the house. Hopefully the savings in our hydro and gas bills will make the new debt more bearable (plus I'll be able to blog about how green we are!!) lol

Ok, Jeanne... get on with it!! You have enough quotes already - just hire someone...

5 Tips For Beating The Heat Without A/C

Finally!!! Summer weather. Oh wait... I'd forgotten how our house holds the heat.

Here are some things I've tried, in lieu of real air conditioning, that actually do help a bit:

1) Closing the blinds/curtains to keep the sun out (reeeeally?? you mean shade is cooler??). Why I haven't tried this sooner is beyond me. I think that I was too worried about blocking the movement of fresh air, but it's definitely worth it.

2) Using a fan: sitting on the ledge of any window that's in the shade, blowing inward. At the moment this would be my kitchen, and it's positively chilly in there!

3) Closing doors and windows that have the sun beating down on them (stay out, warm air!!).

4) Opening doors or windows at opposite ends of the house to create a cross breeze.

5) Wearing ice packs (ahhhh!!!). (Although this is tricky if you're doing house work ;-)

Today the inside of our house reached a maximum of 29 C (84 F), whereas in the past when I haven't used the measures listed above, it has reached about 33 C - 35 C (91 F - 95 F). Obviously A/C would cool it further, but at what cost?

I suggested to my husband today that we get one or two more small fans so that we have air moving at more than one window. This will use more hydro, but it'll still be greener than A/C.

Oops I killed My Worms

I didn't mean to. I thought I was setting them up in worm paradise - you know, in the tub where all the food scraps are. This was yesterday, and when I checked them today they were no longer, um, wiggly.

I put them in my plastic tub on the balcony, which is the "second stop" for my scraps. The last time I emptied this tub, just for fun I thought I'd put a scoop of soil at the bottom and fish out some worms from the garden heap and add them to this soil at the bottom of the balcony tub.

My guess, now that I've done some reading (should have done that first - sorry little guys!!) is that the tub was too wet and hot. It's plastic, with a lid, and sits in a sunny corner of the balcony. Mind you, as we're discovering this season, sun does not necessarily mean heat!!! (sigh) It's also usually quite wet as well, since one of the things that I routinely dump in there is the last dregs of cold coffee leftover in my pot.

I think I'm going to try again (the worms are shaking in their boots!), only this time with some kind of bedding. I'll update you on how it turns out.