HOLY WOW! This is the kind of cold we Chicagoans dont experience until end of January early Febuary. Kinda crazy, I am however getting alot of house work done by not going out. Any tips on winterizing cars/house/myself?
Forgot about the paper bag thing, I'm goin to do that right now, and as far as my battery, I just got a brand new one before I moved. Mar car started no problem this morning. Thanks for the tips guys
Sometimes the radiator works too efficiently, I believe the OP has the same issue I do in that we both use lower temp thermostats. When the ultra cold air blows over your radiator, sometimes you can't get enough warm coolant in the system to get heat in the car. I drove 6 hours to Chicago one winter without knowing this handy trick, and I had to stop every 15 minutes to warm myself back up. I had 2 heat packs and a blanket as I drove.
Putting some poly over your windows can save you a ton on your heat bill. One year we cut our gas consumption by a third in an old drafty house in Duluth.
spend a couple of bucks and get the 3m window stuff. I just did mine this past week and it made a major difference with the temperature of the house this morning.
Yup. Another area for HUGE drafts are electrical outlets. If you don't believe me, find one that is on an outside wall and put your hand over it.
Yep, your house will piss heat out of itself through outlets and inefficient windows. 3M window film and good thick wall plates are a good idea. You can even try sealing the inside of the wall plate with something if you want to get real silly.
wow, i have to remind myself that i'm lucky in my condo. even in this weather we have to keep windows OPEN to regulate the heat or it will be too hot. our HVAC has no power even now and convection heat of 15 floors beneath me keeps my place TOASTY
I use standard 3 mil poly and green 3M automotive masking tape. The windows on our apartment down here are absolutely terrible for being only 10-15 years old. They throw these apartments up as cheaply as possible it seems. Being on the second floor helps though.
To be fair, it's usually not this cold here until late January or early February. Plastic over the windows and sealing around the electrical outlets (they sell foam inserts that go behind the plates as gaskets, though I haven't looked for those for a long time) is a good idea.
Well, you could do what I did and replace the a/c, water heater, furnace, windows, roof and new siding - but I doubt my energy savings will ever balance out the cost for all of those. Though, last year with just the new furnace and progammable thermostat, the gas bill was slighly more than the winter before when no one was living in the house.
it might, depending how bad it was before. my house used to have these crappy single pane, aluminum framed windows upstairs. we replaced them with thermopane vinyl ones this summer, holy huge difference!! you used to be able to tell within ~10minutes or so of when the thermostat dropped the temp down at night. now I don't notice for an hour or more! yea, little heat/insulation things can really help. for example, the wall where my computer desk is is a poorly insulated wall. so it's cold, ALL the time. an old blanket between the desk and the wall, and a $20 wal-mart space heater, and it's comfortable here even when the tstat is at 58 overnight. as for the car, block heater and/or battery heater. my loyale (not daily driver, but still used) is left on a timed block heater (12 hrs on, 12 hrs off...etc.), and the battery is inside on a 2a trickle charger. need to get a block heater for the '6! in other news...I love this weather......but I'm a little odd :run:
My house was built in the 1800s. Probably the 1890s, but possibly earlier. We gutted it to the studs and furred them out so we could do R21 in the walls, R40 in the attic, new low-e argon-filled windows, airtight electrical boxes, one way permeable membrane vapor barriers, etc, etc. We did put in a lot of windows though, the south side of the house is almost more glass than anything else. Heating it isn't exactly cheap, but it's about the same as 1/2 of the 1920's duplex we used to live in, and it's probably 3x the size.
we don't usually get this cold this early either. mid january is the norm. -17 tonight for the forecast is certainly not normal. this weather is gross.
I woke up to a frozen pipe this morning. Luckily, it hadn't burst. Cut a hole in the ceiling of the basement and ice cold air just came rushing out. Found a very poorly insulated overhang that the pipes were running through, and re-insulated it. Now it's staying nice and toasty. A close miss! Just bought this place in September, that's my first "OH SHI" homeowner moment.
A broken pipe will wreck your whole day. I've seen offices trashed by broken sprinkler mains. Not fun at all.
Damn straight. I came to a house (my current house) that I was remodeling one Monday and found 6" of water in the basement (with the floor drains working properly, i might add). The heater had failed (actually, what happened was a sub left something open that allowed -30F air to pour in upstairs and overwhelmed the poor little 30kBTu heater) and the meter and pipe 6" past the meter had burst. Lucky for me the actual main hadn't, nor was there any other plumbing in the house at that point.
I have been told in no uncertain terms that the garage is required to be ready for my wife's car when she returns home tonight :laugh: Actually, I think it's still 65F in there from me working on my car on Saturday. Heated garage FTW!
BlizzardCross! You pansy. You get all Subaru'd up, and we never see you anymore. Too good to get dirty now? :wiggle: Just giving you a hard time Ted. In fact, I hardly did any the first couple years after Adam was born, and probably will kinda disappear again for the next two.
I'm of the "Tyler Dill" driving school. ON or OFF throttle positions. I am scared to rallyX my daily driver, and don't have anywhere to garage a project car. And, life just seems to be REALLY busy ALL of the time.
Once life frees up, I'd probably be willing to share the SE-R. As I added above, I might not get to use it too much next year with our second kid coming at the end of this winter.
Things to remember in the winter if your a mustang owner. Winter tires are your friend! I was driving down 169 from EP to Cpark at about 9 this morning it's about a 10 minute drive. The first Mustang(Blue) I see had lost control and smashed his front end and was stalled blocking the left lane. I give him the thumbs up obviously. So as I'm laughing to myself I see a red mustang who spun out into a ditch a mile down the road.....I thought to myself the odds of that happening are pretty slim as I see a purple car in a ditch and of course it has to be another Mustang. I really wish I would of had my camera on me it could of been an epic thread.
good tips, all things I forgot about, like leaving the water trickling. also a block heater, once I get the heat going in my garage MY car will be ok, but my girls will need this stuff. she parks outside.
Florida is sounding nice again right now. Not sure why I moved back up here other than the nice spring and summers. My friend said its about 80 down there right now If I didnt have a house id be all over FL again!
I wish we had your weather, we had a few days in the 30 below allready, its going to be -36 tonight. and thats not with the wind.
With the window film...is there a slick way to still be able to use it with blinds that I don't know about??? Also, didn't know about leaving water on overnight. All sinks/bathtub? Super slow trickle, yes?
Only if you have a pipe or pipes that are prone to freezing. Leaving water on keeps water moving through the pipe and not freezing. So you open a facust that will let water flow through that particular pipe. If it's the main you're worried about, any faucet will do. Better to insulate the pipe that gets too cold, or failing that, get some thermostat controlled heating wrap on it.
