Feel the Heat

...or rather, feel the lack of heat. There was a very heavy frost last night here and tonight the temperature is supposed to drop down to -3°C or so. I'm getting a good idea of why the Victorians always wore hats to bed. Actually, that's not so true; our bedrooms upstairs are pretty comfortable. It's our downstairs that is cold. I don't mean it's slightly cool, it's Cold with a capital C. We only have single-paned glass throughout the house, plus the walls in the kitchen are only one brick thick, plus poor insulation around the drafty doors, plus no insulation in the attic, plus plus plus. This adds up to cold. The temperature this morning in the bathroom was 13°, which is a degree or two warmer than it was in the kitchen. The kitchen, as you might have worked out for yourself, is by far the coldest room in the house. Great for doing baking on a hot day - not so great for making breakfast in your bare feet on a frosty one.

We are doing what we can to keep the heat in. I have hung plastic sheeting over a few of the less-used windows and the front door. We keep the door to the side room closed to help stop the spread of cold. But if anyone has any good ideas on how to help keep the place warm, I'd love to read about them. Yes, replacing the windows with double glazing is a good idea, but not exactly a cheap idea, so some thinking outside the box would be nice. In the meantime, I shall be living by the motto of energy-conscious fathers everywhere and putting a(nother) sweater on.