Uninsulated houses in the northern mid west.

[stihly dan]

HOW THE HELL DO YOU DO IT? Comparably I am in the warm coastal north east, house built in the 70's, reasonable insulation. Yet I have added r30 in the attic, and put in nice double pain argon filled windows, put tyvek, and insulation board on the outside of the house. Still its only 26* out, at 7 oclock accidently had the house at 80* now 4 1/2 hrs later it has dropped 10* to 70. So my question is, how the hell do you have a comfortable house with no insulation and outside temps colder than friggen Alaska? I just don't see how. What am I missing?

 

[unclemoustache]

You spend a boat-load of money on fuel, that's how!! I'm only in the St. Louis area, and my natural gas bill is over $300/month. But that also includes water heater and range for 10 people.

 

[stihly dan]

I had $550 a month average on oil. Before going to wood.

 

[isaaccarlson]

Air movement is what you want to look at. If you can prevent air infiltration of the building and heat a large quantity of air at a time, you will be warm. I live in WI and have a 40x80 pole shed that I use as a shop. No insulation whatsoever. I can get it fairly warm with a wood stove. We are not talking about a balmy 70-80°, but a lot better than the arctic temps outside. Anything above zero is good if it is -40 outside and near freezing is better than zero. It is around 100 near the stove and gets cooler as you move away. A blower will help put warm air on you. A draft will make it feel 10 times colder. Simply having an airtight space will more than double your heat retention. Losing some heat through a wall is better than losing your warm air altogether and having to heat up even colder air. Start at the top and work your way down toward the floor. Foam, tape, plastic, whatever, just use it. The same with any insulation, start at the top. I am going to add bubble foil insulation to my shop starting next year. The roof will be first, then the walls. The floor is mostly dirt and will get foam under the concrete to help with heat sink issues. I have 2 11x16 doors, one rolling and one panel style lift door. They allow good circulation in summer, but stay closed when at all possible in winter. A draft wall can help with temps too. A 4-5 foot wall a few feet inside the main wall that cold air must go over to get to the main floor area. Forcing this cold air up makes it mix with the warmer air and will help preheat it. Perceived heat is what we are after. If your feet are cold, you are cold, if your feet are warm, you are warm. Get it?

 

[Guswhit]

opcorn:

 

[Whitespider]

I live in an uninsulated house... in what can be considered the northern Midwest... and I heat 100% with wood.
I'll tell ya' how I do it... I burn wood old-school. I have a (so called) smoke dragon firebox that will burn a lot of wood in a short time when needed. It puts out about the same amount of heat from the beginning to the end of a burn cycle, even during the coaling stage. The amount of heat is controlled simply by the amount of air you feed the fire. Need more heat?? Open the throttle‼ Thermal storage and slow release of heat ain't gonna' cut the mustard. When I need lots of heat... I need that same high heat output hour, after hour, after hour, after hour... from solid wood stage to ashes. There ain't any new-fangled box that can do that... that ain't the way they work.
*

 

[svk]

My place was built in 82' except for the family room was saved from the original place here and has a huge rock fireplace-beautiful but sucks heat in winter.

Our 82' vintage propane stove burnt 400 gallons of propane a month (which was fine when we had 66 cent LP!)We now have dual fuel electric along with the wood boiler that was originally installed. Electric figure 250 a month maybe a bit more.

 

[Sam.coots]

In the middle of Missouri, My 2000 sqft house was built in 1953 original windows and doors. I stay warm by burning wood. Lots of wood. I love my owb.

 

[066blaster]

I rented a remodeled farm house once. It had a furnace for the first floor and a furnace upstairs (both natural gas). I paid$450 a month for gas and froze my butt off. The one upstairs had plastic ductwork running through the cold attic, pretty much blew cold air. And that was during a warm winter. If you set the thermostats at 70 they would run nonstop

 

[brenndatomu]

had the house at 80* now 4 1/2 hrs later it has dropped 10* to 70.

Dude! You need a blower door test! Sounds like you have decent insulation, but some serious air leaks somewheres. Isn't NH one of the states where you can get a free or at least cheap blower door test?
I was surprised when I had foam blown in my walls that it didn't make more difference than it did. Of course it is a brick house and I believe it is not real "leaky" but putting insulation in the walls did not make a huge difference

 

[bigbadbob]

$60 a month every month, heat and hot water, 18 year old house.
Faces south so sun helps out a lot.
No wood here.
BBB

 

[Chris-PA]

It's warmer here, but the house is from the 1830's (mostly) and we have old single hung widows. In the winter I wedge the old sashes shut with cardboard shims. There some insulation in the attic now, but there's not much that can be added to the half-attic sections as the rafters are not thick enough. The doors have seals and storm doors now.

When this place was built people did not expect to heat the whole house much - they dressed appropriately and warmed themselves by the fireplace. If they had had stoves like I do their wood requirements would have been so much less. After fossil fuels there was no need to insulate because energy was so cheap and plentiful you didn't worry about the waste. That in turn changed people's attitudes as to what is normal in terms of indoor climate in the winter - we don't have the cheap fossil fuels any more, but we have the expectations from when we did. We don't worry about even temperatures from room-to-room or over time. The basement gets to 100 sometimes, and our bedroom gets to 50 - so what, you really do get used to it.

We learned a lot about insulation and things like passive solar construction in the '70's, but most of the stuff that got built in the recent housing bubble didn't incorporate much of that.

 

[flotek]

Ever see old photos of how people dressed in the late 1800s or read charles dickens novels .. They bundled up to stay comfortable ...they wore full bed gowns and a cap to bed ! They kept outside garments on while indoors and wrapped " afghans" around their shoulders .seems to me they nearly froze to death through the night and the man of the house spent most of his morning trying desperately to get the place back up to temperature .ive read old stone fireplaces consumed over 15-20 full cords in a winter to keep a small cabin warm in the north

 

[hupte]

the oldest part of my house was built in 1862. i was burning thru 25-30 cords a year. i'm just wrapping up new siding and windows on 3/4 of the house, so i should burn alot less.

 

[ncpete]

opcorn: I grew up in a place in northern NY, old 2 story 4 square farm house, with no insulation. First winter was awful - with an old mostly broken oil burner, and then we had a wood burner put in - 30 cord per year was the minimum for us - and except for the winter when we saw something well below -40, we were comfortable - dressed warmish, but comfortable. We also put insulation in the walls that next summer, and cut and split wood non stop.

 

[NHMike]

You definetly want to have a blower door test done. It can tell you where the leaks are and how bad they are. You should be ale to get a free test from the electric utility....PSNH, Unitil, ect. Ect. Check their websites for more information.
When we built our house we had to have the test done to get our Energy Star rating. The tech opened the fireplace door to show more how the can locate leaks and how much was leaking out. If the warm air is constinly leaking out, you will always be cold.

 

[stihly dan]

You definetly want to have a blower door test done. It can tell you where the leaks are and how bad they are. You should be ale to get a free test from the electric utility....PSNH, Unitil, ect. Ect. Check their websites for more information.
When we built our house we had to have the test done to get our Energy Star rating. The tech opened the fireplace door to show more how the can locate leaks and how much was leaking out. If the warm air is constinly leaking out, you will always be cold.

Not really complaining about the house, as it was a spike to 80* because the wife ran the oven just as the furnace hit its sweet spot. Generally at a 30* night if the house is 70* at 11pm, with no heat it will be 63* at 7 am. Just got me to thinking of the real cold part of the country that also has wicked high winds, and the converted barns (it seems) that many people lived/live in. Seems like many my live just to make heat.

 

[Ambull01]

the oldest part of my house was built in 1862. i was burning thru 25-30 cords a year. i'm just wrapping up new siding and windows on 3/4 of the house, so i should burn alot less.

30 cords a year! Holy crap. Were you soaking them in gasoline to make them burn fast? I can't believe someone could burn all that in a year.

 

[c5rulz]

Dude! You need a blower door test! Sounds like you have decent insulation, but some serious air leaks somewheres. Isn't NH one of the states where you can get a free or at least cheap blower door test?
I was surprised when I had foam blown in my walls that it didn't make more difference than it did. Of course it is a brick house and I believe it is not real "leaky" but putting insulation in the walls did not make a huge difference

Having a home energy audit is interesting, you will see where your heat loss is. Surprisingly enough, windows and doors aren't a big deal. Most air infiltration comes from the box sills in the basement where the house meets the foundation and the tops of drywall in the attic. Air flows in from the box sill and then between the dry wall to the attic like a chimney. Seal up that and your house will greatly reduce the air turnover which is where your heat loss is.

 

[svk]

Having a home energy audit is interesting, you will see where your heat loss is. Surprisingly enough, windows and doors aren't a big deal. Most air infiltration comes from the box sills in the basement where the house meets the foundation and the tops of drywall in the attic. Air flows in from the box sill and then between the dry wall to the attic like a chimney. Seal up that and your house will greatly reduce the air turnover which is where your heat loss is.

On that note, how do you seal up cracks that are visible in the house? Clear silicone? My fireplace has a few gaps around the edges and was just thinking how I would fill them so it would look OK