Surviving zero insulation
by Tom Bouchard
(Vancouver BC)
I live in the upper floor of a rental house and there is zero insulation in the walls. I have baseboard heaters and I pay for the electricity myself.
Vancouver doesn't get that cold in winter but cold enough. I'm a student so I can't afford to pay a fortune for heat. I've got a few things I do to cut my heating costs.
I keep the heat really low in each room - around 50F - and I try to stay in one room at a time. I have a bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom). I turn the heat in that room only up to 60F. I keep the doors closed between rooms, and even have towels at the base of the doors to keep drafts from flowing from room to room. It takes a bit of planning to avoid moving from room to room, but generally the living room is for studying, the kitchen is for cooking, eating and washing up (which I do in one installment), the bedroom is for sleeping, and you know what the washroom is for.
Of course when it's time to switch rooms (move to the living room from the kitchen after supper) I leave the door open long enough for the heat from the warmer room to flow into the colder one. Then turn the heat down in the room I've left, and turn it up in the room I'm in now.
For the bedroom I turn the heat to 60F and read for 15-20 minutes, then turn it down to 50F for the night. With my pj's and a thick down comforter and a wool blanket I stay pretty toasty; the hard part is getting up to pee in the middle of the night, or getting dressed in the morning before I turn the living room heat up.
I wear a fleecy and a sweater over that. Slippers and wool socks help too. If it's sunny in the afternoon (which in Vancouver it often isn't) my bedroom, which faces west, heats up from the sun streaming in the windows, so if it gets warmer than the living room I'll open the door and let the heat in.
One advantage of living upstairs from my landlord and not having my heaters on high is that, to some extent, I get the heat rising from his apartment into mine. That's my way of getting back at him for not insulating my apartment: he gets to pay part of my heating bill himself!
Oh, I also put plastic on the windows, which of course are single paned and pretty drafty. Every little bit helps. A law requiring landlords to insulate apartments to at least a minimum standard would help even more!
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