Saturday Morning Musings
Jan 17th, 2009 by Alex
I got my DTV coupons in the mail and headed over to Amazon and what do you know, most of them are sold out. Figures.
I discovered that my front door isn’t snug against the frame and it is letting a cold draft in. The entryway has always been a colder than the rest of the house, but this is different. With the thermostat set at 65°F, it’s 31.5°F on the floor right in front of the door (with a towel smushed into the frame, no telling how much colder it was before I put it there last night). I think it may be time to go buy a new door sweep, since its clear that the one I have now (one of the under-the-door types) isn’t working worth a damn. At this rate, the garage door is better insulated!
I also discovered the joy of reversible ceiling fans last night. I installed the fans a while ago to assist in the summer months and vaguely remember reading the instructions about how reversing the direction will circulate warm air, but had long forgotten about it. I was thinking about — though not actually getting around to — cleaning the fan blades the other day and saw the switch and figured “what the hell, we’ll see.” Usually with the thermostat set at 65°F the bedroom settles in between 62 and 63, but sometimes as low at 60. I always thought that seemed odd since all the air from the living room ought to rise up to the bedrooms. But that’s where it was last night when I turned on the fan: 60. Within a few minutes, the temperature was 64. I couldn’t believe it. And when I woke up this morning it was 66. This in a house were the thermostat is never set above 65. I turned off the fan this morning when I got up and the temperature shortly settled back down a few degrees. I’m amazed and thrilled, since electricity is a lot cheaper than natural gas. It costs a lot less to run two ceiling fans on low and recirculate already-heated air than it does to raise the entire house’s temperature a few degrees or use space heaters. I guess there was a lot of heat getting stuck up near the ceiling.
So a trip to Home Depot is in order this morning to look at door sweeps. While I’m there, I’m going to get some literature on storm doors. I put them off a while back, but recently my parents just got a pair installed (albeit, with a really good deal on installation) and they love them. They really seal up the frame and make it possible to get natural light in the front of the house. While I wouldn’t put an installer through the pain of installing a door when it’s in the teens outside, it’s something I want to look into again. When the door frame expands and contracts with the cold, I wonder when the best time to install storm doors is. Perhaps one of the folks at the Depot will know.
I read The Tales of Beedle the Bard last week and had a few thoughts. With the book being referenced in the previous books, I was curious to see what a wizard storybook would look like. The handful of stories (and their accompanying notes) are interesting, but I would have expected something with a little more girth. Especially from Ms. Rowling, considering her last gargantuan tome.
Off to the grocery store, before the mad Saturday rush!
Wow, what a change from the Alex I lived with, up and about on Saturday morning running errands and blogging.
DJ: Yeah man, I was up at 8am. Just waiting for a load of laundry to come out of the dryer before heading out. Seems a long time ago, sleeping in until late morning.
You will be amazed at the difference a storm door can make.
My last house was so old that it had no right angles remaining in it. You could actually catch a serious breeze through the front door despite all the insulation I’d put around it–it just wasn’t helping. When we put in the storm door, the entire house was much more comfortable.
Claude: Where did you get yours? I was looking at Home Depot.