Old Stone House

In support of blog action day, here is a small contribution.

The first winter we stayed in oldstonehouse we were quite surprised at how cold the house was, as well as how expensive it was to keep the house that ‘cold’. Our average heating bill cost about 700% more per month then our previous home – and this was to simply maintain a temperature of 18C/65F! Needless to say we were fairly determined to remedy the issue.

Since that first winter we have worked to increase our house’s efficiency, lowering our heating bills each year. However, there is only so much we can do. Once the doors and windows are airtight and the attic is sealed etc, there is still the issue of our house being uninsulated, and we won’t be addressing that anytime soon. Because of the plaster / lathe construction, the only way we could ever hope to insulate the house is by gutting the interior walls and starting from scratch. We have no desire to do that.

As such, we’ve changed our focus from conservation (how we could waste less heat) to consumption (how we could require less heat) and decided to follow the practices of generations of families before us and now depend on localized heating.

Localized heating is exactly what the names states – heating that is meant to serve only a small/isolated area – a local area. If you only need to heat 10% of your homes volume because that’s all the space you use, there are obvious savings to be made. However it’s virtually impossible to only heat 10% without losing heat to the rest of the house… except for us – as we have a door between every room!

The home’s original owners were far more skilled at heat conservation than present day society, as they had the good sense to install doors between every room in the house. We have adopted the principals of the home’s builder and during the winter months keep all the doors in the house shut. We set the thermostat to 16C/60F, 24 hours a day, and have added radiant oil heaters to several of the principal rooms. These heaters are run by heavy-duty digital timers that are set to correspond to our daily routines. We wear socks, put on sweaters, and use extra quilts.

The result?

Last year we managed to reduce our heating costs by 70% over our first winter – this substantive savings is directly related to our localised heating principals, as opposed to any improvement we’ve made to increase our houses overall efficiency. Our home is certainly not as comfortable as a new home, as some areas of the house are quite cold, however, we decided the day we moved in that we would inherit all the joys and sorrows that this old house had, and for better or for worse, warm or cold, we are committed.