We have a very old (100+ years) house that could really use new doors and windows (don't have an extra 20,000 dollars right now ). So, we do lots of winterizing. We put the plastic that you blow dry over all the windows. Also the door to the deck has plastic completely covering it, since it is so drafty and we don't use it anyway. The downstairs airconditioner is covered and plasticed over. The upstairs airconditioner is taken out of the window and stored for the winter. We use rolled up towels under all the doors to block the air flow. Ceiling fans are switched to winter direction. The hot water radiators are bleed of all air. We basically do whatever we can think of to save a little on heating costs.

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~Happiness is a large family~



Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. James 1:19

Our back sliding glass door is a big issue - we have a doggie door in it - we probably need to upgrade the weatherstripping on it soon.

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Mom to Kaylee (10/2006) and Madalyn (1/2009)

We use plastic everywhere we can. This winter I am also going to try to upgrade the weatherstriping around the entry doors. We are also on the waiting list for the county's low income wetherization program. When our names get to the top of the list, we might get some or all of the following items taken care of for free: New insulation, new windows & doors, new roof, new water heater, ect. We could even qualify for a new furnace, but seing as ours is almost new (less than 3 yrs old) we probably will not qualify for that.

All we do is turn the ceiling fans to winter. Now talk to me in the spring about what we do to prepare for summer!

Winterizing can be more cost effective then you think. We called our energy company they had a program that paid $0.50 a sqft for insulation. So reinsulating the walls and floors cost $900. We would still want to insulate the walls and get new windows down the line.

Things we can do is not heat rooms you are not using so close the vents keep the doors closed

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &

Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma

You might want to go to the DIY store and buy those rubber gaskets that go behind electrical outlet plates and light switch plates. They prevent cold air from coming through them.

well we have a 100 year old plus house as well. we do have newer windows(6years old) new siding roof and insulation. but it still gets down right cold here so i do the following to help keep us at one tank of fuel oil wich just cost us 678.62 to fill up.

keep windows and drapes closed on very windy days open on sunny days to heat up.

use towels under doors for drafts(though we did just replace the rubber weather stripping last month)

keep doors closed of areas of the house we do not use

bundle up

we use electric baseboard heaters in our two coldest areas(its only adds 10 bucks a month to our electric in the winter and is cheaper than fuel oil)

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.

What winter?? haha
No, seriously, our "winter" here is about a month long, half of that being realllllly cold (my reallllllly cold is about 40 or below) I guess we are lucky, but then again, our summers are sweltering.
What we do though, is put a towel down each night at the base of the front door, even though we have weather stipping there. We close the non used vents off (in the spare bedroom, etc.) and keep all the blinds down. You'd be surprised how much just keeping your blinds closed helps keep cold draft out. The difference is amazing. Otherwise, that's about it.
We do, make sure that our outside dogs have plenty of blankets, a layer of left over carpet in their dog house, and we positioned their house in a way that will keep the coldest wind from blowing in there. Like I said, we don't have too terrible of winters here, so they are usually fine. Half the time, they drag the blankets and carpet out of their house and just lay on them in the yard, I guess they get too hot in their together...oh yeah, they do snuggle together too...cute.

I purchased electric mattress pad warmers for the family last year (they were under $20 for twin size). I put them on shortly b/4 going to bed, and the ones that the kids have feature auto shut-off after 8 hours, so no fear in them being left on all day. I really like that they heat from underneath, and just take the chill of the bed so that you can keep the heat down low (like 60) at night in the winter.

We also reset all of the auto temp controls to a winter setting.

My husband spent a couple weekends this summer sealing up our house. He took all the wood trim off from around all the windows and doors and filled any gaps behind them with spray foam. He then put calk (he said it was a glue and calk) on the wood around the window/door and also on the wall so when he put the wood trim back on, no air could get out from around it... hopefully I explained that well. We will still be putting plastic over all the windows but we have no plans on replacing them. Consumer reports says it typically takes 20 years for the lower energy bills to cover the cost of new windows and we don't plan on staying here for that long.

Oh, and my husband made a cover for our fireplace. We have a metal insert fireplace that is so drafty it blew the plastic wrap off it last winter. My Husband duck taped it back on and it blew off again. he made the cover using some foam boards from Home depot, magnets, some vinyl and he hot melt glued the whole thing together. worked great. We heard it creaking when the wind got real bad but it never came off. Oh, and if we want to make a fire it's easy to remove.

Bee