There's an old saying around these parts:

"White man build big fire, sit way back. Indian build little fire, sit close up."

So, there's my solution: build more fires, sit closer, wear a coat. I know, it sucks.

downstreamer

As it turns out, I've got chases that go right up to the attic from the basement. The last guy I hired to insulate, when I didn't know anything, not that I know much now, was a chucklehead. Fill everywhere, and missed that.

Also, electric heaters for spot warmth -- the oil filled kind are great.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

fire=wood (getting and preparing, including kindling) plus working stove;

space to sit close to fire=set up working or living space by heat source;

wear a coat=good point but bulky. Wear many layers of clothes?

Good time of year to buy winter things=they are cheaper now.

Interesting essay on how some regard truth on the web at your link.

And don't forget--book reviews here Sunday morning too!

Buy lots of rice. It doesn't rot.

Do a root cellar. For potatoes, I understand a big trash barrel will do -- as long as they are completely in the dark (and I mean completely).

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Make one room a warm room, superinsulated with good ventilation where you can go when it gets real cold. Don't heat the whole house, heat your one warm room.

Valences over curtains keep room air from cooling against the glass. You can make a roller shade into an insulating shade by adding foil, shiny side in, to the shade and enclosing it in an internal storm window. Leave a gap at the bottom so you can operate the shade with a string. Pull it down at night and then let it up during the day, if the windows sees the sun.

A southfacing window is already a solar collector. You can learn how to extend and maximize it. http://www.builditsolar.com is one place. I have the outline for a d-i-y video series on this topic at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2004/12/thr...

Solar Is Civil Defense and a $25 solar LED light and battery charger will go far to fill that bill. That $25 also buys a second solar light that goes to the developing world. http://www.bogolight.com

You can also learn the basics from old WWII homefront posters. I did a video on my favorites at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIlQJg1kSvk

Warmer weather is a good time to deal with it.

Insulation in the house is so big, especially big heat leaks like chases and badly fitting doors and windows. Filling holes up now with insulation from the hardware store or blown in is important. If you can't do that, at least cracks can be located and fixed.

What are you doing?

Do the oil heaters smell?

rice can rot. If you keep it dry and cool-ish and where insects can't get in, though, it's usually fine.

We'll have to post a lot of stir fry recipes.

What's cheap food now that we can buy at the supermarket that will last?

Also, hand-picked cheaper fruit debate?

Is canning or freezing better? And is canning too expensive to be worth it?

(and say a certain person with kittens, hipparchia)

Radiant barriers and sun shades for windows

http://thecottagerose.blogspot.com/2008/...

for heating a room like with a passive collector--with water-filled bottles in the sun?

What about an indoor window for salad in a warm sunny window? Would this need solar enhancement and if so, what--silver foil reflection?

Cool, er, solar stuff...

return back heat in the night.

Same principle as "thermal mass" in the Earthship or earth-sheltered building. Same notion as those frackin' thick-wall fireplaces in the common-corners of adobe houses built Santa-Fe style: a conical fireplace with really thick walls heats up from the fire all day, lets off heat into the building all night.

Early engineers -- pre-Christian engineers / builders, actually -- created floors of dark stone, with sky-light type windows to heat the rocks in the day so the rocks would heat the rooms at night.

Mother Earth News advocated, as far back as the 1970s, painting barrels black, filling them with water, and stacking them along south/west walls to provide insulation / thermal gradients that don't offer "shock." In fact, IIRC, one whole article on an 'off-the-grid' greenhouse was devoted to ways you can use / store solar heat (in water or thermal mass, rather than batteries) to create a happier habitat / longer growing season for plants.

Recycling plastic (juice bottles, milk jugs, 2-liter soda containers, what have you) also keeps them out of the landfill; and if you choose them and clean them carefully, they can double as your emergency backup store of potable water while they're providing you the ultimate in low-tech solar batteries.

There's an old country principle called "wadding," lambert, that extends beyond black-powder firearms. Old rags or even wadded paper was stuffed into the cracks around doors and windows, and between the logs, in cabins. Sometimes they sealed this in with wax (or tallow, depending on what kind of candles they had), sometimes not. I will note that the later innovation (circa the days of Tom Sawyer) of 'sealing' the paper against water by dipping it in kerosene or something similar proved more hazard than help.

Among the Amerind, a tipi usually had a liner -- a second wall, hung on the inside of the poles. This created a dead-air space which helped insulate the dwelling space against extremes of cold (it also helped prevent condensation on the walls from creating rain inside the tipi).

If you can get 'em, get dark bottles for that sun-heated water, or wrap the bottles in something dark.

If you can find/afford it, get reflectix (it's bubble wrap with silver mylar on both sides, tougher than rawhide and not much heavier than feathers) for your windowshade/door covers. You can create a thing like a roller shade (think a vertically-applied windshield reflector) to go over your doors/windows and UNUSED hearths/fireplaces -- roll the insulation over a piece of broomstick mounted above the opening in the building envelope, and either velcro or tie it at the bottom when it's in use. When you don't want it in your way, lift the broomstick off the (e.g. rifle rack -- cup hooks or something similar would work if the broomstick is skinny enough) mounting bracket, undo the bottom of the cover, roll it up and stick the whole unit back in its bracket -- it's a half-minute exercise, at its most elaborate.

No, it won't be 'stylin' like, say, Trading Spaces or Desperate Rooms, but it'll cut 'way down on your utility bills and keep you comfier -- and it works just as well to keep the hot OUT in the summer as IN during the winter.

No money for reflectix? bubble wrap, cheap aluminum foil, and duct tape will get you by. (Store-brand aluminum not-heavy-duty foil is amazingly tough if you just handle it with a little care.)

All that said, DO NOT overdo the house-sealing. A certain amount of air exchange is necessary to keep things like mold and mildew at bay, allow your house to thermally acclimate, and provide you with sufficient un-carbon-monoxide-saturated air to survive. Savvy? (If your house was built before Tyvek, there's enough air exchange to keep you alive just because not everything's square, plumb, and sealed inside your walls, but if not, bear in mind that insulation, wonderful as it is, has to stay dry to work right). This is particularly important in/around rooms where moisture might reach the air -- kitchens, bathrooms, laundries, maybe even your workout space.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

... except what happens when they freeze?

I'm sure I've asked this before, but solar is one thing in the Mediterranean, and another in Zone 5b.

That said, I'd sure like to get a permaculture greenhouse going in the yard, though I suppose I'd have to go the raised beds route since the ground will freeze. Containers, maybe?

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

at Mother Earth News (and their free library has a ton of stuff on solar, including cautionary tales, on a very low budget and with very low tech materials/techniques -- the kinda stuff *I* can build/afford!)
Solar Greenhouse

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

The Complete Mother Earth News Archive:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/article-a...

Homestead.org:
http://www.homestead.org/

Backwoods Home:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/

All of these publications are about living more simply and/or off-grid.

Some of the writers air their politics, so caveat emptor, but truthfully-- the advice is very sound, and projects are usually cheap and easy to do.

When I was a child, my parents sent all of us kids out to live with our grandparents' for most of the summer, and then out to my great-grandmother's OLD homestead (wood-burning stove, pump-water in a tin sink, and an outhouse, barn, animals, etc...) I learned an awful lot about living without during those times. I am always surprised at how much I retained.

For sure, the concept of the ONE WARM ROOM is brilliant and time-honored-- hang heavy wool blankets over doorways. Let the sun shine through those South-facing windows.

Sweaters, long johns, warm wool socks. If you have a standard fireplace, consider adding a wood-burning insert to it. It radiates more heat to the room, and burns more efficiently.

If your place has an oil furnace, and you'd like to convert to NatGas, I have a friend here in West TN who has a bunch of lightly used high-efficiency (10 sere) RUUD gas furnaces for $450 each. You'll have to pick it up, but the price is great-- they were taken out of Navy Base Housing-- ~1 year old.

Cut back on goodies, and start setting that saved cash aside for heating bills.

After that, the best advice is at the links above.

--mf

From High Atop The Mighty Corrente Building... Comes Wisdom.

..so refrigerate/freeze/use it up first. The higher protein grains don't keep well, but lentils and dry peas keep amazingly well, besides being very much cheaper than meat. And avoiding that whole E.coli thing.

Cooking oils are going up, olive keeps the best (up to two years) while canola doesn't keep well at all--3 to 6 months. Coconut and palm also keep well, far better than "vegetable shortening" which is mostly soy in the US.

Canned fruits and acid veg are good, please please watch it with low acid veg/canning, a big jar of botulism is no bargain. Personally I would never can green beans (but dilly beans, yum!). I also wouldn't use a steam canner for anything but jam or jelly, they don't make the temperature needed to sterilize things adequately. Pressure canners need to be adjusted, often the extension office will do this for free. If you have access to a dehydrator, dried fruits are a powerhouse of nutrition, keeping well at room temperature and also much cheaper than purchasing the same amount--a lug of peaches (40#) that might cost 8-14$, depending, will give you 3-5# dried--and at around 4-6$ for a 5 ounce package in the grocery store, the savings add up fast.

Most states' extension services have great online versions of their bulletins, for free, which cover this exact type of thing--weatherizing, preserving, cooking, etc.

Lots of tomatoes keep very well in a cool spot, don't have to be the long keeper variety. Also, tomatoes and peppers to a lesser degree will keep fruiting for quite a while after you bring them inside (nice big pots, they are thirsty critters) in the fall. Squash like acorn keep really well, and they are widely available at markets and inexpensive. Same with cabbage and rutabagas.

For this time of year, tinted film for windows makes a great deal of difference, a roll of film did the whole south and west side of my house cheaper than buying one tinted film shade would have been.

And it might well be a good idea to buff up your crafting skills, things to trade are always good to have on hand when cash is tight.

GREAT stuff!! Thanks to all.

Some of the British and early Americans around the Colonial times not only got sewn in to their clothes for the winter (just sayin' not suggestin')--but they kept their bottom layer on and added more on top...silk longjohns are nice--they breath as do the cotton ones--and wool is very warm if it doesn't make you itch. Llama wool is better for some and cashmere is better still. As if. But thin vintage sweaters can fit under clothes and act as warmers. This is a fine time to find some.

Anyway,

they had high backed chairs with those high sides that came out around your upper body and skirts around the chair legs--draft protectors all. They used screens to help keep the heat around where they were sitting. They hung heavy curtains over the doors as well as the windows. They used lap quilts, which are quilts that are smaller, to fit in your lap--not too much to trip over but they keep you very warm.

which are basically really cheap quilts. But the filling is tightly packed, so if you're after insulation more than looks anyway, they're good.

also, www.cheaperthandirt.com and www.sportsmansguide.com sometimes offer truly amazing bargains in mil-surplus blankets. These can be draped over a chair and covered with e.g. a sheet so you don't itch to death, and if you're really cold natured, slip a layer of mylar under the blanket to reflect the warmth back toward you.

End of summer sales are a great time to pick up windshield reflectors cheap, too; in a pinch, under something like an old towel, they're a great chair-warmer.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

does an amazing job of sealing windows and patio doors. My dad did this every year when I was a kid and the difference was amazing. And it's so easy it was one of the few things I was confident enough when I had first moved out on my own to do myself (also I was broke and tired of freezing in my living room). It was particularly helpful for the large sliding glass door in the kitchen. Plus, it's clear so it lets sunlight and its warmth into the house. For my money, it's also less depressing since you can still see out and brighten the room with natural light, which you can't do if blankets are covering the windows.

blankets/curtains/insulated shades down at night and LESS heat would be lost, right?

Or is there little difference?

Also, does anyone use a hot water bottle/hot brick/warm pet at feet at night? Some friends have an electric blanket just to warm the bed before getting in--then turn it off.

Bed curtains used to keep the people in bed warmer.

should keep in even more heat, I would think. At worst, it wouldn't hurt anything.

The one warning about plastic is if you have basement windows in an area with raydon. The plastic will keep stuff in as well as out and so the gas could build up in a basement that might not otherwise have a problem.

I use a hot water bottle sometimes. My feet are my thermostat. If they're cold, I'm cold. If they're hot, I'm hot. They also have the tendency in the winter (and sometimes other times) to get extremely cold. I use a water bottle to warm them up. Added bonus, it warms up the entire bed. It's amazing how warm the bottle makes it and it's just hot water from the tap. My mother grew up in rural Tennessee with no heat except a coal fire place which got banked at night, they warmed rocks on the coals and put them in the beds to warm them up. Add a few quilts and you'll be toasty even if the room is 40 degrees.

Most solar heaters are going to be supplemental rather than primary, especially in an emergency retrofit. They can be as small as a windowbox heater or as large as a wall. Many different materials can be used.

I recently revisited a 1980 barnraised solar air heater in Cambridge, MA and you can get some idea of what I mean at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/5/1...

The solar is not going to do much for you at night. An air heater "shuts off" when the sun goes away. A water heater may add some residual heat after sundown but that requires some kind of storage system.

A small fan can help circulate hot air from the ceiling down to the floor and "re-use" some of those btu's that are available.

As for growing things, you don't want to use foil reflectors. They can produce hot spots. Use white instead. Plants like it better. Leaf crops do better over the winter than fruiting crops but your yields are going to be reduced because of the angle of and relative lack of sunlight.

Solar Is Civil Defense - flashlight, radio, cell phone, extra batteries all solar powered with a hand crank or foot pedal dynamo back-up. This gives you a reliable source of low voltage DC power day or night from sunlight or muscle power. These things are what we're supposed to have on hand in case of emergency. That's where I'd start.

You can see what I mean (pictures) at
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/sol...

I have one room essentially off-grid now and have been using solar power for a couple of years now. It cost me less than $200: http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/03/sol...

I could do it for less today.

If you really want to bootstrap your community, start doing energy demos at the farmers' markets. This is your core constituency and the likely audience for such self-reliance information. I have a story about how that might work at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2004/12/thr...

You okay in the hurricane?

Did everything you tied down survive?

Would you post something here about the rooftop garden projects?

Thanks.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable...

preferably south wall...sounds easy to build, although having to make a few (repairable?) holes in the walls for vents--if I'm reading that right...if you can't do that, the mother's solar heat grabber (at the same site--pointed out by Bruce) is used with the bottom of a (sealed) open window.