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Brrrr……

February 25th, 2015

We heat with wood, thus the house is a little chilly in the morning. When it’s really cold we often fire up the wood stove in the kitchen and the big wood furnace in the basement. We didn’t do that on Monday night. It was -15 that morning and there was a windchill advisory overnight with wind chills down to almost -40. Mr Chiots got up in the middle of the night to add wood to the wood stove. Even with that, my office was a bit frosty the following morning.
cold office
Luckily it heats up quickly when we fire up the big furnace since the chimney is in this room. That didn’t stop me from spending my morning working in front of the wood stove on my laptop. It was almost noon when the temperatures were finally up in the 60’s in that room.

How cold do you like to keep your house overnight?

8 Comments to “Brrrr……”
  1. Jill on February 25, 2015 at 8:43 am

    Don’t you worry about water/sewer freeze ups? We have a wood stove in our basement but in a 2 storey house it can feel damp and chilly upstairs in the bedrooms. I would like to keep the natural gas furnace at 70F but my husband likes it warmer….we just bought an electric fireplace to help keep our master bedroom warmer and drier. When temps are below minus 20C there is so much moisture on our garden door to our little patio that it is rotting the door jamb (house is one year old!). We run a dehumidifier and I dry the windows and door everyday to prevent more water damage.

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    • Jill on February 25, 2015 at 1:43 pm

      I should add that the thermostat is at the top of the stairs and gets the wood heat bc we leave the door open–so 70F there is much chillier upstairs bc the furnace doesn’t kick in much. Now I’m curious to know the actual temperature in our bedrooms :) I grew up in a log house and my bedroom was the last room on the north end, furthest from furnace and wood stove. My blankets would often freeze to the wall. But I do love a chilly room to sleep in!

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  2. Misti on February 25, 2015 at 10:21 am

    In winter 68* is what we keep it at, but sometimes I sneak it up to 70*, especially with the baby these days. In the summer it’s on 76*-78* usually.

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  3. Rachel on February 25, 2015 at 10:53 am

    During the day we keep the temperature at 65 degrees, but we found a few years ago that during the night that is too hot and keep it at 55 degrees! We load up on blankets and sleep much better this way – without the high temps and without hearing the heater running.

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  4. Kristen on February 25, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    We live in a newer house with a heat pump\furnace. It goes down to 65 at night (although we could go a little lower) and is 68-70 during the winter days. I grew up with wood heat and well remember coming downstairs on chilly mornings to get dressed by the heat of the wood cookstove.

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  5. Mich on February 25, 2015 at 1:09 pm

    We have an Aga in the kitchen which runs 24/7 and a log burner in the lounge, so it gets pretty nippy upstairs at night but rather that than a hot stuffy bedroom.

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  6. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on February 25, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    Growing up in Illinois and Minnesota that so describes my childhood…Brings back a lot of memories. I live in Washington state now so I don’t really heat the house in the winter so it can get pretty cold at night. My guests find it a bit of an unusual experience.

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  7. Nebraska Dave on February 26, 2015 at 11:54 am

    Susy, whoa, woke up to Brrrr cold on the Nebraskan western bank of the Missouri River with no relief in sight. Not quite as cold as your weather but cold enough. Three below tonight with 10 to 20 MPH winds will make the morning commute brutal for some folks. I’m staying inside and having another cup of coffee. It certainly don’t seem like Winter is giving up it’s grip any time soon. Prediction is for more snow starting Saturday through the next five days. I will have to be content to play with seed starting in the basement for now.

    My house temperature is about 68 in the cold Winter months and 78 during the hot summer months. The bedrooms on the upper level sometimes dip down to about 55 degrees. My daughter would like it warmer but then she’s not paying the heating bill.

    Have a great Maine weather day. Missing Ohio weather yet? :-)

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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