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65 comments on Thursday's Open Thread

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ashaddock on December 15, 2005 - 9:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I grew up in London in the 50's and 60's.  Our house, built in the 1920s had old coal fire places in every room which we boarded up. We used electric bar heaters to "warm" the rooms we were in at the time.  It helped a lot to be close to the heater.

No central heating.

The curtains were of a thick material to keep the warmth in the rooms.  I can recall opening my bedroom curtains on many a winter morning to see ice on the INSIDE of the window.

Taking a bath in a tub of water that was hot but cooling all the time was interesting.  The move from the tub to the towel through the cold air of the bathroom was the most critical move.

I don't think we were the only ones.  The WSJ had a wonderful page one column several years ago about the joys of taking a bath in England in the winter.

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Agric on December 15, 2005 - 11:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
(This will just confirm my madness, btw)

My central heating and hot water boiler died 2 years ago and I decided to see how I would manage without it.

I have one small thermostatic fan heater which stops me from freezing downstairs, lol, and a small convector heater in my bedroom to warm my pyjamas or if it drops well below freezing outside.

Guess what? I've acclimatised. I need almost no heating. I live in a 1930s semi-detached house with minimal insulation, I'm sitting here in my pyjamas at past 3am with outside temp about 5 C (40 F) and I feel fine. You think I must be bonkers, maybe so. I guess the inside temp is about 50 to 55 F (10 to 12 C) and I would be fairly comfortable naked.

About 30 years ago there was a UK TV prog where people had to live like the late stone age - seriously, they had to grow their own food, solve their health probs, live in appropriate tech roundhouses, FOR A YEAR. Now that's what I call reality TV. They were debriefed a year after returning to modern life and the overwhelming thing they'd had a problem with was heat! They felt uncomfortable living in modern domestic temperatures.

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Engineer-Poet on December 17, 2005 - 5:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Ice inside windows is fairly common here in Michigan if you have single-pane glass.  I once had a place with a single-pane, aluminum (!) frame doorwall.  My neighbor, with the same, could not use her living room in the winter.

I promptly covered both sides of the doorwall with heat-shrink plastic film, making it triple-pane.  It still got some frost on the frame during the depths of winter, but overall it was far better than before.  Amazing how far a little cleverness will take you.

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65 comments on Thursday's Open Thread

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