Turning down the thermostat in winter
I rent one side of a duplex and rent bedrooms out from it to help pay for the rent. I don't like wasting anything and started turning the thermostat down during the winter. It became so interesting I put this together about it.
When I am advertising on line there is usually room to go into details about the low temperature. If I am advertising in a newspaper I just have room to include the phrase "clean, quiet, cold." I did get a call from one woman who wasn't looking for a room but just wanted to find out what that was about. We both had a few chuckles while I explained.
A couple of other people had a suspicion of what I was talking about and phoned up to confirm it, then to let me know that I should not be doing that. I always do mention it on the first phone call the person makes about the room.
I did get reported to the city by someone who knew about the temperature before she moved in. I had checked before doing it. It is not permitted in rental units but is perfectly OK for shared accommodation, at least in Calgary. To my surprise the city official dealing with it did not know the difference between them.
Just approximately, a rental unit includes everything the tenant needs in an independent unit. Shared accommodation is when a person rents a room and shares parts of the place like the bathroom, kitchen or living room with the landlord. Nearly everything in the laws governing rental units does not apply to shared accommodation. In fact a lot of it is opposite.
I called the official landlord tenant information line and they said to have the city official give them a call and they would straighten him out, and that's what happened. I did not know the difference myself when I started renting rooms, but was a bit irked that the city guy didn't. To sum it up, the city had no objections.
There are 2 parts to keeping the temperature low. One is getting used to it, the other is adapting. It is not for everyone. Physically inactive people have had the worst time of it in my experience, and hypothyroidism would also be a problem. There is so much variety in human beings that I'm certainly not going to suggest everyone should do it.
But at least some people do become a bit acclimatized to it. One person said that when he had his first shower here, he stepped out and thought "My God, it's freezing." The second time he stepped out it seemed normal.
The most common comment I've had from people who like it is "You sleep better when it's cold." I know someone in California who said he likes it at least cold enough at night that it feels good to pull up a blanket, and if he has to he will use the air conditioning to get it that cool.
The point isn't to survive in misery. It is possible to feel comfortable just by adding warm clothes. If you want to feel warm and toasty for hardly any money, try putting a heating pad on your back or chest under your sweater while working at a desk.
A disadvantage is that typing speed slows down. I've thought of aiming an infrared light at the keyboard, but haven't tried that yet. The slowdown is a change of pace that I am comfortable with.
It certainly keeps the rent cheaper way up here by the Arctic Circle and helps out with the energy crisis, but overall there might not be an advantage if you rent out rooms. The extra cost of advertising longer can easily outweigh the cost of the energy saved. It depends on what the market is like when you do it.
When people do feel cold at normal room temperatures, it is very often a thyroid problem and is worth mentioning to a doctor. Hypothyroid people very often don't get along well with low temperatures and hyperthyroid people tend to not like it hot. A simple blood test can sort that out. The thyroid supplements were just about the first of the prescription types of medications produced by the Brits way back in the 1890s. It is also one of the cheapest and safest, and can make a big difference in how well a person gets along with low temperatures.
There are people who prefer it. They aren't really common and I do have to advertise longer to get them but once in awhile when I am telling someone about the temperature they say something like "Oh good, every place I've ever lived in has been too hot for me."
I stayed in a tent near Delhi for a few weeks and was surprised at the night time temperatures. My travel alarm includes an accurate thermometer, and the coldest temperature I noticed was 52 F. Nights can be longer near the equator than they are way up here. If it is that cold at least some nights in a tropical country like India, I wouldn't at all be surprised that our bodies are built for colder nights.
For a few years the room I was staying in was colder than the rest of the house because of a problem with the heating ducts. One guy who came in to pay the rent said "Boy, you don't have to worry about anybody breaking in here. As soon as they feel how cold it is they will give up and leave."
It was a little unpleasant but not a big deal for two and a half years but then I caught a cold in the middle of the winter. The days weren't a problem but lying still at night with a cold, breathing cold air was unpleasant.
I went over to the Wal-Mart and financed an electric blanket with my credit card. It used a maximum power of 180 watts but with it under the covers I was really warm. An electric heater uses about 1500 watts and probably less than one percent of the heat gets through the blankets to your body.
CNN had the statistics in the States for them. There they cause 29,000 fires a year resulting in 300 deaths. People usually don't seem to realize how dangerous they are. Small mistakes happen all the time around this house including enough made by me. The problem is that with an electric heater a small mistake like 2 feet too close to something flammable can leave you dead.
It is becoming more common. I've been doing this for years and I am more often getting comments like: "I'm used to it. That's what the thermostat is set at where I live now."
I was reading an article on diabetes and a woman in it mentioned that when she was growing up in the Maritimes, she had to take her insulin under the covers with her to keep it from freezing at night. There wasn't the slightest trace of complaint in her comments, just the problem with the insulin, and the way she adapted to it.
Years ago I was working in the city and living in a cottage about 40 minutes drive away. When I had 12 hour shifts on consecutive days, I would go out for supper, go for a long walk, and then go to sleep in my van on the company parking lot. They didn't mind. As it was getting colder in the fall I had 2 sleeping bags one inside the other and one night I crawled in with my parka too.
When I woke up in the morning I was warm and cozy but there was snow on the ground which was a surprise to me. I turned on the radio and the local station said the temperature was -9 C (16 F). My van wasn't insulated, had no space heater, and had a roof vent that was open for fresh air. I would have assumed that just breathing air that cold all night long would chill you from the inside out, but that didn't happen. Suddenly the traditional Eskimo lifestyle was a lot more understandable.
I bicycle to work all winter long. There is a bike path that I usually take on the way back going through woods. During the summer there is often a tent or 2 with the homeless camped out there. We had a mild start to the winter one year and the high temperature of the day was usually around freezing or even a little above until the third week of January.
There was a tent with signs of activity the whole time until a cold snap when the high was -20 C and then they gave up. I was keeping an eye on them just out of interest. They usually had a candle going and some insulation like a carpet over the top of the tent.
I would pass the guys on the bike (and pedestrian) path on their way to the downtown area. I saw one of them sitting at a bench and stopped to talk to him. He did look a little better than some of them that I would not have stopped anywhere near. It was actually interesting.
He said that this winter (a year later) he has fiberglass insulation between the two layers of the tent. He keeps at least one candle going in a coffee can and mentioned that he is extremely careful with it in the tent. Not everyone realizes how dangerous they can be and I was happy to agree with him on that part. He also said he is quite comfortable there and is not interested in looking for a better place to live, and he expects he is ready for 40 below. The enthusiasm was enjoyable for both of us.
Physically active people have gotten along best with the temperature, and couch potatoes the worst. I've noticed that if I start even a mild physical activity, like vacuuming, very quickly I am too warm and I take off my sweater. I commute by bicycle the whole winter and the ride home is an uphill run that can be a bit of a workout if the snow has not been cleared off the shoulders of the road yet. When I walk into the house after that, I almost always feel "It's too hot in here."
I don't like wasting anything (especially time) and we are burning fuels pretty much as fast as they can be found and pumped out of the ground. If people want to set their thermostats on tropical paradise this close to the Arctic Circle, the walls should have about a foot of insulation. The characteristics of the fuels we are burning might serve a much more valuable purpose than heating in the future but it looks like that would only be discovered about the time we run out of them.
I am surprised at how comfortable I am with low temperatures now. It is 52 F in the room I am in and I wouldn't even thinking of raising the temperature. It seems perfect. I am dressed for it and have to admit that by about the eighth month of winter around here I might be getting tired of it but oh well, that's weather.
