Week 41: Winterizing the home

There's a saying in Missouri that goes, "if you don't like the weather, give it 5 minutes and it will change." 

Yeah.  It's the truth.  Really.

Last Friday night, the girls and I went through the "winter" box of clothes and pulled out what fit, made a sale pile for the "I'm never, ever wearing that in a million years," and put away the summer stuff (no more flip flops girls!).  The weather had turned cooler and while they could still get away with wearing capris, jeans would work and I hate not being prepared.

Fast forward to Sunday.  It was near 90 degrees and the girls had to get back into the "summer" box to dig out shorts and those flip flops.

Today is Wednesday.  It is 47 degrees according to my thermometer.  The girls wore winter coats to school today.  Amazingly, they didn't complain.  They were that cold.

Keeping in line with my earlier change of trying to reduce our electricity usage, I'm also trying to cut our natural gas usage (furnace) too.  I turned off the AC in mid August and I'm trying my hardest not to turn on the furnace until November 1st.  I have 12 days (hopefully more).

It is winterizing time.  Last year was the first time that I made a conscious effort to lower our winter utility bill.  We dropped the temperature to 65 degrees during the day.  I kept all of the doors upstairs closed.  We used blankets, wore layers and slippers and all that stuff.  I tried to do my baking early in the morning to warm up the house.  We slept on fleece blankets and covered with them (and quilts, comforters and everything else) as well. 

The question is how can we improve on our efforts this winter.  The first thing I'm going to work on is draft guards for the front door and downstairs basement door.  Both doors have gaps that you can see through.  The weather stripping that we've tried in the past has prevented the door from latching and the only thing worse that a door that you can see daylight around is a door that is standing open because the wind blew it open.  My challenge is that the gaps are between the door latch and the top of the door.  I'm going to have to fashion something that goes all the way around.  I'm sure it will be lovely.  Uhh, not really.  I don't need lovely.  I need functional so we'll see how that works.

The other area that needs work are the windows.  We have new double pane windows, but the air around the window always seems to be so cold.  I'm making Hubby put the shrink wrap on the bedroom and living room windows to see if it helps.  It's only a $10 investment.  If it doesn't work, that's not too much money lost.  Hubby thinks I'm crazy.  He says that was the point of buying new windows.  I don't know though.  It couldn't hurt.

Other suggestions are both welcomed and appreciated!