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I had a new thought this winter -- curtains in doorways or hallways. This uses tension rods, so no screwing things into walls.

Depending on your layout, it might be useful to set one up in your hallway, far enough from the outer door that you can enter/exit easily, but that helps to form an "airlock" between the outside and the interior. Most regular tension curtain rods are too short, but they're also made as shower rods, which are longer and a bit heftier in construction. Obviously this only works in places that have a hallway...

Doorways I might consider using them on are if you have areas that don't have doors and that you don't go into very often but can't close off. I use one for the doorway into our unheated, north-facing pantry. The fabric I used here is just muslin because there's a window in the pantry and I wanted the light to come through, but it keeps the cool of the pantry out of the apt. and keeps the pantry itself cool enough to store our winter squash in.

If you have a funky deadend space/alcove somewhere, that mostly gets used for storing "stuff", and it has an outside wall, that space might be a candidate for a heavier weight curtain, to create a cool storage space. Weighting the bottom of the curtain is a good idea -- I haven't done that with my pantry curtain, but I'm thinking about it. Currently I've been rather lazy, and the muslin is literally just run over the top of the curtain rod and safety pinned to keep it from slipping down either side... This has the added advantages that you are now heating less space, and creating an additional layer of insulation of sorts.

Current Mood: busy

- Deposited checks
- Did some cleaning and moving of things
- re-potted 3 plants
- Sealed some windows with caulk and/or painter's tape

I'd meant to get more of the windows done before now, but life has been... life :D

But the Asian beetles (the ladybug look-similars) are coming inside so the afternoon was given over to caulking and taping windows. They are newish windows and are double-glazed but they don't have a very tight fit, at least as far as little beetles are concerned. I used clay caulk where I could along where the windows meet the frame all around. Some edges are further apart than works for the caulk, so I used painter's tape on those parts.

Not only will we keep most of the critters out, but I figure the apartment will be better insulated as well. Think of all the cold air that must have been coming in, and the warm air that was leaving last winter!

I'm happier with the caulk than the tape because, well, the tape is Smurf Blue. But it works and won't leave marks on the wood when I take it off next year. Maybe it will be incentive for me to get to work on the curtains....

Anyway, six windows in the apartment are done. More tomorrow.

Current Mood: busy

Feel free to ignore, just me posting what I submitted for the local paper. Had to break it up into two parts because of word limitations. Part 1 should be in the November issue of the Ashfield News.

( part 1 )

( part 2 )

Current Mood: busy

So here I am again, thinking about insulating... I left up most of what I'd done last winter as we need insulating from the heat of summer as well, so now I'm working on adding more, now that most of the busy-ness of summer is done and it isn't so hot out.

Sharon Astyk's been thinking about insulating too, specifically ideas for where you are now: Heating and Insulation Options This covers some basic ideas on heating and insulation, but she'll be writing more on cooling options, and then more specifics on different useful things. Sharon has a lot of good ideas, as do many of her readers, on what they've tried. I'm not interested in everything she writes, but the how-to/informative stuff can be useful.

Since we're probably going to be in the apartment here for a few more years, and since the cost of all heating fuels are going up, I figured it was time to work harder on adding insulation, even though the house is already pretty good. The more we can cut down on fuel usage, the better. I've mentioned insulating by putting off-season clothing, fabric, extra blankets, etc. against outer walls, but I haven't really maximized on that here in the apartment.

***
On a local note about fuels, a man showed up here at the farm looking to see what firewood we might have -- price, availability, and dryness. He'd gone for a second load from his usual source in Sunderland/S. Deerfield and the fellow was sold out. So now he's looking up in the hills for wood... and on Sharon A's site one of the readers said her CT newspaper reported that firewood in Maine has gone up to $300/cord because they're getting low on hardwoods and have to import from Connecticut! Current price for a cord of wood here in MA is $180-$220. Expect that to go up with the cost of fuel used to get the trees off the hills and cut up into a manageable size for stoves and furnaces.

Mind you, this shortage doesn't mean that there aren't any hardwoods left in the managed forests, just that if the properties are to be properly managed, one doesn't cut down every tree for short-term profit. Bad for the ecosystem and bad for future generations. But it does indicate that more people are using wood because they can't afford oil, or because they're trying to switch to something more "sustainable" and/or not dependent on a foreign country for.

Regardless of type of energy used for heating/cooling one's home, the best way to save on energy use is to not have to use as much of it. Hence my return to insulating...

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Today I'm adding another insulated shade in the southwest room -- meant to do it at the beginning of summer, but instead we just tended to keep the door closed to that room and not go in there in the middle of the day. Then there's the space below the south-facing window that I haven't been able to figure out what I want to put there. Now that all the books are out from under it, I'm going to put our Pennsic trunks there -- they hold stuff for Pennsic/summer camping in them, so they might as well help insulate the place during the rest of the year. We can use them as additional horizontal workspace as needed, as Southwest is where most of our non-fiber crafting stuff is kept.

Then there's the space behind the two bookcases against the south wall in Southwest, where the back of the cases stand away from the wall a bit because of the baseboards. Only an inch of space, but if I hang a few layers of fabric on the wall behind them, I can join the wall's insulation to the bookcases and create a foot of insulation. Even multiple layers of thin fabric would help, as the layers trap the air between them. If I can, I'll wrap around to part of the west wall with the wall drapes... I have a picture hanging there, but I can run a ribbon or cord from the top of the drapes down to where I want the picture to be, so that's no big deal.

I'm actually a bit excited about being able to use some of the fabric I have in storage, because if I can use enough of it to insulate the apartment, I can make some space in the barn. Yes, I have that much fabric. Combination of sewing clothing and being a crafter. Might as well maximize use of the materials until I need them for projects. And in rooms where I want the addition be neutral, I can put a layer of muslin or other plain light-colored fabric as the top layer (light-colored to better reflect light at night).

Also, I'm starting to tape the window frames with painters tape (the removable stuff). We discussed putting up a layer of plastic for winterizing and for keeping the ladybugs out, but it would only keep them from being all over the apartment, it wouldn't keep them out of the house. I don't really want to look at piles of dead bugs on the window sills all winter... Last year we started out thinking maybe they were coming in around the half-screens that come with the windows (double-glazed replacement windows). Then we figured out that they could fit into the grooves that the windows slide up and down in. So my hope is that by taping over the slider grooves onto the window frames I can remove any air movement that may be attracting the bugs to try to come into the house. And of course, that means also cutting down on unwanted air penetration during the winter! In a modern house I might have to worry about over-tightening the house (houses do need to "breathe"), but that's not a concern with a house the age of the farmhouse.

The caulk the stores have for winterizing would probably work too, but I'm finding the tape works more easily for me so far. OTOH, the caulk isn't _blue_, and would be visually less noticeable... hm, maybe in some of the other rooms...

Another project for Southwest will be to put up some of the wire rack wall-shelving we have, right behind the door on the west wall. They're shallow enough to fit behind the door, and I can roll up chemises and stuff and store them there -- more storage and insulation. This has the additional plus that the bookcase in the hallway that the clothing's currently on can then be used for more books ;) I have a box or two I'd like to unpack...

***
Should be an interesting challenge, getting the house more insulated -- L and W have some other things they'll be doing as well, like replacing a couple of the old windows. While the replacement windows aren't perfect, the two they'll be replacing are in pretty bad shape after all these years. And maybe they can figure out a way to make them tighter/more bug-proof...

Current Mood: busy

Had an interesting little convo over at

baronessmartha's LJ just now, on whether or not to insulate the heating pipes in the basement. In one case it made sense to insulate the pipes because they were the pipes to the 2nd floor of a 2-family home -- the 2nd floor family would be paying to heat the 1st floor family's home. In the other case it was a single family home, with a somewhat damp basement, so leaving the pipes uninsulated helped keep the basement's humidity reasonable most of the year, and heated the floor for the first floor, helping to keep heating costs down.

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I've written about insulating more than once here, but really, what is appropriate depends on the house. In our old house the basement walls were nice and thick, so we only insulated the floor/ceiling where the house walls met the foundation, to keep out air penetration. Oh, and also the back/outside basement down in winter, of course.

For the basics, it's good to insulate the walls, windows (shades/curtains), and roof/attic. Although some people use their attics as an additional layer of insulation... but at the farm here and also at our old house, heavy roof insulation would be nice because both are large enough to have rooms where one can work or have a spare bedroom. Insulation is useful year-round too, of course.

It's the fine details that can get interesting... some places are easier to insulate than others, apartments that have restrictions, etc.

***
How to heat/cool a home varies too, just in our little area here, nevermind the entire country, or other places around the world. In the newspapers, on tv, or in in-person discussions, a lot of folks seem to get fixated on one particular type of energy as what will 'save' us from the energy crisis, but it's never that simple. Passive solar works in the Northeast U.S., but not nearly as well as it does further south. Wood isn't a very renewable resource in Arizona. Wind only works well where there is a fairly consistent flow. Commercial wind is more limited in locations than residential wind. Passive geothermal works in our area for 9-10 months of the year, but you'd want an alternative source for the coldest days of the year. And so on.

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For heating or cooling, air travels differently in different house designs. Some houses are rather poorly designed for circulation, and if you're looking at building or buying, or even renting long-term, that's something worth trying to figure out before you commit to a place. Victorian/Edwardian style houses for instance, usually have a staircase going all the way up to the attic, often in or near the center of the house. In our old house it was sort of in the center but going off to one corner/side of the house. It was great at sending a current of air all the way from the basement up to the attic -- a fire hazard if the furnace were to fail, or probably why the house had a couple of doorways with doors in them... But in the summer we could have the basement door open if it were cooler down there, and funnel some of the coolness upward. Regardless, we'd have the upper doors open and the windows in the attic, so the hot air could keep going.

Some houses are set up so that opening windows/doors at opposite ends of the building creates a cross-draft for cooling. Others have extended roofs on the southern exposure, such that there is shade for the southern rooms in the summer, but there's still natural lighting in the winter.

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Sometimes of course, if one has access to and can afford the more wasteful methods of cooling or heating, you use them -- we've made it through a good part of the summer without A/C for instance, but I've finally asked L to put in one of the air conditioners in the living room, because the humidity just isn't letting up and I have work to do and I'm just not 100% functional in this weather. *sigh* I won't have it on all the time of course, but I was really hoping to not have to use it at all this year. But as I said, there's work to be done, plus I should make sure my breathing's as up to snuff as it can be for going to Pennsic at the end of the month.

And if you need A/C but can't afford it, I highly recommend malls and libraries (pref. the latter). Even for a few hours a day it can make a big difference. Heck, even if you can afford the A/C, go share someone else's when you can and save energy -- well, assuming you don't have to drive a ridiculous distance to get there...

Current Mood: limp

Doctor, I have this recycling problem.... Some info on ecopsychology, something kind of new I think...

So, one of the things I sometimes write about (and of course think about!) is different ways to insulate one's living space, in order to use less fuel/power. As I've been wandering the internet looking for more info on various things, I've finally come across a few terms that are being used by other people (commercial and environmental types): "superinsulation" and "passive survivability". So, a couple new search terms...

Although really, "superinsulation" should be thought of more as "proper insulation". Cheap energy made it possible to spend less on construction of homes and offices. Major storms like the one back in '98 in the U.S. Northeast, and the storms this winter/spring that crossed the U.S. West-Midwest and up into Canada have shown quite clearly how inadequate a lot of modern construction is when people don't have power for several days. "Passive survivability" is the ability of buildings to be habitable for several days, winter or summer, without power.

As fossil fuel/power prices continue to increase, folks who can figure out ways to increase the insulation of their homes would be wise to do so, regardless of whether or not they think they'll ever suffer from a power outage.

***
I've been thinking about how to do 'superinsulation' as a combination of regular insulation materials (future place, not here in the apartment). I found out through Builditsolar.com's sundry pages about the Mooney Wall and also that cellulosic insulation is more effective than fiberglass insulation.

But I was also thinking about adding floor-to-ceiling cabinets on exterior walls wherever possible. Then I could store all our off-season clothing, fabric, blankets, SCA clothing, etc. in these cabinets, and that would be another layer of insulation as well as being storage space. If we felt that it were necessary, we could also hang a curtain in front of the cabinets, as one further layer of air trapping -- just step inside the curtain, go through whichever cabinet(s) to get what you need, then back out into the main space -- visually uncluttered that way too. Even a light-weight light-colored curtain would work, as anyone who's raised a window shade knows, on a very hot or cold day!

I like the idea of the light-colored curtain because it's better on dark days and/or at night, and with the curtains I could angle the sides that are near windows so that the light would reflect off the curtains and into the room, instead of being more constricted by the right angles: \___/ instead of |___|

Of course some space in the room gets lost to the curtain space, but I suppose that might be incentive to have less stuff... (back to the Japanese aesthetic there...)

If we were going to stay in the apartment longer, I'd probably work harder at tailoring our furniture to fit the spaces between the windows better... well, maybe I will anyway, just a bit at a time. We're likely to be here through next winter after all. It's just that some things work better/more easily if you can make them permanent.

Current Mood: busy

Saturday we celebrated at the Sunwheel, in spite of the rain. We had an ez-up to stand under, which helped, and everyone was in good spirits. Afterward we adjourned to friend Myttin's house in New Salem, for a wonderful feast - ham, chicken, baked beans, fresh homemade slaw, green beans w/ almonds, applesauce, pumpkin bread, another type of bread (rye, I think), a bit of hard cider, tea, regular cider, coffee, and a variety of desserts as well. It was all wonderful (I had 4 slices of the pumpkin bread I think...), and the company even better.

fitzw and I went off to see Winterberry Farm, and chatted with the lady who will be leading an ongoing workshop we're thinking about taking -- growing/harvesting/processing flax. It might be nice to have some help with the process, rather than discover it completely on our own. I'm curious about whether they have sources for tools or had to make their own. I suspect the latter, as most flax is processed on a large scale, with mechanized equipment... hm, another research project... did pick up some pretty dyed Romney roving while there. They have lots of animals at the farm, and teach classes on a variety of subjects, from milking goats to spinning and weaving.

And that was it for Fiber Twist for us this year. A friend was wanting some superwash merino roving, and I found the 4 oz. ball I have and have no plans for at this time -- should be enough for a pair of socks.

Saturday evening, a blue heron flew north across the field, as we drove in.

L's mom Marian's birthday was Saturday. She's been under the weather, so no celebration until she's feeling better, but we did sing the nice Happy Birthday song to her, and even managed to do it as a round (a little odd with only two people, but still nice).

***
Sunday was clear weather, so we got the rest of the plants into the ground (some still in pots), and finally put the sugar maple in its new home. Everything is mulched as well.

fitzw was doing battle throughout the afternoon/evening with one of the older computers, to get access to my art files, with success by the end of the day. Oddly, this morning the computer decided it would boot up. Still, he's continuing with moving the files to a more stable environment. We also got more things unpacked and more boxes up from the sugarhouse. The back attic is finally clear of extraneous stuff, so L vaccuumed while the floor was mostly clear (I'd already put in some shelving, to make space in the apartment).

Fortunately I've also found the comforters, so we've been quite cozy and comfortable the past few nights! I'd gotten a couple of them professionally cleaned this summer, and then they went straight into storage up here, so they weren't underfoot during the moving/renovating, and are in excellent condition. The new washing machine here is larger than our old one, so I _might_ be able to wash a comforter in it, if need be.

Going back to Saturday briefly, I wound off some bamboo fiber I'd spun earlier in the year, so I could use the moosie drop spindle for spinning up some of the newest fiber. Finished up a spindle of it last night and wound that off -- a little over 114 yards. Not bad for a few hours' work.

Oh, and quite of bit of roving and batting are now on the shelves and hooks in the weaving room, so the outer wall is now partially extra-insulated, and much roving has been chained s that it hangs more neatly on the wall. I have more somewhere, but haven't found it all...

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Today I go in for my MRI/arthrogram at 1pm, at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (CDH) in Northampton. L offered to come, and I was undecided. Not like he can be in the room with me anyhow... But we can have lunch together, so he's coming with. Oh, and I have to remember to get the image on disk for the doctor. Friday I'll be doing the follow-up meeting with the doctor, and we'll see what happens from there.

The little room where my floor loom, table loom, sewing machine, etc. are all in, is north facing. It actually gets a reasonable amount of light, if indirectly, but still it will be one of the cooler rooms in the winter so I've been working on how to insulate the wall. There are two windows, over which will be insulated shades or curtains (depending on what time allows). The spaces left over are somewhat narrow or short.

The space between the windows is just wide enough for some wire rack shelving, and a brass coat rack. The two long narrow spaces will have peg board attached so that I can put hooks on it, and the short wide space now has two more wire rack shelves attached. I'll be putting yarn and rovings in the shelves and hanging chained rovings off the hooks. This should give me 4-5" more insulation, plus all the fibers are accessible/visible.

I'm also hoping to make a padded 'bumper' that will run the length of the wall, over the windows.

Now of course if one has wider wall spaces, a backless bookcase would be just the thing. Or, run tracks up the wall and attach shelving to it, or angle brackets and boards, or bricks and boards.... this could even be done on walls that have electric-heating baseboards, as long as the bottom shelf is at least a foot up from the heating element and doesn't cover it up (fire hazard).

If you're not a spinner/weaver/knitter, but have fabric for sewing, there's always fabric to use as the insulator.

Or if you're not a fiber-oriented crafter at all, in the bedroom the wider shelves can be used for pants, shirts, and sweaters, and the narrower shelves/wire racks can be used for socks, hats, mittens, scarves, etc. In a room that's used more for storage, off-season clothing could go on the shelves. In a living or dining room, I could still see doing something like this on whichever are the outside/cold walls, and then hanging a curtain over it so it doesn't add visual clutter to the room.

I came up with a similar idea for a friend of mine who was complaining some years ago that her clothes wouldn't fit in the closet. Office jobs seem to lend themselves to having to have a lot of clothing... anyway, I suggested that since her clothing was pretty well color-coordinated, she ought to put up a netted chain on the wall, or maybe a series of hooks, and hang all her clothing on the outer wall as both insulation and decoration. As long as she left one thickness against the wall, she would be able to maintain the 'seal' for the most part -- especially if the clothing overlapped a bit on the sides. Maybe a layer of off-season clothing first, to guarantee no bare wall. She laughed at the idea, and I guess it was pretty silly (but it would have worked!).

Anyway, the keys are open-backed storage systems for contact with the wall, and soft stuff that insulates/traps air.

I like it when I can get a two-fer from a project :)