So naturally the temperature crashed overnight…

Not especially cold, not even a record for the season. It went two degrees colder one night last month. But I wasn’t on an air mattress downstairs last month.

bed
Thanks to Unfamiliar Bed Syndrome I didn’t drop off till probably sometime around eleven. I’m not sure what time it was when I woke up cold, but I do know it was three ayem when I gave up and got out of bed to light the new heater. The bedroom thermometer read 53, which is not very bloody cold. But I should have thought to pull that inch-thick pad of memory foam off the regular mattress, because the air mattress wasn’t holding heat at all.

heater
Reading the story of the thermometers later, it appears the new heater is better at heating the main cabin than the addition. The addition temperature never exceeded 55 degrees even though the heater quietly hissed away for the remainder of the “night” – and in fact is still on now, because I want to see what it’ll do when it has some help from the sun. The heater makes its own corner warm, but it appears (no surprise) it would really benefit from a fan. Or maybe a bedroom door – if the nights are going to be cold this coming week I may need to rig something to let me hang a blanket over the doorway.

I’m also going to take the woodstove pipe down today and make sure nothing has nested in it during the warm months, because I don’t believe it’ll be long before we’re burning wood.

By the way, Judy? I did pay attention to whether the heater was endangering that corner of the fabric on the footstool. It’s not even making it appreciably warm.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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13 Responses to So naturally the temperature crashed overnight…

  1. Kentucky says:

    Bedroom door is the likely solution. With that big, tall ceiling in the original lair “sucking up” all the hot air, you’re fighting a losing game trying to heat the lower portion of the entire shell which is now considerably larger than it used to be.

    Might be an application for one of those “accordion” doors to eliminate the need for swing area . . . or a “barn door” type slider on the bedroom side of the new addition. I like the idea of the slider, myself.

    🙂

  2. Joel says:

    The hardware for a sliding door is on its way here. Don’t know when I’ll get around to actually constructing a barn door for it, though. Since it appears this is going to be an issue, it’s sliding upward on my mental priority list at the moment.

  3. Ben says:

    Yes, heat rises, so that’s another reason to set your bed fairly high off the floor. You are moving your bed from the hottest part of the Lair to the coolest. You have already noticed the difference.

  4. Mark Matis says:

    And he’ll really appreciate that in next summer’s heat, Ben. Although the window air conditioner might make that less significant…

  5. Mark Matis says:

    By the way, how well did LB deal with the modified sleeping accommodations? I take it you didn’t have a one-dog night…

  6. Joel says:

    LB isn’t very sociable after dark, he just wants to put his ass in a safe corner and sleep. So he didn’t actually act any differently till I got up at 3 to fiddle with the furnace. Then he wanted his belly rubbed.

    But no, I doubt he’ll ever feel any urge to climb into the bed. He wasn’t raised that way.

  7. Andrew says:

    The heater would have worked mostly-fine if it was located around where your closet is, but as noted above, that huge opening right next to it would be the heat sucker. Even a blanket or a rug hung as a curtain (as long as it didn’t get too hot or touch the heater, would hold in the heat better.

    And having experienced 10 degree weather on a waterbed with no heater (in Florida, no less) I know how you feel about having the heat sucked out of you by the mattress. Do get the foam pad down pronto. It will also help protect the mattress from LB’s paws, in case he decides to jump on the thing when you’re not looking.

  8. Judy says:

    Yeah, on the footstool not getting hot!

    We used regular floor-length window curtains on tension rods when we didn’t have doors. They held a surprising amount of heat in our respective bedrooms. I bet blankets would work even better.

    Yup, you want twice as much insulation/bedding under you as on top, if you are sleeping on a water-bed or an air mattress.

  9. I’m running AC in the house and the outbuildings, night and day here. Dehumidifiers as well. I read about your weather and feel envious. We are supposed to have a cold front coming through this afternoon that will bring the temps down into the 70’s and lower the humidity. I sure hope so.

    You ever hear of a book called Casa Costa Nada? I just read about it on Six Bears blog and ordered a copy. It’s by a fellow who built his own place out in the desert. Sounds like your adventures in desert liviing.

  10. Joel says:

    Yeah, an unemployed writer who goes off in the desert and builds a place out of salvage and shit. What are the chances that would ever work?

    I never read the book but Rancho Costa Nada is well known. Originally a magazine article if I correctly recall.

  11. Claire says:

    I have a copy of Rancho Costa Nada. While the desert rancho of that book is — believe it or not — even more primitive than the Secret Lair, the book is an absolute hoot to read.

    And I concur on getting just about anything to cover that doorway. You’ll be surprised how much difference even a light blanket or even a sheet makes when it comes to keeping heat from abandoning your bedroom and sneaking up to the top of the main lair.

  12. Peter says:

    You’re lucky you don’t have a cat. The furball would’ve camped out in front of the heater and the temperature would have gone down!

  13. John says:

    “And I concur on getting just about anything to cover that doorway.”

    Probably artsy hippie door beads are out?
    But only because, useless as an air barrier right?

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