Ready for Winter

NOW we are ready for winter. Almost half-way through the season and the house is much more comfortable. The nice young men from the county weatherization program did a wonderful job finding the air leaks, the poor fits on doors and windows, insulation. Cute young men - if I were younger, thinner, single - who am I kidding here?

Some embarrassment occurs when strangers start fussing about your house, at least for me. Finding dust bunnies, cobwebs, grease spots - I swear I went around this house looking for those issues before they arrived. The guys were nice about it; they said that the blower they used to test for leaks knocks stuff out of the smallest corners, etc. I can imagine some of the things they have seen. Our most memorable incident for them was finding a dead snake in our fireplace. The one guy said "I don't want to upset you, but we found this snake..." To which I said, "Another one!" He was expecting the 'girly' response; I know he will be talking about that to the 'guys.'

What really impressed me is these guys were working very hard, squeezing into tight areas, moving heavy equipment, including a refrigerator that did not fit into the door very well - and they never cursed once! Not even a sincere "darn!" We had snacks and coffee and donuts for them, but they insisted on eating their lunch outside in their truck each day. We told them to come inside, etc., but I have a theory - they were talking about us and getting any cursing/cussing out of their system during that break.

It was really cold each day they were here, so of course they had to keep the outside doors open to weatherstrip them. We had snow, so of course they were outside putting a new storm window up. It was slippery, so that would be the perfect time to bring in a new refrigerator (nice one, too). The only damage we sustained was a latch on our back storm door when the refrigerator caught it. Not bad.

So now that is all accomplished, the weather has broken and we have had 40 degree temperatures today with no wind. My husband and I took advantage of the warmer weather and did some additional weatherization, such as covering our exhaust fan and fixing some plastic we had on the windows. I wish we were as efficient as those young men were - what would take them 1/2 hour at most takes us two hours to complete.

Winter will be back soon, so I am sure this will show how well the improvements function.

New Decade

As I am writing this, the weatherbug on my computer says it is 8 degrees outside. Now the windchill is probably minus 10 - yippee, winter in the Poconos! We are getting used to this - we may not like it, but this is not an unexpected event. This weather is why they sell insulated underwear and warm sweaters and coats. The usual - dress in layers, warm the car, stay out of the direct wind - oh, and the wind is whipping out there at a constant 20 MPH, with gusts up to 50 MPH. Good thing we used bungee cords and wire ties on the Christmas decorations! And we gave up on the inflatable balloon things - seen too many of them laying deflated on the ground because to inflate them is to invite them to travel - maybe to the next county!

It is nights like these that shows how little insulation is in the walls of this house built circa 1930. Back then they probably heated with coal, which was cheap , and an air-tight house was not necessary. I feel the breeze coming in in places that I thought we had covered already.

This week we are going to be visited by the county home energy program for three days to winterize our house. They are supposed to blow in insulation, wrap windows, replace some storms doors, and give us a new refrigerator (the one that came with this house is an energy beast - I wish they gave new ranges too.)

Being under-employed can work out sometimes, as we meet the income guidelines for this free service. Yay/Boo. Still, I am so looking forward to this and I wish we could have had this done before the cold hit. We had to wait for PA to pass their budget, then we had to wait for the materials to be ordered. Still, I am not complaining - really. We wanted to do this on our own, but if someone offers their expertise, who are we to say no?

This cold makes me very happy that we cleared a spot in our garage for one of the cars. Not real warm in there, but out of the wind. Of course it is my car, not my husband's - my car is more finicky about the cold, being a Toyota. Wish we could put both cars in our 'supposed' two car garage, but the one bay is really too narrow. Never noticed the difference until we fixed the doors. Guess we need an even smaller car? We could pull the car in, just cannot open the doors (oh, shucks). We needed workspace anyway; to stand out in the cold, but out of the wind.