Remember in a previous post where Tyler said we were ready for Winter? Yeah, he was wrong.

After the insulation was installed, we had a sub-contractor come out and hook-up some new ducts for upstairs. The sub-contractor even patched them into our existing oil furnace. Unfortunately, our furnace wasn't up to the task of heating an entire house. And, once the arctic chill settled over the state, we found the temperature in our house hovering in the low 50's!

After we returned from collecting our plumbing fixtures, Tyler and I scrambled to find the source of our heat loss. We first directed our attention to a basement window. It had been broken during one of the visits by Roto-Rooter and was letting in a lot of cold air. We purchased some plexi-glass to seal it back up. Then, we put some sheets of insulation over it to help block any drafts. This helped out some, but we soon noticed another source of cold air in the basement.

The ducts to the former addition were still running to the basement. Since they're encased in cement, Tyler and I couldn't exactly pull them out. So, we stuffed them with some insulation. This also seemed to help out and the basement started to feel warmer.

Next, we turned our investigations to the first floor. Here we found the heat loss culprits to be a couple of windows on the West side of the house. Since the wind was coming from the NW, these windows were taking the full brunt of the chilly air - and they weren't putting up much of a fight. We grabbed some cans of great stuff and sealed up the windows. Even with the extra insulation, the window with only a single pane of glass was still allow some cold air to come threw. So, I hung a sheet up over the window to help block a little more of the draft that might be making its way through the glass.

We then used our handy Galileo thermometer that my parents gave to us to see where the heat was going in the house. The only problem is that the lowest temperature measured by the thermometer is 64 degrees - and we were well below that. So, the thermometer didn't move at all till we placed it in the attic. Here, the weights started to fall and revealed that the attic was a cozy 68-70 degrees.

So, the good news was that our furnace was actually heating up at least some of the house. The bad news was that it was all going up to the attic. The only solution to this problem was sealing off the ducts to the second floor so that more of the heat would remain on the first floor. With all of our previous attempts, the temperature of the house had already started to rise into the upper 50's. And, since it was cold out and we were both coming down with a head cold, Tyler and I decided to make the trip into town for these supplies the next day.

Thankfully, I remembered that I had approximately 30 yards of wool that I had been planning on turning into blankets for the horses and us. So, I grabbed the wool and threw it onto the bed - it added about an extra inch of warmth. Once Tyler and I snuggled up under the covers, it was pretty cozy.