Simple comforts for cold days: life without the heater.

The cold has a firm grip on this part of the world, and it won’t be letting go until February–at the earliest.  We can expect plenty of bellow-freezing days before then.  My goal is to make it through the winter without using the electric heaters in our apartment.  As a cold weather newbie, I welcome any words of wisdom!

Historically, I’ve never been friends with the cold.  I bask in heat that makes normal folks wilt.  I pick up hot items in the kitchen comfortably then pass them off to someone who finds them scalding hot and drops them (I’ve learned my lesson).  Living without the heater s is a true challenge for me, but I’m willing to take it for the sake of our simple lifestyle and the sake of our planet.

Here’s what we have to work with:

Luckily, we have the luxury of living in a building with 2 foot stone walls and double-paned windows.  Most of our windows are oriented towards the southwest–we chose this on purpose.  Our front door is also pretty well sealed.The main liability we have is living under the rooftop–particularly our bedroom.  The warm air must rise right through the roof because it certainly gets cold up there. The local temperature creeps down to the low 30’s (possibly lower at extreme moments.  It can warm up during the day to nearly 50 degrees in the winter months.

Steps we’ve already taken:

1. Dress warm at home. If I’m not cooking, doing yoga or cleaning, there’s a good chance I’m sitting and getting cold.  DH and I both change into comfy, warm clothes.  I wear expedition weight long underwear, at least one fleece and socks that I have for cross country skiing.  I put the hood up on my fleece for extra warmth.  (Sexy, I know.)
2. Watch those ‘pneumonia holes’ (ie windows.) Even with the double-paned windows, you can feel that the coldest spot in the house at night is, in fact, the window area.  I’ve constructed cardboard “shutters” to fit in our downstairs windows. (The upstairs windows have real outdoor shutters, which I close as soon as the sun goes down.)  The north facing window is covered with bubble wrap and a cardboard box full of ’stuffing,’ since it lets in practically no light and lots of cold.
3. Take whatever sun we can get.  We leave the downstairs windows open in the evening and sit in front of them as we eat in the kitchen or relax in the family room, enjoying the heat,  the light and the sunset over the provencial village we live in.  In the bedroom, I cover the southern windows with aluminum foil painted black on one side.  (This is a neat trick I learned from Bellaonline.com  Check it out here.)  It heats the bedroom up in the early evening when the sun shines in.
4. Do the cooking and baking at the coldest times of the day. Our house is coldest in the mid-morning because of its exposition.   I choose that time to bake my bread or cook anything I’m going to put in my ‘hotbox’ for the day.  This warms up the house a little.  Also, I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes I huddle over the gas range or my boiling soup for a little pick me up.  Why not, I ask you?
5. Eat warm meals and save some hot water as a heat pack! In the morning, I boil up some tea and at lunch I almost always make pasta or some boiled veggies.  Before I fix my tea, and after I’m done boiling my pasta, I throw the hot water into my Nalgene water bottle and stick it between the layers of my clothes, usually on my belly or in my lap (around large arteries, this is also good for hypothermia).   I can then go back to working at my computer  and remain physically inactive in complete comfort.  In fact, as I type this, I am snuggled up to my water bottle!
6. Yoga! Since I know I’ll be coldest after sitting for extended periods, I break up seated work with a quick 30-40 minutes of sun salutations and other warming postures.  I start out with all of my layers on and slowly peel them off as I heat up.  (I’m careful not to keep on so many layers that I sweat profusely because then I assume I’d just get cold again!).   Yoga poses that are supposed to increase heat include forward bends and inversions–I definitely find this to be true.  For more advice on this topic see Yoga for Your Type.
7. (Hot) Oil massage mmmmmmm. Try this one before you shrug it off.  This is an ancient Ayurvedic technique, but you don’t have to understand or believe in Ayurveda to notice the warm, snuggly feeling of slathering yourself in some oil after a warm bath or shower.  I find that it cuts down on aches and pains and gives me a warm feeling for the rest of the day.  In addition, I don’t get crispy winter skin, crusty elbows or broken toenails.  You can float the bottle of oil in a container of warm water before you use it, to add a little more heat if you want.   Trust me, you’ll like it.

There are a few further steps I’d like to take:

1. Buy a thermometer to track the inside temperature of the house.  It’s only October and I know that the temperatures will fall.  I want to make sure that the indoor temperatures stay safe.  I’m excited about the challenge of living without heat this winter, but  I don’t want to sacrifice our health!
2. Get some caulk and seal off our windows completely to cut down drafts.
3. Complete my cardboard ’shutters’ with some insulating padding to make them more efficient.
4. Find some extra blankets and throws to keep around the house.
5. Experiment with materials that continue to radiate heat once warm and place them in front of the window (or in my oven when I bake) and use the radiant heat later.

What else am I missing?