Snow

We've now made it into the winter. I don't know f this qualifies as the first snow. We had a dusting a week or so ago that stuck in places for a few hours, but not everywhere. Last nights accumulation was enough to bring out the plows, but I don't think we even got an inch.

The snow coincided with the first night we had our new programmable thermostat. I bought it last weekend, but didn't find the time and motivation to install it until yesterday. It took all of 15 minutes. That includes looking for a screwdriver. The unit cost $25 bucks and will turn the heat up in th morning, down in the middle of the day, back up in the evening and down again over night. We've been trying to do it manually, but we keep forgetting to turn the thing down at night. If you don't have a programmable thermostat yet, I recommend getting one.

The best part was having the heat on when I was trying to get out of bed. The floor was already warm. It was great.

Next up: insulation. It turns out neither the roof, the attic floor, or the basement ceiling are insulated. We must be wasting huge amounts of heat. I think the roof is the biggest problem and we are going to try to get that done in the next couple of weeks.

I'm not sure about the basement floor. It's not as cold down there since it is half buried, but it's only half buried. Also the heater and ducts create some ambient heat that comes up through the floor. You can easily find the ducts by feeling for the temperature differences in the floor. I think I should finish weather stripping the doors first. That will probably make a bigger difference.