Victorian

House Painting 072112

John - painting the trim over the upstairs window.  We're back to working on the east side of the house, up until today he's been working on the soffit and the trims way up there where you see the pale blue.  This afternoon we took the storm windows out and now the task of repairing the wood, priming it, and the painting it and all of the window trim colors and then onto fixing the storm windows themselves. 

House Update 111411

And now with more trim colors!

My clematis trellis has been removed so John can scrape, prime, and then paint the soffit on the west side of the porch.
The east side of the house still needs another coat of paint and for all of the trim colors to be added.


Almost done, one more week and weekend of warm weather is all we need to finish this part of the porch!

My $70 a Month Heat Bill

 Everyone always wants to know how we can have a $70 a month heat bill in the dead of an Iowan winter - in a 1905 Victorian house - well this is how we do it.  NOTE the house is 1105 square feet.

We keep the house at 65F during the day and 58F at night or when we are not home. Caulk around the outsides of every window, door, etc. and do this every few years, oh and LOTS of insulation! We use mortite on the inside for the windows, the windows are original except for two modern windows and it's the modern windows that leak like a sieve. 

Winter 2010

Make sure to change those furnace filters too.  Another tip is to put insulation behind outlets and switches that are on outside walls, these are also major draft stoppers.  Repair any storm windows with new spline and the fuzzy insulating stuff every 10 years or so.

It also helps that we are on budget billing, and the gas company keeps bugging us to pay the new rate which is $59 a month but John keeps refusing.  November is our reconciliation month, and by paying the $70 a month we don't get a "suprise" spike in our heat bill.

edited to add:  The orignal builder insulated the house and big time, way back in 1905, he filled it with woolrock from the basement all the way out the attic rafters.  We're thinking he didn't like being cold. The house maintains and beautifully, it's been 65F in here for two weeks now.