More Ways to Produce and Save Heat

That interest has never waned. It's a natural thing to note and follow the weather. These days it's very easy to know what's coming because weather prediction is so much better than in those years. The 24-hour forecast is rarely wrong, and even 48-hour and 72-hour predictions are very close. Building a habit of observing the weather, checking the forecasts ahead for a few days, and preparing accordingly will mean that you can get ready for any trend in the weather ahead.  There are many sources of heat in our homes. Refrigerators produce a net gain in temperature when they run. Dishwashers and dryers put heat in the house. Water heaters and lamps and kitchen ranges do, too. Refrigerators have heat exchanger coils or tubing to discharge heat into the surrounding air. Cleaning the dust and lint from the back of (or underneath) the fridge will improve the efficiency. That heat all goes into the house by rising toward the ceiling. Of course, the fridge produces cold as well. In the wintertime, keep that door open only as long as is absolutely necessary. Think about what you'll get out and where it is. I'm the refrigerator manager in my house, and I have a strict rule for myself. The basics have particular places for their homes, and those spaces can be used for nothing else. The bread goes one place, and the catsup another. We use two different mayos. Hers is on the upper door shelf and mine is on the lower shelf. Eggs are on the upper right top shelf. My milk is on the lower door right side, hers is on the middle door right side. Half and half is next to her milk. I do this so I never have to hunt for anything for long. Seldom used items are on the backs of shelves. I know where something is every time, so I open the door, grab it, and shut the door immediately. The same rule applies in the summertime. Unless you want the fridge to run often, running up the power bill and putting more heat in the house, keep that door closed. To hold the cold in a fridge with open space, place empty water jugs or containers with lids in the empty spaces. Same with the freezer compartment. Less cool air will flow out of the box when the door opens. It's a year-round rule. Dishwashers do not vent to the outside. The heating element in the bottom of the dishwasher makes the water hotter than your water heater. That super hot water rinses and sanitizes the dishes, but then it is pumped out into the drain lines. Much of that heat is lost. Many dishwashers have heated drying cycles. This cycle will dry much of the water off of the dishes after they've been sanitized. Opening the door partway through or at the end of the heated dry cycle will speed up the drying process, and put more of this heat into the house more quickly. It also puts more moisture in the air. In the winter time this isn't a bad thing because our winter air is usually quite dry. In the summer most people find adding humidity doesn't help. 

Clothes dryers are another neglected heat source

The ultimate heat saving dishwashing process is washing them in the sink. Use the hottest water you can stand. When the dishes are done, leave the hot water in the sink until it cools. That heat goes into the air in the house. The same thing applies when we boil eggs or steam broccoli. Instead of pouring the hot water down the sink, let it sit until it cools and then pour it down the sink.  Clothes dryers are another neglected heat source. Dryers are vented outside through the dryer vent hose. The heat made with electricity, gas, or propane to dry clothes mostly gets blown out through the vent. Some stays inside, and some stays on the clothes, making jammies or a robe fresh out of the dryer on a cold morning a real delight. When I lived north of the 45^th Parallel, I had a dryer vent diverter in the ducting. In the summer time, the diverter stayed closed and the heat went outside. But in the winter time, I often opened the diverter so the warmth and the moisture would stay in the house. Note that a giant load of nearly anything will still hold lots of moisture. Even in a large house in the winter, it might be too much moisture inside. But toward the end of the dryer cycle there's far less moisture and still lots of heat. Set a timer and have the diverter direct that heat into the living space. And don't forget to put a sock or a screen over the end of the diverter. There are plenty of naturally occurring dust bunnies most places without encouraging them with dryer lint. If your primary heat source has gone out but the power is still on, you will still be able to produce heat with your electric dryer, venting it into the living space.  Electric water heaters do not vent to the outside. The warmed water stays in the pipes and in the sink where we run it. In the summer it's nice to be rid of that heat, but in the winter we can use it in the house. The basic water heater consists of a tank surrounded by fiberglass or foam insulation covered with a steel cover. Some people add an insulating blanket of fiberglass or foam around the outside of the water heater to slow heat loss even more. If having the heat lost into the house is desirable, take the extra blanket off in the winter time, and clear around the water heater so air can circulate to carry off the heat. If the water heater is in a small space inside the home, leave the door open, or make sure the vents are clear. Gas and propane water heaters now have to be power vented to the outside in most states. If you have one of those, the best option is to turn it down when possible. If a tank of electrically heated water has cooled to room temperature in the water heater, turning the breaker back on will usually give plenty of hot water in thirty minutes or less. Try experimenting with turning off the water heater. See how long the warm water lasts on a typical day. When you discover it has turned "cold," you're only 30 minutes from a hot shower.

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Closed rooms and closets with doors serve as warm air and cool air storage units

Vent fans are a no-brainer. Vent fans are nearly always located at the tops of walls or in the ceiling. That's where the warmest air with the most moisture will be. When that fan is on, it's pushing the warmest air in the room/house to the outside. It will be replaced by the coolest air in the house, which will be off the floor. Vent fans should always be on a separate switch so that turning on the light does not automatically turn on the fan. If bath time is over or if there's a need to vent air to the outside, the fan will help do that. When the necessary venting is done, turn it off and leave it off until the next time it's needed. Make sure the flapper vents on the vent fan are working properly. If the vents stick open, the vent will be allowing warm air to exit the room even when the fan is off.  Closed rooms and closets with doors serve as warm air and cool air storage units. Since closets usually don't have heat or a/c, the doors isolate them. If the air outside warms up, they'll seem cool but only warm up gradually. If the air outside is cold, they'll seem warm and only cool off gradually. It's the same with closed-off rooms. If the registers are closed, then the room lags behind what the rest of the house feels like. If it's winter and I'm heating with wood, I'll close off the rooms down the hallway until the fire takes the chill off in the main living area, then open the rooms one at a time as the house warms up. If I'll be in the office in the morning, I'll open that one first. I might not have the bedroom doors open all day if it's very cold outside, or if it's windy. If the day isn't so cold and the wood heat makes it too warm in the main living area, I don't open the front door or the windows, I open the back room I'm most likely to use first. Because the thermostat is on a wall in the hallway, I adjust it so that the living area is comfortable where I am. The hallway is an average location, not near the heat source or on an outside north wall.  While all this is going on, I have to keep in mind that the house is a large, multi-chambered heat exchanger. There are thermal cells large and small. Cool air sinks to the floor no matter how it's being moved. This means that warm socks or slippers are always in order if warm feet are a priority. It's the floor that has the coolest air in most rooms of the house. Cooler yet is the floor beneath a window or cold wall. Those places call for double sock layers. If it's howling cold outside, then I wear shoes inside, but it's rarely that cold.  Looks like there are more ways to produce and save heat than I thought. See you here next week, same time, same station!