Imagine a type of warm that is uniform, invisible, silent and energy efficient. No dust, no loud furnace and gushes of air, no odd high pitched squeal or clanking from a radiator &mdash just quiet, comfortable heat at your feet. Radiant floor heating offers a great efficient alternative to other mechanical systems, and rather than heating the air, it only heats you.
Air infiltration is one of the worst culprits of heat loss and energy consumption. Have you ever put your hand by an outlet on an exterior wall? If it wasn’t well insulated it was probably blowing in a significant amount of cold air and leaking out all your warm air! Well, insulating outlets and switch plates is just about one of the easiest and relatively cheap things you can do to eliminate heat loss without having to re-insulate your entire home.
Dr. Peter Tsou of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory once said, “you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot.” So why haven’t we all been spraying our buildings with the stuff? Unfortunately, for the past 75 years aerogel has been way too expensive, but that’s all about to change.
The idea of a radiator humidifier is elegantly simple and efficient — by regularly filling it withe water and placing it on a hot radiator, steam helps humidify the dry winter air. A new collection of ceramic radiators from Il Coccio Design employ the design genius of Patricia Urquiola, Alfredo Haberli and others for ceramic humidifiers that double as objet d’art.The collection is an extension of the Fischietto design by Achille Castiglioni in 1998.
Weather in the Northeast being what it is, our in-wall thermostats, radiators and air conditioners are usually only used for a fraction of the year and the rest of the time they serve as unsightly additions to our décor. Here are a few ideas ideas for hiding or disguising the offending boxes and we want to hear your tips as well.Hide it in plain sight: We love how the thermostat blends perfectly into Chancie’s family photo wall (image 1).
Here’s another way to save energy this winter: try using a portable space heater to heat just the room you’re in, and turn down the thermostat in the other rooms of your house. The New York Times recently tested 10 portable space heaters. Here are the Top 5:Shown above the jump, from left to right:Holmes Ultra Quiet Ceramic Heater ($82.99): At 15-inches high, this model from Holmes produced the hottest air and took only about 20 minutes to warm up the room by 10 degrees.
Q: I recently moved into a cute little studio apartment in a carriage house in Manhattan. It’s a little 2-story building behind a main apartment building. Sounds charming, right? It’s tiny, but I can make that work. The real problem — which was not disclosed to me until after I moved in — is that the entire building is cement, so all the walls (including many of the interior walls) are cement — it’s FREEZING!
Just the other day we were starting to think about winterizing our home for the season, when we got a great tip from one of our favorite home improvement gurus, Lou Manfredini. Lou suggested that as an alternative to covering drafty windows with plastic, caulk them with a temporary and removable sealant such as Zip-A-Way.
We’ve blogged about a bubble wrap “stained glass window” before, but bubble wrap also works as a great insulator when it’s cold. See how to use leftover packaging to decrease your heating bill, after the jump…According to Build it Solar, bubble wrap is often used to insulate greenhouses during the winter — so why not use it at home, too!
Okay granted, unlike most of my fellow Re-Nest bloggers, I live in Los Angeles. Lately, however, we’ve had quite the spell of cold and rainy weather, and the same thick plaster walls that keep my home cool in the summer now make it distinctly chilly with even the slightest drop in temperature. How to stay warm at home without resorting to blasting the heat? Here are some thoughts… Fool the eye: Sometimes warmth is a matter of perception.
This is an extreme escape — the Igloo Satellite Cabin from Australian company Icewall One, was designed specifically to provide shelter in cold climates. It is lightweight, modular, heavily insulated and it’s been in use for over 25 years!This prefab shelter was designed to be transported by helicopter. The basic model is just 3 meters in diameter and can be built upon with “extension panels, or interlinked by tunnels to provide a complete weatherproof base.
We’ve long resisted the temptation to get a window AC unit but we know plenty of people who haven’t. So we were interested to read about a Boston company that is renting AC units for the summer…This morning’s Daily Candy post alerted us to a company called RentAnAC. In operation since 2006, RentanAC rents window air conditioning units starting at $125/summer. The cost includes delivery, installation, and removal.
Ever since friends of ours got an electric blanket they’ve been raving about, my husband has been lobbying to get one for our bedroom, which is admittedly a little chilly in winter. My first thought was, Those aren’t safe, and my second was, They’re not very green either.
Cost: $1.50 – $7.50 / 6ft section of insulation Time: 1-2 hours, depending on amount of pipes Uninsulated hot water pipes are like radiators, transferring the heat to the air – which is not a good thing. This makes your pipes work less efficiently, makes your hot water heater work harder, and ultimately results in an increase of energy bills.
Kristy has a good question: A few months ago, I moved into in a small apartment with a built-in wall air conditioner. I live in Colorado, where the weather is starting to get cold and windy, and I have discovered the wind blows right in around the wall unit. Any suggestions for sealing, insulating, covering, or otherwise blocking the draft?(Note: Include a pic of your problem and your question gets posted first.
We were chatting with a friend who spent several years in Japan about the Japanese proficiency for maximizing usable space in the home when he mentioned the kotatsu, a low multipurpose table that transforms for warm or cold weather configurations.
In anticipation of spending the warmer months with our oscillating fans on to keep us cool, now is a good time to pause and take a few minutes to give them a quick clean. They’ve got a lot of work ahead of them and could use a little bit of attention. (Plus it will keep your fan—and your lungs—in better shape!) Small toiletry items like cotton swabs, makeup brushes, foam craft brushes, or toothpicks are great for jobs like this.
Today, in our chilled state, we came across a great list of strategic steps and tips for staying warm at home if there’s little heat (for whatever the reason may be).Today is the first day that we’ve been truly cold in our home office, reminding us that the seasons have very officially shifted. We have on our wool socks, scarf, and almost considered finding some fingerless gloves so we could type more comfortably! We want to know your top way(s) of staying warm indoors.
Finding an attractive ceiling fan is not easy. (This does not apply if your idea of attractive includes “Plantation Faux Leather with Brushed Antique Brass Trim” or “Tiffany Charmaigne Craftsman Oil Rubbed Bronze”; in that case, you’re in luck.)Here are ten of the most attractive (or should that be least offensive?) ceiling fans we’ve found in our travels.
Want some outdoor shade? Say you’ve got a bit of outdoor space, and you can’t build an arbor or install a big roll-out awning. Say you rent. Whether you are heading up to the roof or out to the backyard, we have found that Shade Sails are awesome for creating a lot of shade on a lower budget.
