New winter carpet

Winter has again seen us working at staying warm without turning on heaters.

 

Our winter floor covering had been getting increasingly threadbare. Last year we insulated it with a layer of padding underneath, cut from the base of a single bed that was on its way out (having been with me for about 30 years). This layer did help, but it covered only part of the area, and didn't address the holes developing in the old rug. When friends offered us a replacement rug that they were disposing of we jumped at the chance to upgrade.

With a nice thick layer to catch morning sun warmth and insulate us from the cold of the tile floor, we have been enjoying playing on the lounge floor with no additional heating. 

We also added carpet offcuts under both the lego table (the central item in our living space) and the dining area, which have added to the winter floor insulation. The thick white one under the lego table also cries out for cubbies to be made under there - a call to which the children readily respond. 

A few years back we had a go at carpet offcuts under the dining table. After one season they got shabby and didn't return the next year. It is a challenge storing them through summer. Hopefully we can manage it this year, but if not it is possible we could just get a fresh round of carpet pieces each autumn, as they are destined for waste anyway.

Initial Time:  ten minutes of lifting furniture to lay the rugs/ carpet pieces

Initial Cost: zero - carpet offcuts are free behind the carpet store; the lounge rug was a second-hand gift.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: ten minutes when the weather warms to take up and store floor coverings. If satisfactory storage for the carpet offcuts can't be found, there will be time next year making a trip to pick up some more from the carpet store - no more than half an hour, as it is not a long way to go.

Impact: Our most recent electricity bill, for May and June, showed we had used an average of 6.2 units (kWh) of energy per day, down from 6.6 units per day for the same period last year and 8 units per day the year before (but the previous three years we were in the 5.8 to 6.1 range, so it has not been all improvement!). By comparison, the average household use in our neighbourhood is 11.9 units a day, and 'similar houses' record an average of 13.1 units.

We have turned on the heating (reverse cycle airconditioner) I think twice so far this winter, each time for about an hour to take the chill off. Carpets are just one of the range of measures we take to warm ourselves without using electricity (see also May and August 2014 posts)

He has mittens on because they were new and he was enjoying them, not because the room was freezing. He was also bare foot when I took this picture.

Hand warmers and hot water bottle

When working from our home office I have committed to, wherever possible, warming myself rather than warming all the air around me.

The office is often the coldest room in the house and I have spent a lot of time there this winter. Besides wearing warm clothes (including ugg boots) and often wrapping myself in a blanket, I also started to put a hot water bottle under my feet at the desk. I am amazed at how successful this is at keeping me warm. One hot water bottle, wrapped in a towel, lasts a whole work day.

I also purchased hand warmers from our good friend Megan of Granny Funk Crochet.

Sometimes I will also warm a heat pack in the microwave and sit it in my lap for a while in the morning when it is most cold, or if I am working at night. With these aids, I virtually never turn a heater on for the office. I think better with cool air on my face, so these are both sustainability and productivity measures.

Initial Time: Boiling a full kettle for a hot water bottle takes about 5 minutes. Purchasing hand warmers involved some emails with Megan and a few days to wait for delivery.

Initial Cost: Extra hot water bottles purchased recently cost $12.95 each. They now have covers made out of cut up old jumpers, and I also wrap my office foot-warmer one in an old towel - no cost. Hand warmers were $30. Or you could sign up for one of the Granny Funk crochet classes and learn to make them yourself.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Five minutes for the hot water bottle each time. A cost saving due to reducing the amount of energy used for heating (see below).

Impact: Boiling a full kettle of water (1.75L) when the temperature is 10°C uses approximately 661.5kJ of energy, or 0.184kWh ('units' in our system) - 184Wh, or about the same as leaving a 60 Watt light bulb on for three hours. (see my previous kettle post for the formulas). Microwaving a heat pack (wheat bag) uses around 42Wh to give warmth for about two hours.

When all attempts to warm myself with body heat, clothing and a hot water bottle fail, I use an electric oil-fin heater. This is a 1000W device, but as I would never run it flat out and it heats a confined space, the actual use is less than this. If I were to run it for nine hours of work day, it would use approximately 3.5kWh.

Using one boiled kettle instead of the oil fin heater for a day of warmth saves over 3kWh (units) a day, around 2.5kg of carbon dioxide every winter work day. 

Running the reverse cycle air-conditioner in our living area to warm enough house to reach the office is hard to measure, but the office is the far corner of the house from the aircon. A fairly conservative guess would be 5-6kWh per day to use the reverse cycle to heat the office, which is why we don't do that.

Winterise the house

Winter starts tomorrow (although it was cold enough for winter here today). Although our energy-saving efforts have been more directed towards passive cooling in summer, we do a few things to reduce our energy use for heating in winter too. Like wearing warm clothes and ugg boots at home.

That's sheepskin boots all furry on the inside, for those in other parts of the world

May has been the month to roll up the summer shades all around the house. We get so used to them that it has taken several goes, as we kept noticing one or two more we've forgotten. We added even more shades this summer - a big one along the southwest wall (Eva's bedroom) and a much improved one on the eaveless northeast bathroom window. 

Eva & Tyson building the new shade last November

As a result of all our passive cooling efforts, we only turned the airconditioner on for four hours all summer (half of that on the morning when it was already 39°C at 9am).

For winter we lay down an extra carpet to more than double the covered floor space in the living area. This gets morning winter sun and is a lovely place to play. 

We don't have a dryer. We line-dry our clothes outside any day we can, and use an indoor clothes rack on wet days. This gets sat where sun comes inside, or in the bathroom with a pedestal fan blowing on it. 

Our hot water system has its outdoor pipe insulated so that we don't lose so much heat into the cold winter air. I try to use the tap closest to the hot water system (laundry tap) when running warm water for things like wipes, to reduce how much water and gas is wasted getting just a bit of warm for what I need.

When I am working from home, I wear ugg boots and wrap in a blanket rather than having a heater in the office.   

Eva pretending to be me at work - note the full-body blanket wrap, my characteristic work attire

Perth has a mild winter, but can have comparatively cold nights. We often open all the windows during the day to get warm midday air inside. On really nice days, we put the bathroom and kitchen extractor fans on to draw in the warm outdoor air.

Around sunset, we close all the windows and blinds, especially if the oven is on, so we can trap daytime and cooking heat in the house overnight. We pull the heat barrier curtain to separate the laundry from the living spaces we are trying to keep warm. We have weather sealed the front door to keep drafts out. On really cold evenings we sometimes run a heater for a couple of hours after dark. Very occasionally. When its the reverse-cycle air-conditioner we set it to 19°C.

The children take a heat-pack or hot water bottle to bed on cold nights, as well as wearing warm jarmies and socks and having good thick covers. We don't have any heating running overnight.

I've written about most of these measures before, and a lot of them are pretty basic common sense. I recognise that in some colder climates, these measures would not be enough to keep you warm - but they might be a good start. I also acknowledge that I prefer a cooler house, and some of our friends do come to evening events at our home with coats to wear inside. They are quite happy with that arrangement.

Don't let the cold stop you jumping on the trampoline (fully rugged of course)

Initial Time: half hour to take up the summer shades; five minutes laying the winter carpet down

Initial Cost: zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: five or ten minutes a day opening and closing blinds etc; ten minutes per washing load pegging it out. As our winterising measures save energy, they also save us money.

Impact: We barely use heating in winter. We maybe turn a heater on 10-15 days in the year, and then only for an hour or two. If we were to run our 2.5kW reverse-cycle airconditioner as a heater for 1-2 hours every night through winter (still a lot less than many people in Perth), we would use approximately 230kWhrs of energy (230 'units'). If we turn it on only 15 times, we use approximately 37.5kWhrs. That is a saving of about 158kg of carbon dioxide.

A reasonably efficient clothes dryer uses around 3.5kWhrs per load. A pedestal fan can run for 20 hours before it reaches 1kWhr, but usually about twelve hours is enough to dry a washing load. Even at 20 hours, that's a saving of around 2kg of carbon dioxide per washing load.

[In WA at present, each kWhr of electricity uses 0.82kg of carbon dioxide, down from 0.992 four years ago. NSW & Qld levels are about the same; Vic is much higher (heavy reliance on brown coal), SA is lower (lots of wind farms); Tas is nominal (mostly hydropower)]

For blog readers in the northern hemisphere about to step into summer (bless you, I don't know who you are but apparently lots of you are reading this blog!): here's a bunch of posts about passive cooling measures: recommitting for summer; various temporary measures; pelmets; shading; more shading; shading again; grapevines for shading; shed vents and more shading; heat barrier curtain; bits & pieces;