How do you keep warm indoors without bumping up the heat?

It's eleven degrees outside right now, but a toasty 68 inside. During the daytime we keep the thermostat at 68, (though I know many of you go much lower!) and nighttime we plunge down to a frosty 60. Some days if I'm sitting in front of the computer for long stretches, I wear a hat, fingerless gloves, wrist warmers and many layers. I don't love bundling up indoors, so when I've had enough I get my body moving. School's been closed the past two days, so the kids and I have been inside trying to keep busy and warm. Here are a few ways I've found to warm-up indoors without bumping up the thermostat:

Vacuuming: Even though we're a no-shoes-inside household, I could probably vacuum every day. (The hair on the bathroom floor seems to constantly regenerate itself.) But, I don't. However, that is one household chore I don't mind doing that really gets me moving, warms me up and provides instant gratification.

Baking: Warm oven, anyone? There is motivation in baking: it's busywork without being mentally tasking, your kitchen gets toasty from the oven, and then you get to indulge in the end product.

Playing Wig Out: Do you know the Wig Out card game? It's a super fast-paced matching game -- the typical game lasts about one minute -- and it's a hoot. The kids and I might only play for 5-10 minutes, but it's just enough to get our heart-rates up.

Wii Sports: While we keep our screen-watching to a bare minimum, short, competitive games like the ones on Wii Sports Resort and the like (versus the long, drawn-out adventure games) get us off our bums and bouncing around with remote in hand, cheering and jeering.

Go outside and play for 30 minutes: Because it feels so good coming back in.

Where's your thermostat set these days, and how do you warm up without pushing it higher?

Beat the heat without using air conditioning

The sunflowers love it. We Portlanders, not so much. I speak of this tropical heat wave that's baking the Willamette Valley right now. They say (you know: they) that we only average ten over 90-degree days each year. This week we should get a handful of those, as well as a few over 100s. That's one of the reasons I love Portland so. It's not a hot place. Except for now. I'm hot. Wah-wah-wah!

Here's why I'm not throwing myself a major pity party:

• It's a dry heat (ha, ha, ha!! oooh boy, I crack myself up. As if that's supposed to make it feel cooler!!)
• We have a basement that stays blissfully cool even in these searing hot days.
• Sometimes there's a breeze that wafts through all the open windows in our 1942 house that was built with cross-ventilation in mind.
• Best of all -- our dear, dear neighbors with a pool invited us over to cool off today!! I'm feeling terribly grateful and absolutely have to take them up on it since the last time they invited us to their pool was over 6 years ago, and hit my daughter's nap time, so we didn't do it!! (Yes, I know. Major losers to give our kid a nap instead of going to the pool on a wickedly hot day like today).

So that's about all I have to say today. Time to put some enviro-friendly sunscreen on my back, and go play Marco Polo. Alley-oop!

How do you beat the heat without air conditioning?

Reuse: plastic Nalgene-type water bottles as bedwarmers/coolers

Last Friday, our green elementary school hosted its carnival. Not really a fundraiser. Just a fun blow-out for the end of the year. Pizza slices for sale. Bouncy houses. Duck pond. You know the drill. But a heck of a lot of fun. They did skip the always popular toss a pie in the face of your 'favorite' teacher, which was a bit of a relief. As much as some kids like it, others feel sort of weird about how disrespectful it is. And it's a heck of a waste of whipped cream in a country that wastes far too much food as it is!! Well, maybe not exactly cream. Food product. Lite non-dairy whipped topping? In any case, what fat it does have gets in the eyes of the teachers and they end up all blurry eyed for days. The above photo was taken last year of our beloved kindy teacher who took it all in stride and wisely wore swim googles. I guess we should be thankful it wasn't replaced with a dunk tank!!

Anyhoo. Back to the carnival. As part of our Green Team, we've been selling stainless steel water bottles emblazoned with our school logo to promote reuse and drinking tap water. One of the parents ordered a bunch of them wholesale prior to our last auction, and while they have been a big seller, we've still got a fair inventory, so we set up a table and sell them at picnics, carnivals, etc. Don't ask me the margin on 'em. I don't know. But it is cool to see how many folks bring their own bottles and filled up from the 5-gallon durable water containers we provided, or would choose to buy the $12 stainless steel bottle over the single-use water bottles for sale over at the concessions table.

What are you burning in your fireplace?

If your Spring is anything like ours in Portland, then baby it's still cold outside. Our heat settings remain unchanged (68 daytime) and it's tempting to start a fire some days, because who doesn't love a fire? I love a fire. The crackling, warm coziness of it, and I think that contrary to many reports on the inefficiency of wood-burning fireplaces, ours actually does make us warmer. Or maybe it's psychological. Regardless, I'm realizing, sadly, that burning just about anything is bad for the air.

Wood is the worst culprit, which is bad news for folks who heat their entire homes with wood-burning fireplaces. In some parts of the country, like New England, it's very common. But after reading about Montreal's proposed ban on burning wood, I wonder if the same may be coming to a city near you. In Montreal they discovered that the air quality was far worse in leafy, suburban areas where most people use wood-burning stoves to heat their homes than in downtown Montreal! Even with all of the transportation and industrial exhaust in the city, you're better off taking deep breaths on a downtown Montreal sidewalk than in the quieter burbs.

Energy conservation: gosh it's cold inside!

I'm having a hard time picking which I like best this year: wool or fleece. Many days it's both at the same time. Why? Because we are keeping the thermostat really low.

The winter started off with a vengeance when Arctic Blast 2008 blanketed our Pacific Northwest temperate rain forest with snow upon snow. The schools replied with snow day after snow day. The roads in my neck of the woods were pretty much impassable. So we stayed home and turned up the heat. Resulting in the most expensive gas and electric bills we've ever paid. Ouch.

What are you paying to heat your home?

It will cost me around $2850 to heat my home in 2009 if oil prices don't continue to climb. Which they will. Yep, our 1958 home burns oil -- mmmm -- tasty, tasty oil. (Well, it's a biodiesel blend...5% biodiesel. Woo hoo.) Our rates just skyrocketed, so it costs us $212 per month for our oil (we're on this plan that spreads out the payments, and includes maintenance and oil tank insurance, rather than paying a mighty lump sum with each oil delivery). Then there's the additional $30-$40 per month on the electric bill to power the furnace during Portland's long winter months. I'm trying to figure out how to get these numbers down short of blowing several holes in the roof and setting small fires in each room (which I've discovered is actually an inefficient way to heat a house. Sigh.)

This factoid made me feel much better:

The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration projects average household heating costs to be $1,152 this winter, a $166 increase over last year and $359 more than five years ago. Over half of America's homes are heated with natural gas, which is expected to cost $162 more per household than last year. Hardest hit of all are those homeowners who use heating oil, which, like gasoline, is made from petroleum. They are expected to shell out over $500 more per household than last year. From the Heritage Foundation.

In with storm windows, and out with the screens

Fall is here. We spent much of the morning "battening down the hatches" as Cheap-o-Dad calls it. Translation: putting in the storm windows for insulation. In past years, we've been a bit lazy and have just left the screens in during winter (we have mostly old single pane double-hung wooden windows, but with newer storm windows built over them). However, I read recently that you get better passive solar heating if you take out the screens for fall/winter. So we did that too. Man, what a difference. I know I really want that extra light and heat as we head into this cold and gray time of year. We also raised all of our blinds on the eastern and western sides of the house, again, so as much light can shine in as possible (yes, we are very lazy, and we only put them all the way up this time of year, and only fully lower them on really, really, really hot days).

Baby step: bring on the layers

Heather and I have been trying to "one up" another on how cold our houses have gotten in the past week. Suffice to say they've dropped to the low 60s. It's hard to believe it was 90-degrees outside just a week ago.

Regardless of the chilly temps inside, we are resisting the urge to turn on our central heaters. Silly as it may sound, I find that if I keep on the fleece I was wearing while outdoors when I'm inside my house, I'm fairly comfortable. We sleep with down blankets on all of our beds, so keeping warm at night is not a problem. Worst case scenario, I'll turn on a space heater if our frigid house gets too uncomfortable. Somehow it seems sacrilegious to turn on the central before October (or at least the calendar start of autumn). It's also time to dig out my favorite down throw blanket for curling up and reading on the sofa during those precious quiet minutes each day.

If luck is on our side, we may still have an "Indian summer" in store for us. In the meantime, take advantage of solar heat by opening your drapes on the sunnyside of the house to capture as much passive solar as you can during the day. And put on your wool socks, Birkenstocks and fleece so we all look like Oregonians for cryin' out loud!

Eco-friendly ways to keep your cool

Yep. It was 100 degrees today. We always have a handful of days like this each summer, but never enough to make me wish we had air conditioning in our house. In the Midwest, when every day was hot and humid, air conditioning was essential for sanity, but I really don't miss it out here. Air conditioners put a huge burden on the power grid, which is already strained in summer months. These are things my family does to keep cool on hot days, and they just happen to be eco-friendly solutions:

Insulate! This is probably the best thing you can do for your house to get through the summer and winter months. We had cellulose blown into our exterior wall cavities a couple of years ago and the pink stuff blown into the attic. It has made such a huge difference. We can comfortably keep the thermostat at 68 degrees in the winter and it's made days like today bearable.

Draw the drapes. Keep 'em closed to prevent the sun's rays from warming the house.

Close the windows. Sounds weird, but it works. Closing the windows keeps the hot air out. It's 83 degrees in our house right now, and our windows are shut tight. I'm quite comfortable. We'll open them up around 8 o'clock to left in the cooler evening air.

Attic fan and roof vent. These keep the air circulating through the attic so your house doesn't get baked. A hugely effective and inexpensive fix.

Keep the oven, dryer and lights turned off. Who wants to cook in this weather anyways? Those incandescent lights give off lots of heat (go ahead, touch it). CFLs burn cool.

Drink lots of ice water. Keeps your body cool.

Any good tips you want to add?

Blanket your hot water heater, and other ways to be hot water energy efficient

A comment by Becky the other day about conserving electricity got me thinking that my hot water heater was in need of a blanky. I took a trip to the hardware store, and bought a blanket. They're cheap -- less than 20 bucks. And it's one-size-fits-all. I had checked to see how big my tank was before I went, but it turns out I should have done a little internet research, and read the water heater manual first.

The rules of thumb for blanketing your water heaters:

• If your water heater is more than 10 years old, you will likely save energy by blanketing it
• If your water heater feels warm to the touch, you will likely save energy by blanketing it

Ours is less than 10 years old. We'd even bought a very energy-efficient model when the old one died a few years back. But what I did find is that our hot water heater has a few energy savings settings that I was not utilizing:

• I dropped the temp a bit from 120 to 115 degrees. With the current summery weather, I didn't think we'll notice that difference.
• I switched from Smart, to Energy Smart in the setting. Hopefully that will help a bit. There are also a few other modes for if we go on vacation, that I've never used but I vow to in the future.

The other point Becky made was to insulate exposed hot water pipes coming from the heater. So I am going to return the blanket, and exchange it for some pipe insulation. TTFN! Off to the hardware store!!