According to this article in the New York Times yesterday, I am an early adopter of the furnace-free lifestyle. A very early adopter - we haven't used central heat in our 200+ year old home for at least 6 years now. A wood stove keeps the kitchen area toasty, and for the rest of the house there's a propane stove that looks like a wood stove in the main hearth. It's regulated with a good old fashioned on/off switch, not a thermostat, and it's used sparingly; we can usually eek through the long New England winters on one 300 gallon tank of propane. My slippers are lambs-wool lined UGG boots, and multiple layers of clothing are essential. The bed? Like sleeping in a down-wrapped burrito with flannel and fleece innards. Dinner guests? Not until spring, unless they're our close, rugged friends who can overlook the temperature and enjoy what the Times article calls, "atmospheric habitats."
Friday, January 22, 2010
Our Atmospheric Habitat
According to this article in the New York Times yesterday, I am an early adopter of the furnace-free lifestyle. A very early adopter - we haven't used central heat in our 200+ year old home for at least 6 years now. A wood stove keeps the kitchen area toasty, and for the rest of the house there's a propane stove that looks like a wood stove in the main hearth. It's regulated with a good old fashioned on/off switch, not a thermostat, and it's used sparingly; we can usually eek through the long New England winters on one 300 gallon tank of propane. My slippers are lambs-wool lined UGG boots, and multiple layers of clothing are essential. The bed? Like sleeping in a down-wrapped burrito with flannel and fleece innards. Dinner guests? Not until spring, unless they're our close, rugged friends who can overlook the temperature and enjoy what the Times article calls, "atmospheric habitats."
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8 comments:
I love this post! Was just reading an article yesterday about stoves, and Todd and I were talking about how we'd love to go furnace-free in our next house, so it's cool (maybe cold) to read that you've been doing it for years! The cottage we lived on on the island was solar, which was amazing. We occasionally turned on the little propane stove at night, but other than that, it was all solar all the time. Bliss.
Wow, I am super impressed. I could not do this. I would not be one of the rugged friends invited for dinner. But shucks because I imagine dinner at your house is quite a treat, even if it is freezing cold.
:)
I would have had a problem. After moving up to Michigan from Florida, I have to say, it has taken me a month before I didn't need three layers of sweaters every day. I am now down to one sweater. But then, the thermostat is set at a balmy 68
loved that artcle but had to put on an extra sweater when I read it. I'm not made of such stern stuff. love the burrito image.
Brrr, I am not that intrepid, but do set the heat at 63 when I am gone and at night when I sleep...but 68 during the days I am home...right now my feet are cold, as they aren't swaddled in Ughs.
When the kittens arrive next week, I will have to set the heat up a bit for them, even though they have mommy and a pet safe heating pad to warm their kittening tent.
What a gorgeous picture!...I could feel the heat radiating from the screen:)...When I was your age and we bought this old house we lived with kerosene heaters and the wood stove...I wouldn't go back to that now I have to admit...If I visited you would have to seat me closest to the fire:)
Years ago when I was young I tried a furnace free winter. Is that why we got divorced the next year?? A non-airtight woodstove meant i had to get up two or three times a night.
I have found looking at houses for sale up here in the north that many of them have what I consider inadequate heating.
I like to be warm. I adored the NYTimes article though. I have spent many years finding ways to be thrifty and my rent at 217 County Road was $300 for which I lived in a house with none of the modern inconveniences as I liked to say (although it did have heat).
Hmm, I wonder what the equivalent to a wood stove is that would keep me cool in the summer in Texas. Maybe a shirt filled with ice?
Seriously, though, I think that's really cool that you all do that.
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