Tips for sleeping in a cold room?

[Sclass]

Hi,

For the last forty years I've lived in cold homes. I have always resided in California, and we have never heated much. Growing up in the San Gabriel Mountains we'd hit the forties indoors. Now in the bay area tonight for example my room hit forty. I know this is nothing for those living in the Midwest but it seems cold to be living like that all the time. I mean I'm toasty in my car, the library, Walmart...but not at home.

I basically block off my vents and close up all the rooms I don't want to heat. During the day I heat the living room but I shut that down at night. Given the flimsy construction of my home it gets down to outdoor temps in my bedroom overnight. Just about freezing during our coldest nights out here.

I must be getting old because I'm finally getting sick of it. Out reminds me of camping with my parents as a kid (I have never willfully gone camping as an adult).

I'm using an electric blanket, down comforters, fleece PJs, fleece bedsheets, and a fleece hoodie. I sometimes break out a baliclava mask when my face gets too cold. What's bothering me is the cold air on my cheeks and breathing in cold air. I'm having trouble throwing this season's persistent cough I picked up a month ago.

I figure a bunch of you folks live with your thermostats way down. Any tips to boost comfort without turning up the knob?

Obviously I lived this way to save money in the past. My neighbors all complain about their $400 energy bill. I feel mine is tolerable at $80. I realize I'd never notice another $100 a month at this point but I still have the habit.

Wow...my iPad battery is dying. It doesn't seem to like the cold.

[black_son_of_gray]

In the winter, my evenings/overnight is typically the upper 50s, so rather balmy for you. You're already employing all the strategies I use, but even I get sick of the cold sometimes - it comes on randomly. Maybe one night every two weeks, I'm just done with it. I find that just sucking it up and raising the thermostat just a few degrees for that night is all it takes. Do you have a pretty good idea of how much money would equate to raising the inside temp by a certain amount? So a little bit of heat (say, to 50) might not cost that much. No point in suffering if it'll only cost 20 bucks a month for a few months a year!

[George the original one]

If it's 40F indoors, then it's definitely just like camping!

So, when camping in colder weather, I often wear a hat. If breathing the cold air is bothering you, then you need to rig up a tent so that your breath warms the space. Kind of like wearing a muffler over your mouth.

[George the original one]

P.S. Also reminds me of visiting our future retirement home. When we arrived there this weekend, it was only 39F indoors... we're very quick to stoke the woodstoves!

[jennypenny]

-- Tent the bed with a large flat sheet to trap heat (it's partly why poster beds existed in the first place)

-- Use heat packs

Easiest heat pack to make -- Fill an old tube sock with rice (not instant), nuke it for a couple of minutes, tie up the end (tight!) and stick under the covers before you get into bed. You can also keep these in the freezer when it's hot out and use them to cool the bed at night. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could use flannel and sew up nice-looking ones, but make sure they'll fit in your microwave.

[lilacorchid]

Are you sure it's not the humidity causing things to grow and then causing your cough? I don't know how humid it is there, but if I were to close up rooms in my house in the winter, we would get mould starting due to stale air and humidity. There is a difference between cold air from an open window, and stale indoor air that has lost heat, but not moisture.

I can sleep when it' s 17C, but once it gets to 15C or lower (or the top of my head starts to ache from the cold), I call it a night and turn up the thermostat to 17. Also, for cred, I'm not a wuss... I walk everywhere until it's -30C.

[llorona]

What kind of windows and window coverings/treatments do you have?

I agree with GTOO - you might consider a canopy bed or a tent, or maybe even sleeping in a smaller place like the closet.

Initially, I was hell bent on not turning the heat in our house. But when it got down to the low 40's, I caved. The thermostat is now set at a balmy 52 degrees. It's helped decrease indoor humidity, as well.

[Dragline]

Makes you wish you bought Scrooge's bed curtains from that washerwoman. They always looked really warm.

[jennypenny]

Sorry George, I didn't see that you had already suggested a tent.

You guys make me feel like a total wuss for turning my heat all the way up to 60! I'm going to turn it down some more and see if anyone complains.

[dot_com_vet]

As someone in flyover country, I'd recommend wool socks, wearing your robe to bed, and a stocking cap. (Went through this last year when the furnace was being replaced.)

We now have multi-stage 96% furnace, so the thermostat stays on 70 when people are home. The gas bill is barely noticeable.

[M]

Californians! Don't turn down the heat! Learn from the people of the North!

Currently it is 10 degrees outside where I live with a 0 degree wind chill. My house is 78 degrees inside. My entire house is heated by three space heaters on low ~1500-2000 watts total when they are all on. This is the most inefficient way to heat a house! Yet my electric bill averages $100 dollars a month year around. I also cool my house in the summer time to 68 degrees. I don't have gas, propane, etc. Everything in my house is electric.

Here is how to obtain the same result.

1.) Go to lowes. Purchase 100-200 bags of cellulose insulation (depending on square footage of house)
2.) You should get a free blowing machine. Blow that stuff into your attic until you have 2-3 FEET of insulation up there.
3.) Fill up every exterior wall cavity with this stuff. This is an easy DIY task - use Google if you don't know how.
4.) Make sure all windows are double-triple pane with exterior storm window.
5.) Use heavy curtains and/or blankets on all windows on the inside during winter time.
6.) Make sure door and screen doors are all energy efficient. Cover doors with blankets at night.
7.) Put foam insulation around anything leading into/out of house..cable, pipes, etc.
8.) Insulation perimeter wall of basement or crawl space.

If I don't run the heaters at all, I have found that the house averages out ~20 degrees hotter inside than outside just due to body heat, heat from electronic and appliances running, and sunlight. If I leave the house for ~12 hours with no heat while it's freezing outside, the house will drop by about 10-15 degrees. So if I leave and the house is 75 degrees when I come back it will be around 60 degrees.

Seriously - if you don't want to be cold, and you don't want to spend a lot of money - just buy a small house and insulate the crap out of everything. It's worked amazingly well for me.

[theanimal]

Try adding a base layer (both top and bottom) in addition to the hat. I slept in my 20* sleeping bag in the backyard at 5* last week for some gear testing and fun. Nice and toasty!

[billc]

Lived without heat for a winter while in college. Sleeping was actually the easiest time. Sleeping bag, hoodie, hat, wool socks, layers, etc.

Getting out of the warm bundle in the morning was the hardest part.

[Fiddle]

When I sleep in damp or cold places I like to use my padded down jacket to create a canopy about my head and shoulders creating a warm spacious air pocket to sleep under.
While sleeping in the back of a car I tend to place the hood of the jacket over the headrest of the front seat and drape the jacket down over my head and shoulders, this works well with a longer down jacket.

[Sclass]

Hey,

Thanks for the awesome tips. I'm headed over to Home Depot today to get some pvc pipe and elbows. I'll go all medieval on this bed. The SO will love it...I hope

I can sew up some cheap bedsheets from Walmart.

The insulation tip is great. I could go a long way with insulation and window treatments but I'm liking the tent idea.

I actually have a three person pop up tent in the garage someplace that I bought at a yard sale. I may just put that on the bed and give it a dry run.

Thanks!

[Chris]

Thanks for the awesome tips. I'm headed over to Home Depot today to get some pvc pipe and elbows. I'll go all medieval on this bed. The SO will love it...I hope

Oh my. Post a photo when it's finished (-:

[ebast]

Sclass - don't give those midwesterners a pass. I don't think I ever slept in a room that wasn't heated up to at least the 60s there. These California homes mostly don't seem designed to keep in the warmth so going down to 40 is no slight thing and I've been suffering right there w/o turning on the heat yet too.

A while ago in the Northeast, I spent a chilly winter in a drafty carriage house where I experimented with how low I could keep the heat. Don't think I ever went much below 45 or so because I was watching the pipes, but I wanted to reiterate everything you're doing. Back then & now I've benefitted and feel comfortable down into the 40s from using 2-3 reasonably heavy wool blankets that are army surplus, which may be better insulating than the fleece. Takes a little time to warm up but they're good. On cold nights, I also don't think I ever bedded down for the night without two or three sweaters, or those waffle-knit long johns which still seem somehow magic to me, and always two pairs of wool socks and a hat - gotta have the hat! I figured domiciles were not always so well insulated as now and maybe there's some wisdom to that "Ma in her nightgown and Me in my cap" stuff.

for a little more historical inspiration, there's also:

We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

Of course he had a tattooed pagan cannibal to keep him warm.

(I think you can get one of those in San Francisco.)

[Sclass]

Thanks for the awesome tips. I'm headed over to Home Depot today to get some pvc pipe and elbows. I'll go all medieval on this bed. The SO will love it...I hope

Oh my. Post a photo when it's finished (-:

I set myself up for that one!

[M]

After rereading my post I should probably mention that the whole reason I heat the whole house and cool the whole house is because it's a very small house and I have a wife and two children. When you have children the last thing you want is them explaining to the teacher how it's 40 degrees INSIDE of their house. I'm pretty sure this would be considered child endangerment in today's world.

If I didn't have a wife and children I would probably go with the tent + blankets + small space heater method. This way you have at least some room to put a mattress, laptop, etc inside of the tent. Alternatively I would probably just buy a really nice sleeping bag - basically the same kind campers use to camp in sub zero climates. And then just wear whatever you would wear outside when it's cold inside as well.

[JamesR]

I have one word for you... Blanket fort.


Also, try heating the area around your face to reduce the stress of having a cold face. Maybe keep the electric blanket up higher (for the face) and sleep inside a 4 season sleeping bag (zipped up for best effect).