The Joys of Insulation

It hasn't gotten above freezing here for a few days now, and I think we have a couple more to go. It may have warmed up past 25 degrees today, but I didn't check. It was just cold outside. We bundled the kids up to head out to Home Depot. I know it's Black Friday and all, but we figured Home Depot wasn't the hot spot for consumerism. It was a might bit nippy out. Caitlin's cheeks have been pink for a couple of days. I haven't figured out if it has to do with the croup that the kids have been suffering from (she got a mild case after Brandon's more severe one), or the weather. Maybe her face is chapped. Both kids have had chapped lips. I sneak into their rooms before going to bed and put chapstick on them! They lick it off, or smear the entire stick on their faces if I let them have it during waking hours.

So, it's been cold here. Being Californians, we are still getting use to the cold, dry weather. We still haven't figured out how to use our whole house humidifier yet, either! But, you know, we aren't freezing. Amazing. Even with all this cold weather (highs in the low 20's, and lows in the teens), our heater is not running all day and all night. It's amazing! Our house isn't toasty, but it's warm. Usually between 70-74 during the day, depending on whether or not the sun in shining. And why? Insulation, baby! We have insulation! Wow! What a concept! I think we have more insulation in our garage here than we had in any of the places we lived in California. I'm not sure why we didn't have insulation. I know it was invented long before I was born. But yet, somehow, the builders must have forgotten to add it to our houses. We have big, thick pads of it in the garage, though. The closet in our basement is unfinished and has a plywood floor, but it's also lined with the big, thick pads of insulation.

I think our first apartment that we lived in after we were married might have had insulation, but we weren't there very long, so I can't remember. Our second apartment had a nice layer of dust in the attic for insulation. I still have to laugh at review I wrote after we moved out (I went by "anonymous" back then). I wrote it in 2002, right after we moved. We lived there for waaay too long. It was a horrible, crappy apartment. But the rent was reasonable during a time when rents were skyrocketing, and the location was perfect for our lives. It baked all summer and froze all winter. It was nice for about a month in spring and again in fall. During the summer it was regularly 95 degrees inside. I learned how to cook in summer without using the oven and barely using the stove. Here are a few things I wrote in the review about the heating situation in that apartment:

"...the apartments are in really bad shape. They bake in summer time, and freeze in the winter, due to the fact that the windows and doors are ill-fitted and leak, don't close all the way, and dust is the main form of insulation in the attic (average indoor summer temperature: 85 degrees in the evenings, average winter temperature(prior to turning on the heater): 45-50 degrees)."

"Our furnace was so old that no company in the U.S. made parts for it any longer. All repairs were jerry-rigged and welded together, and you had to pray it would continue to work. You knew it was working because when it fired up it sounded like an airplane taking off from the hallway. Forget leaving that thing on all night. Besides, the heat liked to rise up and escape through the ceiling to a better place somewhere in the sky."

I may have worded things to sound funny, but the sad thing is, I wasn't exaggerating.

We moved into our next place, a duplex, when we wanted to start a family. I couldn't imaging lugging a child up the stairs to our hideous Mountain View apartment, and I wanted my own washer and dryer. It was a nice duplex. It was completely updated, had 2 bathrooms, and a garage! However, it too lacked insulation. The summers were hot. Not as bad as our previous place, but not good, either. It didn't freeze in the winter, though, which was a bonus. The summer I was pregnant with Brandon was absolutely miserable. I was a hot box, and the duplex was a hot box. Not a good combination. There are reasons Caitlin was born in the dead of winter. I didn't think I'd live through another pregnancy again in that kind of heat! We moved the spring after Brandon was born. I couldn't be a stay at home mom in that place during the summer. It was too hot.

Our next place was much better. Not only was it bigger, but it faced north/south, so we could get a breeze in the house. It was nice and cool in the summer. I rarely set up the portable air conditioner. The house was long, anyway, so the cool air didn't reach all the way to the end. Again, though, no insulation! What is with these builders anyway? Was it cheaper to heat places in the 60's than to add insulation? Our place wasn't freezing most of the time in the winter, but that's only because we lived in California! If it was here in Colorado the heater would have been running almost full time for the last 4 days, and it would probably only be 62 degrees in the house.

But here. No problem. It's cold. The houses are insulated. People wear jackets and warm clothes. I'm cold outside, but not inside. It's really amazing. The weather should warm up to the mid 30's in few days, and I am looking forward to it. I've been sick, and I don't feel like running around in the snow with the kids. I know Brandon's disappointed, but hey, that's what Daddies are for, right? I'll be out in a couple of days. When it's 35. Or 40. When the sun is shining. It will be warmer then.