Winterization….And Disaster!

Hello from the deep freeze zone. Brrrrrr! It’s zero here and we are looking forward to a -12 to -33 night. I am NOT a cold weather wuss, I mean come on, I grew up in Vermont! But living in a 100 year old house where I have to pay for heat is a whole new concept (sorry for complaining and secretly blasting the heat my whole life mom!). To fix this breezy leaky problem we (Matt) decided to do some weatherization to warm things up – I am guessing it was more to stop me from complaining that I can’t feel my feet then for energy savings.

Here is Matt insulating the attic and basement…. Can I just add that insulation is TOXIC – his snot is black and he almost lost both eyeballs (sorry if that was too much info). I offered to help, but I am pretty sure he knew it was over my skill and comfort level.

I was tasked with putting little foam insulation pieces in every electrical socket – it really tested my screwdriver skills.

My task took about 10 minutes, so when I finished I decided to warm the place up MY way. Let’s call it Christmasization. I scored a tree from the Lubrecht Experimental Forest which is owned and operated by the University of Montana. The price (free) really beat the $60 we spent for a 2 footer last year in DC.

Last, but NOT least, I came home from work last week and looked at my car to see I had run over a bunch of nails! My tires were pretty flat all summer and come to find out I had 4 nails in them, so this was not the first time. On closer inspection, the nails were in perfect rows so must be on purpose. Matt had taken my car to get metal studded snow tires put on – safety first! Apparently my car is now a “tank” that is not to be messed with from winter snow or ice demons.

Studs to the rescue

Bring it on winter, we are ready for ya (almost)!

EMERGENCY UPDATE:

*Please disregard my last statement*

If you are reading this, then I survived the night….. I wrote the post above at about 5PM yesterday, went and had a nice dinner in the hood, and when we came home at 9PM the furnace was off. Our house was at a toasty 57 degrees and dropping. We fiddled around with the thermostat, changed the batteries, Matt banged on the furnace with a hammer (his go-to move) and I googled “furnace failure” and read some interesting chats about things I don’t understand. We came to the grim conclusion at about 11PM, and at about -15, that the furnace was toast – no pun intended.

We figured that the pipes bursting would suck, so we jumped in the car to head to Wall Mart for a couple space heaters…. And, typical to the situation, both cars were dead! Is this turning into a good country song or what!? So, I piled on four blankets, put on long johns and a hat, crawled into bed and tried not to die.

Bedding down for the long cold night

It is 40 degrees in our house as I write this, and yes, I can see my breath. The furnace guy called at 7AM and will be here by 8AM to take out our 20 year old failure and replace with a fancy new model (all they had in stock was top of the line of course!) – thank GOD for great Montana customer service, and I guess reliable heat is well worth the $$. Let’s hope AAA comes and jumps me soon so I can be on my way. I have never looked forward to being at work more…. MMM warm office.

When I am glowing about being a new home owner or living in Montana, please remind me about the last 12 hours. And if there are typos in the post, it’s because I can’t feel my fingers.