Hello?
 

Finally made my way from Ecomodder.

I'm currently living in a one-bedroom apartment. It is about 630 square feet and my energy usage has been about 200 kw hrs per month. The bedroom has terrible insulation and gets pretty cold. But, the rest of the apartment holds its temperature pretty good.

This spring I'll be graduating from college and probably moving in with my parents again. I don't want to have a huge impact on their utility bills.

For the past couple of years my brother and I have been working on building small grills out of empty coffee cans. So far we have been able to cook a meal for two using a couple hand fulls of twigs that fell out of near by trees. And the food taste pretty good!

Welcome to ER Robbie! Your energy usage sounds commendable. :)

Interesting use of the coffee can too, got any pictures of the setup?

I don't have any pictures right now. But here is the Wikipedia article that got me started: Hobo stove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Back in the late 90s, my dad built some alcohol stoves using soda cans.
Beverage-can stove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One problem with building these things is that we end up with a lot of scrap metal. I hope the guys at the recycling plant don't mind.

Welcome to ER! That sounds like a nice little stove set up you've got going there.

Did you ever talk to your apartment super about energy efficient upgrades? I'm thinking of living in an apartment for a bit sometime soon, and that is, of course, a concern for me.

The apartment's management company sent out a letter saying that as people move out the apartment will be renovated. The renovations include argon windows, new refrigerators an ovens.

Right now I have two layers of single-pane windows. There aren't any drafts that I know about. Sadly, all my windows face north west, so I only get about 20-40 minutes of direct sun light.

The lease said that I can't do any major modification besides painting the walls. I'm pretty sure that I could get away with some temporary upgrades.

I wonder if there's some kind of insulation drape that you can hang on your walls to act as a barrier to the cold. Anyone know of anything?

You could always stack bails of hay against your outer walls... :D

I put a towel at the bottom of the door and closed the vent during the day. That kept the heater from kicking on all day. I open the vent at night, but it doesn't help much. I just put a bunch of layers of sheets on the bed.

There are insulating drapes. They actually seal against the side of the window sill. I forget what they call them or I'd google a link for you.

I found some:

EcoSmart Insulating Shades
Window Quilt Insulating Shades online store