I was at a solar conference a few years ago, and I got into a conversation with a white-haired gentleman from British Columbia, Canada. At one point in the conversation, he described to me how life was for him, growing up on a farm in Ontario, Canada.
"In the winter, we all spent our time in the kitchen, because that was the warmest place in the house."
That first got me to thinking about the idea of reducing fuel consumption by reducing the heated area of the house.
And then I ran across a book that addressed energy efficient architecture, and I saw a diagram of a house that had a central warm area, surrounded by 'buffer zones'. These buffer zones could be unheated halls or storage rooms, etc.
I also remembered reading a book wherein the author reminisces about his first date, and about going to get his girlfriend who was Polish and how her family lived in the basement during the cold Chicago winter. He beautifully described the strangeness of walking through the cold dimly lit house, and down the basement stairs, to be enveloped by the warmth and comfort and the delicious smells of the pot of soup simmering on the wood burning stove in the cellar.
So I have been trying my own kind of heated area reduction. I have found that normal doors don't make such good barriers for reducing the heated areas. In fact, I have discovered that quilted covers or sleeping bags make much better heat barriers. I have noticed that visitors quite frequently remark how warm it is in the heated area, as they pass through the quilted cover. I think that even a thin quilt has a higher R-value than most interior doors. Also, because the quilted cover is fastened at the top, it doesn't spill out the warm air, and you never have to tell anyone to please close the door... gravity does that automatically.
Here's a photo of my quilt door. It's nice and thick and has images of surfing vehicles, and tropical flowers. Helps cheer up the grey days. When I want to have full fresh air flow through the house, I roll up the quilt and prop it up into place with a big crooked stick I found on the beach. It all looks so funky that nobody has ever commented. Of course, Velcro would work better, but I'd lose the dramatic effect. The other door, barely seen to tthe left in the photo, goes into an unheated buffered room. I'm looking for a lively quilt for that opening.
I tried the idea of heated area reduction in the beginning of last winter, I was using central heat, and just confining it to one room. It didn't work so well because the firebox and blower were designed for a much higher output. The heating quality was really not so good.
So toward the end of last winter I bought the smallest mini split I could find (9,000 BTU). It looks similar to this photo (my own mini split is squeezed in behind a bush and is hard to photograph):
I got an 'inverter technology' unit, because it can modulate it's heat output over a pretty large range. I have confined the mini split to heating my living room only. The quality of the heat is way better than the central heat ever was. Best of all, and I realize that it's early in the heating season, but heating is presently costing me about $1.85 per week...
Has anyone else had thoughts or taken action along the line of reducing the heated area of house?
Best Regards,
-AC_Hacker