Friday, January 19, 2007

Cold Kitchen

Why oh why is our kitchen so cold?
The rest of the house gets so nice and toasty, with big honkin radiators that I've just learned I can make even more efficient with some homemade radiator reflectors. And did you know that the valves on your radiators, be they water or steam, should be in one of two positions? On, or off. Apparently inbetween doesn't regulate the heat at all, it just puts a strain on the pipes. I love the internet...so many helpful hints.
But out kichen, it was "updated" in the early 80's or perhaps the late 70's but there's no gigantic radiator like all the other rooms and I wonder if this is part of the problem. Or is could be the mystery wind tunnel in the corner of the cabinets, literally BREEZES flow from it. I think it's got something to do with the chimney you can see from the outside but not from the kitchen, I wonder if there was originally a wood burning stove in the kitchen, we could use one...or maybe a fireplace for cooking--but really is the house THAT old?
I've weather stripped the door (as seen previously with my pal Dan) and HJ and I weather stripped the windows, the storms are down, the only thing left really is to vaccuum seal the windows and try and figure out how to block up the wind tunnel. HJ keeps suggesting we put up a heavy curtain to segregate the kitchen from the rest of the house to keep more warmth in the rest of the house, but then I'm afraid we'll have icicles hanging from that dumpy drop ceiling.
What additionally weird is our bedroom is directly above the kitchen and it's a furnace up there pretty much any time of day, even when the heat's not pumping, it's super warm and we haven't even weather stripped those windows yet. p.s. I'm in love with "windjammer" you can seal up anything with that stuff AND supposedly (although I haven't tested it yet so come spring I may really be eating these words) but you can just peel it off when you're done with it. neat huh?

On other notes, I've been doing a bunch of research on our neighborhood trying to find out when exactly our home was likely built and what style it was built in, and I'm learning so much about architecture, it's really really cool. But could come across as boring if I tried to write it all out...so I'll spare you.

Anyone with additional suggestions for warming up our cold cold kitchen, please share!

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