Steady temperatures below zero are outside the design margin of my house. We usually get maybe a day or so where it gets that cold, but when it gets to -15 and stays there for a while, the cold leeches into the walls, making it hard to keep the house heated.
That, and an open garage door gave me plenty of work yesterday in terms of keeping the pipes from freezing. I’ve also found a fun new home improvement project for the coming year: more insulation, especially along the foundation.
Home ownership is a continuing process, and one is never finished. Last year we did a major overhaul, with new roof, gutters, siding replacement and fresh paint. Next year I’ll continue to touch up areas around the exterior, extending the life of the wood and saving money by avoiding future repairs. But something always needs to get done.
The nice thing is that one can move incrementally, and still see improvement. If you has a simple shack with four walls, insulating one still helps keep it warm. If you insulate an adjacent wall, now you have a comfy corner. I firmly believe in micro-projects and am always looking at things I can do solve various problems or make things easier.
Home improvement shows give the false impression that everything needs to be a full remodel, an epic teardown accomplished in 48 hours. The truth is that it’s a process rather than an event, and people I know who live in the same place have continually updated it over the years. It’s also why I never wanted to build my own home. My grandparents did that, and in the end, it seemed a bigger hassle than it was worth, and there were still issues that came up requiring repairs and refits.
You never really solve problems, you just exchange them for different problems. That doesn’t mean things don’t get better. Compared with our old house, this place is a palace. Buffing up the insulation is an inexpensive fix with tangible benefits. The reason it wasn’t tackled before now was that we had other more pressing concerns.
Above all, one should adopt the attitude of gratitude, and be thankful for what we have. Listening to a hard rain last fall I was intensely happy that the roof had been upgraded. As bad as things are with the cold, they would be worse had the windows not been upgraded a couple of years ago.
Chateau Lloyd 
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