those of you who shut down part of the house to save heat

[gentlemango]

How do you keep your pipes from freezing? We keep the whole house between 50-55 because we're afraid of the pipes freezing. Our big old drafty farmhouse uses about $800/month of heating oil doing that.

How low can I let the house get before worrying about pipes? Anyone in REALLY cold climates shut down part of your house for the winter? School me! I want to zone but can't figure out how.

[SleeplessMommy]

Do you have forced air or radiators?

I highly recommend this book:

Bruce Harley, Insulate and Weatherize
http://www.amazon.com/Insulate-Weath...5054962&sr=8-1

Costs about $12 used, with shipping. There are MANY very low cost things you can do to decrease energy costs - especially if you have a balloon framed farm house. If you can see the basement from the attic, there is a very good opportunity to greatly decrease heating costs. Typical recommendations for a balloon framed farmhouse:
* insulate walls with blown-in dense packed cellulose insulation
* seal floor of attic (under existing insulation) to prevent heated air from escaping up cracks in the ceiling. Then increase insulation level with blown in cellulose
* insulate band joist in basement
* weatherstrip existing windows and doors.
* check ducts for small or large leaks (if forced air)
* weatherstrip attic hatch or door to attic
* caulk around baseboards and molding (interior)

:

[gentlemango]

We have hot water baseboard heaters. I would like to turn the furnace OFF altogether and just use space heaters in a couple rooms. But the rest of the house would certainly freeze up. There are bathrooms on every floor.

We can do a lot of work insulating. Thanks for that book rec. Our house is too large & rambling to be able to rely on just insulation to carry the heat from one end of the house to the other. I think we are stuck running the oil heat everywhere. Bleh.

[time4another]

we haver FHW heat too but our home doesn't sound as old as yours.

We're gonna keep our 2nd zone off this year. That zone heats only a bedroom (mine and DH's-we have a heated mattress pad), my office and a bathroom that is connected by a hallway to the rest of the house.

The thermostat for zone 2 is in my office and the door will be closed most (probably all) winter.

We will always have the bathroom door open (cat box) and sometimes DH & my door.

Honestly the only pipes I worry about freezing are the ones around the well pump in the garage, those are usually ok if I park next to them. (though now that I think on it I should get some pipe-wrap for them.)

If you are worried about freezing pipes you should keep a faucet dripping farthest away from where the pipes come into the house, if you can.
We do this overnight on really cold nights (because of garage)

Heather

[SleeplessMommy]

What kind of space heaters?

It should be possible to have a plumber modify your heating system to be able to turn off one section of the house. Then you use shutoff valves in the bathroom to turn off the water, and empty water from the toilet.

Be sure to put something in the windows of the rooms you have shut off to block radiant heat loss.

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/keep_heat_in/...hapter_1_1.cfm
This link has a good explanation of stack effect - air leakage is a major source of heat loss in an older house. Up to 30% of the heat leaves the home this way. it will be well worthwhile to caulk and weatherstrip for the closed off part of the house to reduce the heat loss through stack effect.

The website above also explains every step to weatherization!

[SuzyLee]

I don't know the details, but I am pretty sure you if you are handy, or a plumber, can empty out pipes so that you don't have to worry about them freezing. Of course then you can't use the affected bathroom. I have no idea how much it would cost to have a plumber do it- it may not be worth the money savings.