thing for sure in the winter was that we have never been comfortable at
all. No matter how much we turned up the thermostat downstairs, it was
always chilly or cold. Cold feet, cold toes - not fun.
Some time ago, one of the guys where I used to work, I think his name
was James or something, gave me these 2 rolls of extra thick rubber
stripping. I think it was for some commercial refrigeration seal or
something. Anywho, one afternoon while working with the 'puter
downstairs, I decided to get these things out of the car and put them to
use. First up was sealing the edges of the front door. Cold air just
gushed around the door. It doesn't help that the front porch isn't
sealed off very well. It was tricky but I eventually used up one whole
roll and a little bit of the other roll in figuring out how to create a
tight seal.
Today, I finally got to doing the same for the back door. Every place I
could see sunlight peeking through, that was also a spot for cold air to
get in as well.
A couple nights ago, I even managed to put some plastic sheeting on a
couple of windows that hadn't got any already. This all seemed to help,
but we were still cold.
The house here has baseboard heaters made by Fasco, but the thermostat
controls are by Eaton. The ones we have are M402 models. About the only
other thing I can think of is that someone messed with the thermostat
downstairs, because the one for my room definitely works. No matter how
high we turned it downstairs, it never got warm enough. It would cycle
off on the maximum setting and it was definitely not 80 degrees!
There are a couple of set screws that you need a special driver bit to
do any adjustment - and fortunately, I have a driver bit that fit.
When I couldn't figure out how to get the screws set, I decided to check
how far the ones in the control in my room look. I also noticed that
there are little black glops on the screws. These glops are not on the
screws on the thermostat downstairs. I guess that's pretty much the
evidence I needed to say someone messed with them.
My guess is that the person who previously owned this place and rented
it out must have included the electric in the rent - and when the cost
got too high (well, it is Ohio Edison around here, the rip off utility
over charging for electric they don't even generate themselves!) he came
in after the apartment was clear (through eviction or whenever he got a
chance to) and must have adjusted the thermostat so it would never get
warm enough. So I observed the look of the set screws in my thermostat,
and duplicated that as best as I could, with adjustments in case the
heaters switched off for some reason.
For the first time, we measured 72 degrees downstairs and it's
comfortable. Now to finish getting the drywall in the ceiling at the top
of the stairs!!
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