My husband and I spend the winters in the southern states, living in a travel trailer. We have a string of days where the weather is very cool and that is when I do my cooking and baking, enough to get us by for several days' meals. It eliminates the need to keep our electric heater running and warms up the unit at the same time.
I also leave the dish water in the sink and put the plug in the bathtub when taking a shower, until the water has become cold. That adds moisture to the air, which makes it feel warmer.
By anne from Green Bay, WI
If you have any plants either inside or outside, and your dish washing soap is phosphorous free, you can water the plants with them!
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
Any ideas to insulate my mobile home? The floors and walls are cold and I am restricted on money.
By Lorraine from Bristol, CT
Go to a thrift store or the attic of a friend or relative, or go to www.freecycle.com and get curtains or decorative sheets to put up on the wall. Line them with old blankets. You can hang them with push pins. While you're there, get loads of rugs to put on all of your floors, even on top of carpet as heat will be lost downward. While you're at it, cover the inside of your windows with plastic, you can buy inexpensive plastic storm windows at the Dollar Store, and make "draft-dodgers out of old fabric to put at the bottoms of ALL of your doors (interior as well as exterior).
Newspaper is a great insulator. Apply it to the walls like you were making a paper-mache pinata. After you have a thick layer built up, you can paint it or cover the whole thing with fabric - see the DIY tips on how to make fabric stick to walls. My neighbor was renting and wanted temporary wallpaper and used the fabric technique - it was amazing. So your place will be warm and fabulous. (But don't smoke inside).
Call your local Community Action Agency. Ask about their Weatherization Program. If you're income elegible, which it sounds like you are, they will inspect and insulate your home for free!
I also live in a badly insulated mobile home. It took me a long time, but I took one wall at a time, took down the entire wall, and replaced the insulation with better grade and more of it. Then I replaced the wall board (I forget what it's called). As each room got done, I repainted or wallpapered. Now my home is a lot better insulated and my electric bill has gone way down.
It sounds like a lot bigger job than it really is. I did all this by myself. But by breaking it down to one wall at a time, it made it a lot easier, plus the cost was a lot easier to bear too, because I didn't have to pay for it all at once, or put it on a charge card with exorbitant interest rates.
Go to the "community action agency" found in the county office of your area court house; they have helped my friend with her mobile home issues. Ask a clerk in the court house where these folks are and they can point you in the right direction. Good luck and keep us posted on what you do.
Dear Cumberland: Please don't advise paper in the walls. It gets wet and even if it doesn't, it is a horrible fire hazard.
Heat rises, so do go to the local community action agency and get an energy audit.
Thank you for your responses. I will call tomorrow to see if someone can help me.
I'll keep everyone posted as this goes.
Here's some tips that I've posted that may help you::
I hung new throw rugs on my walls (as tapestries) for insulation...
You can also buy those stick-up carpet tiles (or use double-backed carpet tape on the back of carpet samples then hang on the wall as "art")
Insulate windows with bubble wrap year round:
www.thriftyfun.com/
In our area they have help for free winterizing:
www.thriftyfun.com/
There's a powder you can add to paint that's supposed to help insulate
---> insulating additive for paints:
www.hytechceramics.com/
www.nansulate.com/
Since you live in a mobile home (like I do) I thought you might find this info valuable too:
Spray & forget siding, roof & deck cleaner:
www.thriftyfun.com/
* Here's some great tips from other ThriftyFun readers:
Winterizing Your Steel Doors
www.thriftyfun.com/
Do It Yourself Weatherstripping
www.thriftyfun.com/
Insulating walls:
www.thriftyfun.com/
I called CL&P for help. It costs $75 dollars for them to come in to inspect. They do not install anything for insulation. I have to get a contractor to write out the price and they will rebate me about 8% of the cost.
If you have central heating, turn your heat up to about 72 degrees during the day. Your rooms may still feel cold. If so, get some space heaters for the rooms you spend the most time in such as your living room and your bedroom. You can get good space heaters at Fred Meyer for about $40 to $60 dollars. Get ones with a digital thermostat that will turn off and on automatically.
Run them only when your home. Insulating your home better is a long term goal you can work on as you get the money and have time. You can beef up the R-factor of your crawl space by adding some foam board insulation if you don't have a skirting with a high R-factor. Remember to cut vents in it if you do this. Good luck.
I need some advice about a mobile home/trailer. Here's the situation. I bought my father a mobile home back in 93. It is a nice well maintained home, but it is now 30 years old. My father recently passed away and now I have this trailer to deal with.
I was there yesterday and the kerosene furnace is almost out of fuel. Kerosene is around $3 a gallon here, so I would like to put a minimal amount in the tank for now and possibly winterize the home, drain the water, close it up until it's sold.
I was told I can expect to use around 4-5 gallons a day to heat it. I simply can't afford to waste this money heating an empty home. Does anybody have any thoughts on how to go about this, what do I need to do, who I should contact? The expenses are going to start piling up shortly (fuel, taxes, lot fees, etc.).
I have other issues with this, but I will post them separately. I'm 20 minutes south of downtown Pittsburgh in case anybody here needs a nice, cheap place to live. Thanks for reading!
By Sandy from Pittsburgh, PA
I would call a local mobile home sales company, and ask them how to winterize it. They should be able to help you do that so that you don' t have to heat it for the remainder of the winter. People do it all the time for "hunting camps". Good luck, and condolences on your father.
Wrapping heat tape around the water pipes helps keep them from freezing...You can get bails of hay/straw and pile up around the ouside frame of trailer, You can apply plastic around the windows and you can buy it cheaply at Walmart on the roll for a lot less than the window kits. You could close off some rooms where heating isn't necessary with a wall of plastic sheeting (again off the roll) and that helps a lot. Put rolled rugs under the door of rooms that are closed off for the winter and insulated drapes or curtains over the windows to the rooms you are having to heat. Leave bathroom cabinet doors open so heat can get to the pipes to help keep from freezing up too until you decide to drain the water lines and/or shut off the water supply. Set several mouse traps around in each room so mice cannot chew/damage/make nests.
I live in a 1976 single wide mobile home. I have sealed the windows, plastic plus blankets, used sheets to "lower the ceiling", built entry walls to block door leaks, and have a sheet wall to enclose the living room. We're still freezing. We use space heaters, and had 2 running this last week, and I could feel icy whisps of breezes. This home was neglected almost to it's demise. I'm becoming quickly efficient in repairs, but need advice on how staying warm!
We sleep in the living room. (2 babies under 3 yrs old) There are space heaters in the bathroom and living room. I applied for county help; still waiting. I had a $250 power bill for December. We can not financially, or physically, withstand another 3 months. Seriously limited funds, but I'll make it work. Thanks for your help!My mobile home is a 1992 with a garage. I have noticed the only room in the house that's even remotely warm is the small bathroom. I have shut down 3 rooms so far and it's still cold. Plastic has been put up on the windows but it seems there are not enough vents in any of the rooms. The walls are also cold.
Does anyone know if it is alright to close off registers and put blankets on the bottom of the doors in a mobile home?Any advice?
By RD
Over the past winter, our mobile home's linoleum floor split in several places. There was no sign of water damage -no leaks - just several slits in the linoleum. It was a very cold winter. What flooring would hold up best during another very cold winter?
By BJK
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I have an old trailer in southern Illinois, and my electric/gas bill was $211 for this month. Compared to the summer when it was only $100.