A conversation with a friend of mine this past week got me thinking about what it would be like to not have heating where you live. Many places this is just a reality, and then for many in the States, their inability to pay their bill results in it being turned off.
My wife flew out on Thursday night and I began a little experiment by turning the heat off. The first evening was not too bad and I didn’t notice much difference at all. By Friday evening, not even 24 hours past I noticed that it was certainly getting colder in my home and I had to bundle up a little with warmer socks, slippers and a long sleeve shirt.
We live in an apartment complex of six units. It’s a nice building, brick on the outside, and decently put together but probably not the best job in the world. I wondered about how much the quality of your apartments building layout affects your expenses to keep it warm. Can you imagine living in a low income housing situation where not only was your rent high for extremely low quality, but you had to leave the heat running constantly to keep it at all warm.
Friday night I went to sleep with a sheet, a comforter, a blanket and then a sleeping bag (rated to 20 degrees) on top of me. I was warm, but it felt like being outside. Saturday at about noon I stepped outside and realized it was considerable warmer out there then it was in my own apartment and it was only 46 degrees out there. I tried to open the window shades to let the sun in, but the angle our house is at didn’t allow for much direct sunlight coming through.
After it got cold enough that I had to put on a shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt and sometimes a vest I was starting to get miserable. I don’t have a hat or gloves and so I had my hood on and I tried to keep my hands in my sleeves a bit. My hands where getting quite cold which didn’t feel good. I tried to think of it like camping outdoors or something, but I couldn’t break out of the fact that this was my home! I feel like I should be comfortable in my home. I thought in my mind that maybe I should try and make it through Saturday evening, making it a full 48 hours. I sort of made that up on the spot cause I think I wanted to feel like I had achieved some sort of goal, or survived through something. Truth is I just wanted to turn the heat back on.
At the advice of my mother, and for my own self interest, I turned the heat up just enough for it to maintain the temperature without dropping anymore. My thermostat says it’s about 60 or less, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. My desk is cold. I’m still dressed pretty warm.

I wasn’t doing this to try and do anything nobel or sacrificial. Mainly I just thought I could save some energy and money and experience life with the heat off for a little bit. It brought some thoughts to my mind.

It’s these little things that we do take for granted. Now in other places not having heat is just the norm and you push through and make it. Here we expect to have heat. I’m living in Nashville, grew up in Wisconsin, and I’m cold right now. Imagine having your heat off in a more northern city. I would guess I would be a miserable person to live with if our apartment was this cold all the time. My nose started running Friday evening. I can’t imagine how much more often someone would get sick, especially a child, if you didn’t have heat in your apartment. I think I might become quite lazy under these conditions, not wanting to do much more then sit in a chair and watch a movie or sleep.

I’ve never thought about the affect this sort of thing might have on someone, I only hope I can be more sensitive to it in the future.