An aluminum storm window that has sat in its summer position since May makes a particular squeal when you finally slide the glass panel down. Our house has nine of them on the main floor, so on Saturday the neighbors heard nine squeals, plus a few words from Caleb about the one in the dining room.
The snow that started yesterday looks like it's staying. By mid-November our 1948 windows leak cold the way they always have, the radiators are ticking in earnest, and every year we spend one weekend making the house a little less drafty for the four of us. This year we squeezed it in just ahead of the snow.
The storms and the sashes
Our big double-hung wood windows have triple-track aluminum storms on the outside. In summer the storms sit in screen position. In November the glass panels come down, which closes a surprisingly big gap. Two of the tracks were packed with grit and dead box elder bugs, so Caleb scrubbed them out with an old toothbrush and a shot of silicone spray, and they slid like new. The dining room storm has a cracked corner, which got clear tape for the winter and a spot on the spring list.
Inside, on the two living room windows that catch the wind, I pressed removable rope caulk into the gaps around the sashes. It's a $9 box of gray putty that looks like modeling clay and peels off in spring without taking the paint with it. It isn't pretty up close. You can't see it from the sofa.
The window we leave alone
The honest mistake from last winter: I put plastic shrink film over the dining room window, the one that looks out on the bird feeder. It worked beautifully for about four days. Then Mabel discovered the film blurred her view of the chickadees, and she fixed it, with all of her claws, from the bottom corner up. That film cost $12, and the dining room window has gone unfilmed ever since. It gets rope caulk now like the others, and Mabel keeps her view.
The back door
The worst draft in our house comes under the back door. On a windy night you can feel it across the mudroom floor, and the mudroom floor is exactly where Hank sleeps. The old door sweep was torn, and if you lay down on the linoleum (I did) you could see daylight under the door.
A new aluminum-and-vinyl door sweep cost $16 and took Caleb ten minutes. A roll of foam weatherstrip for the latch side of the frame was $11. Then a $4 pack of foam gaskets went behind the outlet covers on the outside walls, which sounds like nothing until you hold your hand in front of an outlet in January.
Total for the weekend: $40, plus whatever we already had lying around the basement.
Moving the dog bed
Hank's orthopedic bed, the $119 one from 2023, has lived in front of the big living room window since we bought it, because he likes to keep an eye on the street. Once the weather turns, though, cold air slides down that glass and pools on the floor right where he lies. Last week I noticed him curling up tighter and tighter, nose tucked under his tail, and when I put my hand on the bed it was cool to the touch.
We moved it to the inside wall by the bookshelves, a few feet from a radiator but not up against it. He sniffed the new spot, turned around three times, sighed and fell asleep. He still spends the night by the back door, so I folded an old blanket there, and with the new sweep in, he's no longer lying in a stream of outside air.
The radiators have been running steadily since Sunday, which means Mabel has reclaimed the shelf Caleb built over the living room radiator a couple of winters ago. She's been on it more or less continuously, turning over every hour or so like something on a rotisserie. Last night Hank walked past, looked up at her on the warm shelf and then looked at me, and I swear he was asking why she gets the good spot.
Because she was here first, buddy. She'll be the first to tell you.
