We live in a very old building and frequently have problems with the heating. It doesn't help that I'm one of those people who are always freeezing.
Other than getting a space heater (which I already have) and insulating the windows..does anyone have any tips on how to stay warm?

Sorry to hear!
Well...all I can suggest: drink hot tea, hot cocoa, soup, and always walk around with socks, slippers, and fleece sweaters.

Wear sweaters or gain weight
I have a sort of radiator heater that helps a lot
Learn Torah all day and night so you don't have time to feel the cold
Spend as much time as possible in your car and out of the house
Move to an apartment between other apartments
Drink tea

Electric blanket

Stop drafts under your front door with a rolled up towel.

Hang blankets on the exterior walls. If you could get them to go floor to ceiling, I'd bet it would make a difference. I don't know if it would if not.

What are you doing to insulate the windows?

Where are the drafts coming from?

?

It's factually true that if you weighed more you probably won't be as cold as if you weighed less, but not too many people want to purposely gain weight, so it's not such great advice.

bundle up is all i can advise - socks, thermo underwear, sweatshirts, etc

Thermal underwear can work wonders.

tape Saran Wrap to the window frames to seal the windows against drafts

Since we pay for our own heat, I've grown to be comfortable at 50 deg., but ........

Long underwear, for starters.
Electric blanket a la Goldfish (on a timer), or mattress warmer.
Turtlenecks, wool skirts

Save your big cooking for Sunday or whenever you're home and cold - soups, baking, etc.

Move! and keep busy!! Don't just crawl into bed and say you're cold and don't do anything!!!

Plastic on the window helps

It might be 'factually' true, but I know many a heavy person who is always cold.


And then suffocate because you can never get an ounce of fresh air into the room.

Hip flask.

9

Down comforters are incredibly warm to sleep with. They can be a bit pricey (if they are real down feathers) but nothing beats it for the warmth - it really insulates the body heat.

I agree with the suggestion for long underwear under your clothes.
For really thin and easy to wear, yet warm long underwear, try silk underwear. It's barely noticeable as another layer yet it will keep you warmer. An inexpensive option for ordering silk underwear is www.wintersilks.com
I've had good luck with them.

i find that wearing shoes (even slippers without socks) helps to stay warm.

I'm not suggesting hermetically sealing the room against bio-attack. After all, if an apartment is cold and it's "a very old building", likely there are a number of leaks such as through cracks in the corners of rooms, or between the baseboards and floor, or through electrical outlets. I'm just suggesting sealing some of the major sources of drafts, namely the windows.

I agree. When I lived in Boston it was very cold and it was common practice to seal the windows in the winter. You can buy plastic sheeting for this purpose at a hardware store I believe. You tape the plastic sheeting (it is clear so you can still look out the window as usual) over the window with a very strong tape and it noticeably cuts down on drafts.
If you like you can leave one window un-sealed so that you can open it periodically for fresh air.

And for the Sheidim to come and go, as per the Sefer Chassidim.

IIRC thats only if there are no people living there.

9

I turn on the oven sometimes to make the home warmer.

The censor.

I don't think so.

The Tzavat R. Yehudah Hachadssid number 20 in the Mossad harav kook edition:

Lo yistom adam chalon [one should not seal a window] o petach le-gamrei [or a doorway completely] sh-lo yaziku ha-sheidim [so the demons should not do harm] ki darkan la-tzeit bo [since they habitually exit through the windows and doorways] ela yinkov bo nekev [rather one should leave an opening].


It's davka if someone is living there, as far as I know. If nobody is living there, then the sheidim aren't really an issue.

[Note I was incorrect about the sheidim enterring and exiting - it seems the issue is to leave an opening so they can leave.]

I thought sheidim stay in deserted places? Wouldn't it be a problem when a person first moves into a home, but after he lives there for a while, it wouldn't be?

Actually I've heard that this isn't always so safe.

In NYC your landlord must provide heat. If they don't you can report them by dialing 311.

DH says that the Baal Shem Tov "took care" of the shin dalets.

Why?

I also got that feeling that's why I don't do it too often or for too long, but why would it be unsafe?

that's really cool. so none of the halachot or minhagim that are based on existence of sheidim are applicable any more for anyone regardless of camp within the spectrum of orthodoxy? he did away with all sheidim on the planet? why didn't anyone think of doing that before?

They'd be even colder if they were thin.

because the way ovens are designed is that when the door is closed, the oven heats up and a thermostat turns the element off. the oven is designed to tolerate the element being red hot for a certain amount of time. if the door is open, the element stays on for a much longer time than the oven is designed for since the oven doesn't reach the requisite temperature for the thermostat to kick in since the heat is being lost to the outside. so you're risking an electrical fire as the oven is used beyond its intended use and exceeds its safety limits.

what is acceptable, however, is after you finished cooking and the oven is off but still hot, you can leave the oven door open for the heat to dissipate into the kitchen.

Thanks for the comprehensive response. I didn't quite understand what is the 'element'. Also, if the oven door is closed, is that still a problem, or only if the oven door is opened? I figure it's ok to turn on the oven without anything inside becuase that is what we do when we preheat the oven.

I'm speaking of an electric oven [as opposed to a gas oven; a gas oven is a separate issue but also unsafe to use as an apartment heater].


If the oven door is closed, it's far less problematic since the thermostat will kick in and keep the oven from overheating. However, using an oven to warm an apartment with the oven door closed doesn't seem that efficient to me.
Also, although the oven on with the door closed is far less problematic than keeping the oven on with the door open for extended periods of time, it's still not safe to keep the oven on very high for extended periods of time even with the door closed, for example, a three day YT with the oven on 600. Again, one risks an electric fire since the oven can overheat and isn't designed to be on that high for that long.

May Hashem protect us.

Let us all take a moment to remember Sylvia Plath.

Keep in mind we're talking our teeny-tiny apartment, and just putting on our gas oven really does warm the place up rather quickly. I wouldn't put it on past 350 and usually after about half hour or an hour the place is so hot that we have to shut it off. Plus DH hates the stuffy feeling. So I guess we don't really have to worry, but good to read about what the potential concerns are.

Amen, May Hashem protect all of us.

That's also helpful if you're going to smoke reefer and don't want your landlord or neighbors to know.


"Here, at anchor, and the only vessel, was a brig under Russian colors, from Sitka . . . such a stupid and greasy-looking set, I never saw
before. Although it was quite comfortable weather and we had nothing on but straw hats, shirts, and duck trousers, and were barefooted,
they had, every man of them, doubled-soled boots, coming up to the knees, and well greased; thick woollen trousers, frocks, waistcoats,
pea-jackets, woollen caps, and everything in true Nova Zembla rig; and in the warmest days they made no change. The clothing of one of
these men would weigh nearly as much as that of half our crew. They had brutish faces, looked like the antipodes of sailors, and
apparently dealt in nothing but grease. They lived upon grease; eat it, drank it, slept in the midst of it, and their clothes were covered
with it. To a Russian, grease is the greatest luxury. They looked with greedy eyes upon the tallow-bags as they were taken into the vessel,
and, no doubt, would have eaten one up whole, had not the officer kept watch over it. The grease appeared to fill their pores, and to come
out in their hair and on their faces. It seems as if it were this saturation which makes them stand cold and rain so well. If they were to
go into a warm climate, they would melt and die of the scurvy."
- Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast [describing California in the mid-1830s]

do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

No.

Correct, Melech. The people that keep minhagim al pi shin dalets are doing so as family traditions, not practical observance.

LTL, I've also heard that oven heat isn't healthy heat... make a batch of muffins !!!

How exactly did the Ba'al Shem Tov eliminate all sheidim of all types from the entire planet, and why didn't anyone think of doing that previously? And why didn't he eliminate all mazikim and illness and strife while he was at it?
And why don't the nos'ei keilim to shulchan aruch, where the shulchan aruch assumes the existence of sheidim, note that they don't really exist but we're just pretending ever since the Baal Shem Tov eliminated all sheidim of all types from the entire planet?

Could it be that we are embellishing a story regarding R. Yoel Baal Shem who removed sheidim from one particular house and that because it's inconvenient for modern people to believe in supernatural creatures and haunted houses that we assert that sheidim used to exist but no longer??

I will ask DH. Thank you for your patience in standing by.

Thank you for asking DH. This is something that interests me greatly and I've never understood this and I appreciate that you are looking into it.


"I'm nothing if not patient".

omg

The whole point of a Baal Shem was for him to use shaimos to fight demons.

You can buy saran wrap from a hardware store that is window-sized and you can attach it to the inside of the window frame. It really seals off the window, without distorting the view, and works really well to close off drafts, I tried this last year in Boston.

that's not very safe.

Why does it make a difference if there's something inside the oven or not?


Why?

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/coftsht.html

because of the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning.