So Cold... So Cold... *shiver*

No progress on the house since the last post. It's been really chilly, though. Lots of snow and sub-freezing temperatures. In fact, we've learned a few things about what happens in a house when the temperature dips below 32 degrees and stays there.

First, our cold water line to the washing machine froze. That might have been okay, but the hot water line started spewing rusty water a month ago so we haven't been using it. No washing clothes for us for a few days! We put a heater in the utility room and aimed it at the wall where the cold water pipe is, but it still wouldn't thaw.

We kept trying every day and a few days later the water started flowing! Yay! We started a load of laundry right away. But that's not the end of the story. When the washer started draining, the drain line filled up and the water came squirting up all over the utility room. After shutting off the washer and using the Wall Street Journal to soak up all the water, we turned the washer back on again. The drain line filled up and we turned the washer off. The drain line drained a little and we repeated the process. The drain line feeds a drain field on the north side of the house. We think the drain field is kind of shallow (we ran into a piece of it during the electrical trench dig). The drain field must have been frozen. Eventually, the drain started flowing and we got our laundry done.

Note: There are not very many laundromats around here. We looked. Finally found one, but the washer had started working again by that time.

On to the the second bit of learning. Refrigerators don't seem to work well when it is colder outside the refrigerator than it is inside the refrigerator. We noticed that the stuff in the freezer was thawing out. Apparently the thermostat was not triggering the refrigerator to turn on. We adjusted the temperature dial in the refrigerator and it started up. But the new setting froze the veggies. So we turned it back down and start eating the freezer stuff. In fact, we've been eating things that require very little kitchen prep since it is so cold in the kitchen, for example: microwaved cans of soup, tater-tots, pizza (ordered and picked up), and instant oatmeal. We also stopped doing dishes and are almost out of everything.

During this cold spell, we installed new, thicker plastic on all the doorways. It makes a big difference. There's lots of condensation on the plastic in the mornings or when we cook. It's kind of gross to brush up against the plastic when we go through a doorway. Bleah.

On a brighter note, things are warming up now. It's in the mid 30's and low 40's. We're wearing fewer layers and even exclaiming how warm it is to one another. Summer's going to be unbearable.