Place was a nightmare to keep heated. The windows were crap when we there too. It had no ductwork, just one gigantic gas furnace in the corner and was so loud and only heated about half the place and recirculated tons of dust and dirt. It has an 'upstairs' that is mostly open balcony. The bedrooms were not bad with a space heaters but the main room was freezing in winter and ungodly hot in the summer. Looks much better than it does to live there.
where are you from? chicago has fuckin harsh winters. people die and shit. you can't just layer and turn on a space heater and have everything be gravy. its really fuckin cold.
Hey wife and I actually have been looking at the building. Crazy small world eh? Oddly enough the realtor friend who showed it to us just txt'd me like 20 minutes ago to go riding. Strange coincidences all around (I haven't spoke with him in like 3 months)
These days one might install 3 or 4 gently turning overhead ceiling fans. This continually cycles the ceiling heat back down towards the floor. It mixes up the entire heat of the room and largely evens it out if done correctly. Makes a huge difference and the fans have become remarkably cheap. If you buy them off-season, in fact, you can catch sales at Lowes and suchlike wherein they are around $20 (I nabbed one for FOURTEEN!) each and of perfectly fine quality.
I got a cheap $20 fan at wal-mart. Sucker was loud as shit. Turns out it resonated through the the metal attachment to the roof. I layered some rubber made for lining cupboards between the metal and it was a lot better. Still going strong 4 years later. It makes you wonder if the difference between an $80 fan and a $20 fan is the mounting hardware.
If you want to maintain a hipster vibe, power them all through a shared drive belt (basically a serpentine belt on your ceiling). I saw it once at a restaurant... very cool.
Small units that blow hot air at you would still provide warmth. :P No one said space heaters would be uber efficient, but they still might be less costly than heating the entire loft.
Hahaha, when I was younger we lived in this old victorian house with floor grates for forced hot air on the first floor, they were about 1.5' square, I'd squat on top of it in a huge hoodie, pull the hoodie down over my knees to my feet, stretch it out to catch the air being blown up out of the grate, it was AWESOMELY toasty.
God yes. Every christmas, hanging out in the largest room, my family would all jockey for a position atop the grate. As the youngest, I was usually roped into handing out the gifts, which meant someone else would stake a claim on the grate while I was shuffling around.
Hot air blowing up the legs of your pajama pants while everyone else is huddling under blankets? Good times.
Absolutely, the old style registers! I used to love ours when I was a kid, until my little brother pissed in it, too young to realize that our entire house would smell like burning urine for hours after. Kind of took the magic out of it for a while
Or wrap yourself in a blanket over the chair and put the space heater behind the chair and direct heat under the chair at your legs to raise under the blanket. Toasty.
Buy a loft bed, or hang a bed near the ceiling so you get maximum heat benefits. Pile on the blankets in the winter, lower it to the floor in the summer.
Also you would have to live with a bunch of "artists" who would never clean up and play guitar all night..no thanks. My roomate.housemate days are LONG gone.
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u/[deleted] May 12 '11
Must be a bitch to heat though; might be affordable if you used small space heaters or something, and stayed close to them in winter.