Here’s something I’ll bet you never thought about before:
When you are heating buildings made of concrete or brick with only wood or coal fires, they get very warm and retain the heat surprisingly well. But if you don’t heat them for a few weeks, they get REALLY cold and then it takes days and days to warm them back up.
I was on vacation for 2 weeks and when I came back my room was freezing. I was expecting this. But what I wasn’t expecting was that even though I made a bigger fire than usual, a few hours later it was barely warmer than it had been when I got there. I don’t know the physics behind this phenomenon, only that it seems like you have to de-thaw the concrete walls before they’ll keep a room warm for you.
I thought I might have just screwed up my fire, but then when I got to school the next day – the first day back after the 2 week vacation, the school was freezing. All the sobas (wood burning stoves) were lit in every classroom but it was still freezing and like standing in a cold hole outside. All the teachers assured me that it’s always like this the first day back after vacation and that it will take a few days to warm up and retain the warmth like normal. There is always something new here.
Fortunately, I discovered through this that, as I have long suspected but never confirmed, my sleeping bag plus my blankets is more than enough heat to sustain me though the night in an essentially unheated room, even when it is about negative 5 degrees outside. Don’t get me wrong – I have to stay the hell under those blankets. But (knock on wood) I don’t think I will be in any danger of freezing to death in the night, even if I somehow fail to make a good fire one night. A margin of error can be a very comforting thing.
Noape Buna!
O Brave New World 