How they use to do it.

Where I lived this summer - I lived in the portion of the building built in the 1930s as servants' quarters

I’ve recently been lucky enough to live in two old buildings.  My current abode in Los Angeles is an apartment in a 1940s era 8-plex.  For being a 70+ year old building it’s in pretty good shape (minus occasionally finicky plumbing).

This summer while working in southern Maine I lived in an old house (1930s era servants quarters) attached to an even older house (the main dining area is possibly the original one-room building structure from the 17th century).

I looooooove older buildings, and when I get around to moving again I will definitely be on the look-out for older housing stock to set up shop in.  But, older buildings have their drawbacks.  The place I live in now (in LA) seems to take outdoor temperatures to extremes.  At the end of the summer in the San Fernando Valley temperatures reach 100+ and the apartment I live in seems to suck in all the heat over the day and turn into an oven at night.  We have two A/C units but they are pretty piddly and are only worth turning on if I plan to sit right next to them.

The apartment does the same thing in the winter.  Thankfully Southern California winters are pretty wimpy, though I’ve become conditioned to them and tend to feel like anything in the 40s to 50s range is freezing cold.  At night the apartment is an ice box.  I hate to run a space heater and I don’t want to turn on the gas wall heater – both run up bills.  So I started wondering what someone would’ve done to stay warm when the apartment was first built (assuming they didn’t want to run up their gas bill either).

I came up with the idea of using a hot water bottle.  I found a couple of cute (and well reviewed) ones on Amazon by a German company called Fashy.  I think I just might splurge and get one.  Sort of wasteful to heat water up, but if the heat lasts all night (as reviewed) maybe it’ll make it worth it (and save energy and gas in the long run)!