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Be careful about your plumbing. Indiana without any heat in the house = frozen & burst pipes.
Are you renting or do you own? Just so you know, if you are renting, you may be able to be evicted if the landlord discovers that you are not heating the place. It was actually in the lease where I lived. A minimum temperature was specified for the purpose of protecting the plumbing (not that I paid attention to the specific temp given...)
Just a tip, too: Don't broadcast locally that you will be living without heat. Depending on your local ordinances, if you have any "enemies" they may be able to cause serious problems for you. Here it violates the city ordinances to heat the house below a certain temp (really high, actually - something like 68 degrees during the day. Again something a lot of people easily ignore. Seems like it's 65 at night. I may be off on the specific temps.) Having ANY habitable room that is not heated to those temps in the winter violates our city codes, too. Again, something to mostly ignore but to be aware of in case there are people who might cause problems. I think probably the biggest time these things come up as an issue are when CPS is involved or you have a family member causing trouble (ex spouse? inlaws?)
I fully understand the reasons you need to do this. Just sharing some problems that could arise, so you can protect yourself against them.
We're renting to own, but shoot, the pipes break even when the house is fully heated! This is a big OLD drafty house, but when the windows and doors are sealed tight, we do fine. At it's coldest, the house was 55 last January, without the heat on, but I guarantee that the windows were sealed tight. Usually it's around 62 or so, and that's not uncomfortable for us. Shoot, we're from Chicago, lol!
We do have a fireplace, but can't use it, and don't dare use it because the chimney is falling apart. The chimney hasn't been used in probably 20 years? The last couple that lived here had a wood stove hooked up so that it was venting out the fireplace, but my mother didn't understand how to use it, and being a city girl, she wanted the furnace heat, so she actually gave the stove away! I'm really mad now that she did that. I don't know how well that stove would heat this house though, it was a small stove.
Landlord can't say crap, he never even put heat to the second floor. My kids can't be in their rooms in the summer cause it's too hot, or in their rooms in the winter or they freeze. It gets cold up there. We don't plan to stay here much longer. We don't go around telling anyone that we don't have heat. I would really like to invest in an electric fireplace. I think that would really help.
I have an appointment to see a doctor to try to get on SS and Medicaid, and provided I can get on SS, the first check they send me is going to buy oil for the tank. One check alone will put enough oil in the tank for about 2 month, but it's needed, and we STILL won't put it on until we absolutely need to. At this time, it's not even cold enough to be too worried. We're already working on "winterizing" the house, but at the same time I'm looking for jobs and housing out of state, preferably in Kentucky or Tennessee. If we can hightail it out of here, you bet your booty we'll be GONE!
