It’s not too cold outside — mid-fifties, at the worst. It’s only a few degrees warmer in the house, though, and I feel like I have ice running through my veins. Husband and I have made a pact that we are not going to turn on the heat until our breath becomes visible, freezes mid-exhale, and breaks with a crash on the floor.

I am not usually this cheap. Last year I just tried not to think too hard about the heating bills, which rose to a whopping 25% of our mortgage payment during the worst of the winter. This year, though, natural gas prices are supposed to go even higher. Even then I might be willing to cough it up for the sake of a little comfort, but this is the most energy inefficient house on the planet and it pains me to throw that money right out the drafty windows.

Our house is fairly modest in terms of square footage. It’s a Victorian, though, and the ceilings are high; the cubic footage is killing us. The attic is not insulated, so the heat rises to the top of each room and then right through the roof. (The logical thing, at this point, would be to insulate the attic, but we are planning on renovating the attic and want to have it done all at once.) The cold air (and sometimes, snow) blows right through the windows, which may be the original 100-year-old panes for all we know. The home inspector said he had never seen anything like the window clasps, which are pretty but don’t do enough to seal the windows tightly.

Since the house is a Queen Anne (not as grand as any of these) it is definitely a window-rich environment, with little alcoves and bays jutting everywhere just for the purpose of providing more windowage. I suppose we can count ourselves lucky that there is no longer a window tax.

The house is outfitted mostly with steam heat, which is actually one of the best kinds as it provides a nice moist warmth. Unfortunately, the house only has one zone, so you can’t make one room warm and leave another cold. Theoretically you can adjust the individual radiators, but there’s not much of a difference at any point between “off” and “on.” Some of the radiators work much better than others, too, so Aitch’s room is always cold whereas the adjacent office is boiling. Last winter we kept the heat up during the night mostly for Aitch’s benefit, but without much effect. This year I’m seriously considering moving him to another room for the worst of the winter.

I feel like one of the landed gentry in a BBC adaptation of an English novel who is estate-rich but cash-poor and can’t afford to a modern heating system for his ancestral home, so he mopes around in thick tweeds, nursing his rheumatism with stout cups of hot tea and applying poultices to his chilblains. You find yourself yelling at the screen, “Sell a few hundred acres and buy a boiler, dude!” but he either won’t because he’s too proud, or can’t because the estate is entailed, or otherwise encumbered with some such obscure British legal complication. So he plots to marry an heiress to finance the necessary upkeep.

On the other hand, I feel more like the heiress who has sacrificed her fortune to this money pit, and is still walking around in ugly tweeds, shivering.

Don’t get me wrong; It’s not like I expect anyone to feel sorry for me. We bought the house with full knowledge of its shortcomings and a realistic estimate of the heating bills (although we couldn’t have predicted Katrina). When the time comes I will fire up the boiler, albeit with a grudge in my soul. I’m not expecting donations or anything. Well, you’re free to send me a donation, but if you do I’ll put it towards some new leather boots, not early fall heat.