Actually, a few people have figured out that ground water circulation through the slab is the best way to go, as it is a constant 70°. I friend had a system installed in her place and her heating/cooling bill is next to nothing to run the shallow pump that pulls the water in.

The cats like the oil-filled radiator, but it doesn’t do much for me.

Bryan, I haven’t found that the little ceramic heaters are worth a darn. You need to get one of those “chicken house” heaters, the kind that look like a metal box with a grill and fan and with old-fashioned resistive wire behind the grill to heat up the air going through. Not a radiant heater, radiant heaters suck donkey dungs trying to heat up a ton of tile, there’s just too much heat sink there for them to make any headway. This worked for me in a tin can mobile home under the exact same conditions you’re describing (it was no more built for cold weather than your place), so I’m pretty sure it’ll work for you to.
.-= last blog ..Say cheese! =-.

as for waterbeds… back when i had one, it kept the entire bedroom not toasty but not freezing either, and this was in an unheated beach house. the underbed drawers never got warm though, so every night i put some clothes into the bed under the covers with me. this was during a no-cat era, since one of the dogs was, to put it mildly, cat-predatory. and since they were a collie and a collie-like mix, they both preferred sleeping on the floor, even in winter.

and there’s no skim of ice (or thicker) over the top of the bowl, right?

ha! i also lived in one of the old houses in the historical district, back before they all got fixed up, also with no heat, and more than once woke up to find icicles in the bathroom. still, this has been an extraordinary run of cold for us.

Great idea, Scorpio, although I’ll have to wait on it because I avoid styrofoam in any form whenever possible because of the environmental damage it can cause. The “peanuts” are especially bad if they get into the bayou system as they can kill the large birds, like pelicans, who are too stupid to avoid eating them.

Thanks, Moi, I knew they existed because I had one when I was in Rochester. If you had a couple of valves in the system so you could switch between hot and cold, it is worth considering.

These things, however, work great — http://www.amazon.com/DryGuy-Circulator-Footwear-Dryer-Warmer/dp/B0000TSILY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1263437325&sr=8-2

I have a ceramic heater working its little glass heart out in there [most older bathrooms in Florida only have showers and are quite small] with no noticeable effect.

During the plumbing problem the guys did a work-around that involved a garden hose attached to the drain on the water heater, which charged the entire system with hot water, and is why I was thinking about the tank as a heat source. Their bathroom was quite toasty during the period, without the additional heater.

When I camp I deal with a hole in ground. You visit more civilized areas than I do.

As for comment previewing, I use the Filosofo Comments Preview plug-in which has worked well since WP 2.0. I’m running 2.9.

Rook, the Air Force required me to go 50 miles in snowshoes through two feet of fresh snow in the Cascade Mountains of Washington at regular survival school, and then camp out at -45° in Arctic survival school at Fairbanks.

In addition I enjoyed the blizzards of the Plains while stationed at Offutt AFB outside Omaha, Nebraska.

My extended family is based in upstate New York, and I lived in Rochester, NY for a decade.

I’m familiar with the cold, and snow, but I now lived in Florida, which is not designed for either. We have had below freezing temperatures every night since January 2^nd, as opposed to the normal three days at a time, three times during a winter. The upper fangs on the feral cats are beginning to protrude and the dolphins are starting to grow pelts. This is not nice, or normal.

You expect this kind of weather. You have clothes for this kind of weather. You can probably buy things made of wool locally. We don’t have those kinds of things here.

We don’t have plows, or salt/sand trucks to deal with ice on the roads, we just have the police to take the reports when Bubba decides that 4WD will allow him to drive on them.

We don’t even have storm doors, just screens.

The few Canadians that still come down are complaining about the cold, because they didn’t bring winter clothes with them, and we don’t have decent central heating in our buildings.

What you want, I would guess, would be the arrangement I have.
I sleep on a waterbed, with my sox & unmentionables in an underdrawer beneath the lovely warm mattress.

You might try a heated towel rack (skymall used to sell ’em for a variety of prices), or it
might be cheaper to get a bigger bathmat…

The aquarium heater / warm water might not be great for the ceramic tank if the rest of
the room is cold. Do try one of those little fan-forced ceramic heaters in your bathroom, though, if you safely can.

Finally, think positive: it’s not a campground, and there’s no skim of ice (or thicker) over the top of the bowl, right?

A friend sent me here to ask you about putting a preview-comments feature on a wordpress blog, but I thought I’d offer my solutions to the cold first, by way of trade …