This weekend, Warm Home Cool Planet received a message from Lands’ End specifically targeting everyone shivering their way through winter here in Massachusetts.

You know it’s cold when folks from Wisconsin are sending you winter sympathy messages via email. Beyond how cold it might be outside, the recent patch of artic weather here in Cambridge has resulted in lots of time spent inside for most residents. For Warm Home Cool Planet, that also means plenty of time to ponder why the ground floor of the house is always colder than the floors above.

A quick search around the Internet revealed a wealth of information on how most houses–particularly those built before the 1970s–don’t have properly insulated crawlspaces.

So if your bottom floor feels like a skating rink, find out why crawl space vapor is reducing your comfort–and increasing your heating bills. We also recommend looking at your all your options for properly sealing and insulating your crawlspace. Depending on the situation under your house, you need to check your polyethylene sheet has the right thickness, and you have the right kind of membrane to deal with moisture build up under your flooring.