A book by Gene Halvorsen · North Pole, Alaska

Forty Winters of Alaska Cold, Written Down

Twenty-five ways to keep a normal house warm for less, from a man who's been inside a thousand of them.

Cover of A Thousand Cold Houses
“I drove heating oil around North Pole for thirty-seven winters. Same houses, same cold, wildly different bills. I wrote down what I saw work, cheapest first.”— Gene
Get the book — $37 $59

Launch price until October 13, 2026. 30 days, no questions, you keep the book.

The Heating Bill Keeps Climbing

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's most recent Winter Fuels Outlook figures the average home heating with electricity at about $1,133 last winter (November 2025 through March 2026), which is their best guess for the whole country, not a read on your particular house. EIA Winter Fuels Outlook, October 15, 2025.

You open the bill and it's higher again. Most people try one of three things: crank the thermostat, buy a bigger heater, or call somebody about the furnace. All three cost money and none of them touch the actual problem.

On my route I'd see it every January. Two houses, same age, same furnace, one burning twice the oil. It was never the furnace. It was a door sweep worn flat or a hatch left open. Most cold houses aren't cold. They're windy.

What's Actually In the Book

This is A Thousand Cold Houses. Twenty-five methods, one per chapter, ordered cheapest first. The first five chapters cost nothing. After that, most fixes run under twenty-five dollars. A few cost more — an annual furnace service is the one I tell people to spend on, once a year, before the cold really sets in. Anything that burns fuel needs air and an alarm, and that's true whether you read it here or on the safety page up front.

Every chapter has a price, a time, and a house where I watched it work. There's a printable checklist in the back — sixty lines you can tear out and tape to the furnace door. It's the whole book boiled down to one page.

See all 25 chapters

What You Get for $37

Four things, one payment, all downloadable today.

  • A Thousand Cold Houses (PDF, 126 pages)The book itself — 126 pages, 25 methods, 122 Short List tricks, ordered cheapest first.
    $59
  • The checklist (printable)A tear-out checklist, two pages, the whole book boiled down to sixty lines for the furnace door.
    $7
  • Gene's Fifty-Dollar Kit (printable)Gene's Fifty-Dollar Kit, two pages of exactly what to buy and where it goes.
    $9
  • Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Pay a Furnace Guy (printable)Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Pay a Furnace Guy, two pages to bring to that conversation.
    $11
Everything above on its own$86
Today, all of it$37

Launch price. It goes to $59 after October 13, 2026.

It's one payment of $37, not a subscription, and it's yours to keep.

Get the book — $37 $59

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Checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch this site.

One Sweep Against a Winter's Worth of Heat

One fix from the book$15A door sweep, chapter 8
Average winter heating bill, electric heat$1,133EIA Winter Fuels Outlook, winter 2025–26

Chapter 8 is a door sweep. It costs about fifteen dollars and takes maybe twenty minutes with a screwdriver. That's the whole chapter — no bigger equipment, no contractor, just the gap at the bottom of your door where the cold's been walking out all winter.

I mentioned the national forecast already — the government's guess at what an average house spends staying warm last winter (November 2025 through March 2026). It's a big number, and it's nobody's real house. I can't tell you what your bill will look like next month. I can tell you what a worn door sweep costs to fix.

Fifteen dollars gets you that door sweep. Thirty-seven dollars gets you that fix and twenty-four more like it, ordered cheapest first, plus the checklist and the two other sheets in the back. I'm not going to tell you what any of it will save you. I don't know your house. I know what the fixes cost, and I know the book costs $37.

Twenty-Five Chapters, Eight Parts

Here's the order I'd walk through your house, room by room, cheapest fix first.

Part 1 · Find the leaks

  1. The Flashlight Walk
  2. Read the Bill Like an Oil Man

Part 2 · Seal it, cheapest first

  1. Four Dollars of Tape and a Roll of Rope Caulk
  2. The Twelve-Dollar Window
  3. Sweeps, Snakes, and a Rolled Towel
  4. Gaskets Behind the Plates
  5. Weatherstrip the Hatches
  6. Seal Around, Never Over

Part 3 · Warm the body, not the box

  1. The Sixty-Two Degree Bedroom
  2. Wool Under the Sheet
  3. The Hot Water Bottle and the Heating Pad
  4. Slippers With a Sole and a Base Layer

Part 4 · Dials, fans, and damp

  1. Leave the Thermostat Alone
  2. Twenty Minutes, Then Off
  3. The Ten-Dollar Hygrometer

Part 5 · Windows, floors, and the air under them

  1. Curtains to the Sill, Closed at Dark
  2. The Rug and the Reason the Floor Is Cold
  3. Skirting, Tight, Before October

Part 6 · Water and pipes

  1. Cabinet Doors Open, Faucet Trickling
  2. One-Twenty on the Dial

Part 7 · Heating one room

  1. One Heater, One Room, Straight Into the Wall
  2. Live in Two Rooms Without Freezing the Other Seven

Part 8 · The furnace, and what to spend on

  1. The Filter on the First of the Month
  2. The One Spend Gene Defends: Annual Service
  3. The Contractor Question

Plus the tear-out checklist and the two printable sheets at the back.

Who I Am

I drove heating oil around North Pole and out the Chena Hot Springs Road for thirty-seven winters, 1982 to 2019. Same driveways every week. After a while I could guess a house's gallons before I put the hose in the tank, and the guess was never really about the furnace. It was about the house.

Alongside the route I looked after four or five houses for people who wintered Outside. That's where I got inside houses instead of just standing at the fill pipe. Dry cabins, log places with beautiful bones and terrible windows, an apartment block where people slept with the window cracked in February.

I've been inside a thousand cold houses. I quit counting somewhere around the year 2000. I wrote this down because I got tired of explaining it at the post office, one house at a time. It's all here now, cheapest first.

What You Get for $37

  • A Thousand Cold Houses (PDF, 126 pages)The book itself — 126 pages, 25 methods, 122 Short List tricks, ordered cheapest first.
    $59
  • The checklist (printable)A tear-out checklist, two pages, the whole book boiled down to sixty lines for the furnace door.
    $7
  • Gene's Fifty-Dollar Kit (printable)Gene's Fifty-Dollar Kit, two pages of exactly what to buy and where it goes.
    $9
  • Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Pay a Furnace Guy (printable)Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Pay a Furnace Guy, two pages to bring to that conversation.
    $11
Everything above on its own$86
Today, all of it$37

Launch price. It goes to $59 after October 13, 2026.

It's one payment of $37, not a subscription, and it's yours to keep.

Get the book — $37 $59

VisaMastercardAmerican ExpressDiscoverApple PayGoogle Pay

Checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch this site.

Questions people ask

Isn't all of this free on YouTube?

Some of it is. I've got a channel, and I put a lot of this out there for free, and I'd rather you use it than not. But a video's got maybe ten minutes in it, and this book has forty-four thousand words — every method, the price, the time it takes, a house where I watched it work, and the checklist you can tape to the furnace door. It's the stuff that never fit in a video. If you'd rather wait and catch it piece by piece on the channel, that's fine too.

What format is it? Do I need an app?

It's a PDF. It opens on your phone, your tablet, or your computer — nothing special, no app, no account to make. You can read it on the screen or print it out; a lot of people print the checklist and the sheets and leave the book on the tablet. Either way, it's yours once you download it.

What if it doesn't help me?

Then it wasn't the right fit, and that's fine. 30 days, no questions, you keep the book. Email orders@genehalvorsen.com and I'll handle it — no explanation needed, no argument. I'd rather you try the book and get your money back than never find out.

I rent. Is any of this for me?

Most of it, yes. A lot of the twenty-five methods are things you do to your own stuff — the bed, the curtains, rope caulk in a window sash, a rug on the floor — and they all peel off in April. A few touch the landlord's equipment, like the furnace filter or the water heater dial, and for those I tell you to ask in writing first. There's a line in every chapter marked for renters.

Is any of this dangerous?

Anything that burns fuel needs air and an alarm — that's the one rule in this book that isn't negotiable, and it's on its own page up front. Nothing in here tells you to cover, wrap, or modify a heater. Nothing tells you to block a vent, a flue, or a fan. Nothing breaks a code or a label. If a method touches the furnace or the water heater, I say so plainly and tell you where the line is. Past that line, it's a professional's job, not mine.

What comes after the book?

The channel. I keep putting out what I see in houses, free, same as always. Over time I'll write down more of it — there's no upsell waiting for you after this, no second book pitched in the last chapter. You bought the book, you've got the book, and I've got a furnace to go check on.

The Launch Price Ends October 13

The book is $37 through October 13, 2026. After that it goes to its list price of $59. Buy it whenever makes sense for you — the fixes work the same either way.

Get the book — $37 $59