My House Is Creaking

Our calendar has flipped to February 2025. I don’t think there’s a “textbook” Alberta winter. Our weather predictors do the best they can to bring us up to date weather conditions. I am grateful for any help preparing for the winter; the stormy, the cold and sunny, the cold & blustery, and right now, the much colder!

Colder temperatures cause unusual sounds in the silence of the night. “C-r-e-a-k”, “is that a door opening?” I sit up to hear better. Then, I hear a “pop” followed by a groaning noise somewhere in the rafters! Oh yes, I remember, it’s 40º below outside and my house is complaining.

I get up and go to my computer. I ask “Google” why is my house creaking in the cold? The answer is “wood expands when it’s warm and contracts when it’s cold making the boards and wood move against the nails. The buildup of snow and ice put pressure on the roof which “sounds off” beneath this added weight.” Basically, the materials of my house are shifting.

In my “middle of the night mindset” all this shifting with accompanying sounds are exaggerated and become a cartoon; the house walls are moving like a wave, as its boards contract pulling the walls and the corners inward and the nails hold firm. It resumes it’s shape after stretching and twisting like a surprise Charlie horse. The expression on it’s face changes with each movement. Eyebrows up, eyebrows down, big eyes, painful wincing eyes.

Google also says that “houses are structurally engineered in this country to adapt to hot and cold environmental temperatures.” My house won’t be wiping the sweat off it’s brow for 6 more months.

Since I’m up, I check the doors, yep, not open, still locked. Sigh, “there’s no burglar and my house is not going to fall down”. I know this is true because I grew up in a 1959 Nelson Lumber house that also cracked and moaned in the wintertime and it’s still standing today! Nevertheless, if I think it’s too much cracking and groaning, I can always get my favorite carpenter to come and check it out.

What about that “middle of the night mindset muddle”? Suddenly my train of thought travels to the frozen seat of my truck where I forgot a bag of carrots and chocolate bars earlier today. Some things change from solids to liquids when they freeze. Oh no, we’ll be having carrotsicles unless they thaw and then we’ll just pour them out. But chocolate can be eaten frozen or thawed or runny! It’s delicious in any form! Now that I’m wide awake, I better have some!