How to Stay Warm in Your Home This Winter
Everyone is trying to figure out inventive ways to stay warm their
Dress Warmly
It’s natural to want to rely completely on your furnace or fireplace to supply you with all of the heat you’ll need to stay warm this winter. Unfortunately, keeping your furnace set at a high temperature every day all winter long will cause your energy bills to become outrageous. You can stay warm in your home this winter, and save money at the same time, if you dress more warmly. Embrace that ugly Christmas sweater and matching pair of fuzzy socks you have. Wear comfortable sweatpants or insulated pajama pants while you hang around your house. And never underestimate the warming power of a heavy hoodie to lounging and napping.
Keep Your Curtains Open
Sunlight is an incredibly effective way to heat your home during the daylight hours. The best thing about sunlight is that it’s completely free to access and utilize. Keep your curtains open during the day while the sun is facing your home. This will allow the heat of the sun to enter your home, heat other surfaces in your home, and cause them to radiate extra heat throughout the day. Allowing this abundant amount of sunlight into your home on a daily basis will also provide you with a brighter home that feels more open and inviting.
Weatherize Your Doors
The doors in your home that lead to the outside are one of your main barriers of protection against the frigid winter winds. If there is even the smallest gap around your doors, the winter winds will find it and enter your home as cold drafts. Cold drafts can rob your home of precious heat, causing your furnace to work overtime. This will increase your monthly energy bill and make your home colder than is comfortable. To prevent cold drafts from entering your home, do a thorough inspection of each door that leads to the outside and implement any necessary weatherization measures. Apply adhesive weather stripping along the edges of your outside doors. Additionally, a door sweep should be installed on the bottom of your door to add an extra barrier of insulation against cold drafts to help you stay warm in your home this winter.
Insulate Your Windows
Gaps and cold drafts don’t just come from your doors. They also form around your windows. Gaps in the sealant around your window panes can allow cold drafts to blow into your home from the outside, dramatically lowering your home’s internal temperature. Gaps in the window pane sealant aren’t your only concern, however. Your window frame can become warped or worn over time, causing it to not seal correctly when you shut and lock your windows. These deformities in your window frame can also cause gaps and cold drafts. You have multiple options to remedy this situation. While window replacement is time-consuming and expensive, insulating your windows is an affordable remedy that can be done in one day. Insulating your windows requires you to purchase plastic window film that can be installed over your windows to create a barrier between the cold drafts and the warm interior of your home.
Bake More Often
Your oven can do more for you than just cook pizzas and bake cookies. The residual heat from your oven can be used to help heat your home. While your food is baking in the oven, heat will radiate from it. This heat usually remains in your kitchen and won’t travel much further. However, if you leave your oven door open after your food finishes baking, an immense amount of heat will pour into your home for several minutes. This will happen even after you’ve turned off your oven, so you’re essentially cooking a meal and heating your home with a single use of your oven. The cost of cooking one meal in your oven will also help to heat your home, so be sure to bake more often this winter to stay warm.
