Winter is approaching and you must be thinking of how to not only keep your house warm but do so in an affordable way. Homeowners are regularly advised to overhaul their inefficient heating systems, install double glazing, and use thorough insulation, but these are expensive tactics.
You need cheaper and quicker ways to keep your house warm. With summer coming to an end, fall and winter’s cold is just around the corner. Leverage these 7 tips to ensure that you can come home to a warm house.
1. Stop Heat Loss up the Chimney
Make good use of your fireplace during winter. There’s a possibility that you could be wasting a lot of heat energy from your fireplace via the chimney. This can be very costly because so much firewood would go into waste as you struggle to keep your house warm.
To prevent this heat loss, consider using a chimney balloon, which is used to block the opening of a chimney to save energy by stopping chimney drafts. It is made of a durable, reactive laminate and is very affordable.
All you need to do is to place it inside the chimney then inflate it until it fills the chimney opening; this helps in stopping any escaping heat or incoming cold air.
2. Upgrade Your Boiler
If you’re using an old boiler in the house – more than 10 years old – then it is high time you replaced it with a modern model. The new A-rated boilers are very efficient because they use smaller amounts of fuel or gas to produce larger amounts of heat energy.
3. Let the Sunlight in During the Day
Sunlight is a natural source of heat that doesn’t cost anything. You can make good use of it by ensuring that during the day, you capture as much heat from the sun as possible. To do this, open up all your curtains in the morning to let sunlight in.
You only need to open the curtains that can block sunlight from your house and leave those that don’t block any sunlight. Once the sun goes down, close all the curtains to keep the heat from escaping through the doors or windows.
If you are in a region that gets extremely cold during winter, you can consider purchasing insulated curtains to help keep the house warm. You can even put some temporary curtains, rugs, or sheets over the doors and windows to the outside at night while you’re sleeping.
These will offer some insulation and keep your house warm.
4. Mitigate the Stack Effect
Stack effect is a principle in physics which explains the movement of air in and out of buildings. As the air in the house gets warm, it will rise and this will create some negative pressure in the lower levels of the house.
The low pressure will by the laws of nature cause the cold air from outside to move into the house through any available openings. Stack effect is worse in the tall buildings because as more warm air rises, more cold air will be pulled in.
To mitigate this and have a warm house, you need to seal all the gaps that can allow cold air into the house, especially those at the lower levels. Check the bottom of your doors for any gaps and seal them using some rags or door snakes.
You can also check for any gaps in windows. To test for these gaps, hold a lit candle close to the places you suspect and observe how the flame behaves. A flickering flame is an indication that there’s some air leakage.
Do not ignore even small gaps; the cold air that comes in through such gaps throughout the night can cause lots of discomforts.
5. To Get a Warm House, Use the Oven More
Broiling, convecting, and baking things is the best way to keep your house warmer, particularly the rooms closest to the kitchen. It might be true that you don’t use your oven much during the summer because it makes the house hotter, so during winter take advantage of the oven to supply heat into the house.
Don’t be afraid to bake tons of cake and roast chicken when temperatures dip.
6. Move Furniture Away from Vents
Check all your furniture to see if there’s any that you placed in front of heating vents. If so, move the furniture away from the vent, at least for winter. You can return them to their position during the summer.
If some heating vents are blocked, some rooms will not get their maximum heat potential.
7. Install a Programmable Thermostat
Installing a programmable thermostat will ensure that your house is only heated when necessary. Installing one will ensure that your energy consumption is efficient and your monthly bills are low.
Furthermore, a programmable thermostat will save you a lot of time. You’ll not have to manually turn it off every time you are leaving the house and switch it on or adjust it every time you are in the house – the automated thermostat will do the job for you.
A programmable thermostat allows you to set the temperatures exactly the way you want them to be and for a time duration of your choice. You can even program it for a whole week.
If you can get a smart thermostat, even better. This device can detect the ambient temperature and respond accordingly. It can also detect when you leave the house and when you get back in.
A Warm House Is Good for You and Your Family
A warm house is beneficial to the well-being and health of your family. Cold houses are linked to poor health, particularly in young children. Keeping your house warm will not only make it cozy and homey but also beneficial to your health.
It is cheaper to keep the house warm than to spend on medical bills. If you are in need of professionals to install, maintain or repair air conditioning and heating services, be sure to check out our page.